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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| WH2010 Newbie United Kingdom Joined 5173 days ago 13 posts - 52 votes  Speaks: English* | Message 9 of 13 27 September 2010 at 4:47am | IP Logged | |||||
If you want a dialect that "sounds like Egyptian" then the FSI course on "Saudi Arabic" was made for your purpose. Although it says it teaches "Saudi" Arabic, it actually teaches a very specialized dialect spoken only in big cities in western Saudi Arabia (namely, Mecca, Jeddah and Medina). It is very similar to Egyptian and, in my opinion, mutually intelligible with it (with some minor adjustments). 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| William Camden Hexaglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6273 days ago 1936 posts - 2333 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, Russian, Turkish, French | Message 10 of 13 27 September 2010 at 12:48pm | IP Logged | |||||
It is probably another candidate for most "conversationally useful Arabic dialect" (discussed on another thread). It is said to be the most widely understood Saudi Arabic dialect, and is influenced by Egyptian Arabic among others. It is probably widely understood by non-Saudi Arabs. I also detected some resemblances to Iraqi Arabic. 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| WH2010 Newbie United Kingdom Joined 5173 days ago 13 posts - 52 votes Speaks: English* | Message 11 of 13 27 September 2010 at 7:39pm | IP Logged | |||||
I also consider this dialect (known as "Urban Hejazi") to be a good candidate for "most easily understood" (or perhaps, "easiest to learn to understand"?) dialect in the Arabic world (the eastern Arabic world, at any rate). The reasons for this in my opinion are as follows: 1 - It incorporates many of the salient morphological features of the Egyptian/Syrian group, and especially the Egyptian (such as the "b-" prefix to present tense verbs, the "ha-" and "ra7-" prefixes for future tense, etc.). In spite of this, though, the dialect it sounds most similar to is that of Khartoum, so that also adds the entire Sudan into your field of intelligibility, so to speak. 2 - It is highly averse to consonantal clusters (second only to Egyptian in this respect, and by a small margin). It preserves more internal short vowels than almost any other dialect, which helps enormously for those who are used to MSA. 3 - The fact that it is a dialect of the Arabian Peninsula means it is familiar and understandable to other Saudis and to people in the Gulf region (and it indeed includes some Arabian features as well). 4 - Unlike Egyptian, it has a relatively slow and monotonous prosody, which, when coupled with point "2", adds to intelligibility significantly. 5 - Due to its "mixed" origins, its original lexicon already shares many words with Egyptian and Syrian dialects, in addition to words shared with the neighboring bedouin Arabian dialects. In recent years, many "localisms" and obscure words have been shed and replaced by more "pan-Arabic" words, thus increasing intelligibility further. 6 - While I wouldn't describe it as phonologically conservative, most of its "innovations" concern the inter-dentals and are thus shared with urban dialects across the Arabic world. Its realization of "qaf" as [g] is also present in almost all Arabic countries and is therefore already familiar to most Arabs, even those who do not use this feature themselves. There is no "substitution" of "k" and "g" as occurs in the rest of Arabia and Iraq (i.e. k > ch or ts and g > dj or dz) or in Lower Egypt (i.e. dj > g). So, all in all, I think this dialect would present the least challenge for speakers of other Arabic dialects to understand. In fact, I think anyone who can understand Egyptian will have no trouble understanding Urban Hejazi.
Well Iraqi is related to Gulf and Najdi Arabic. I have never noticed any similarity to Urban Hejazi myself, but would be interested to hear your thoughts! 6 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| William Camden Hexaglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6273 days ago 1936 posts - 2333 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, Russian, Turkish, French | Message 12 of 13 28 September 2010 at 11:48am | IP Logged | |||||
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I engaged in some study of Iraqi Arabic, then completed the FSI on Hejazi Arabic and recognised Iraq terms like shloonak were also used in Hejazi. In general I felt that the two dialects were not so dissimilar, although there were differences.
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| WH2010 Newbie United Kingdom Joined 5173 days ago 13 posts - 52 votes Speaks: English* | Message 13 of 13 28 September 2010 at 8:23pm | IP Logged | |||||
shloon is not used in Urban Hejazi (though it is used in Najd, the Gulf and rural Hejaz). I think the FSI course used the word either by mistake or to familiarize students with a word that is commonly-used in other Saudi dialects. 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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