Northwest Arabian Arabic

Not to be confused with the Beja language, also called Bedawi.

Northwest Arabian Arabic (also called Levantine Bedawi Arabic or Eastern Egyptian Bedawi Arabic) is a proposed^[2] subfamily of Arabic encompassing the traditional Bedouin dialects of the Sinai Peninsula, the Naqab, Gaza, southern Jordan, and the northwestern corner of Saudi Arabia.^[2]

Northwest Arabian Arabic
Levantine Bedawi Arabic Eastern Egyptian Bedawi Arabic
Native to	Egypt, Jordan, Israel, Palestine, Syria, Saudi Arabia
Native speakers	3.0 million (2021–2023)[1]
Language family	Afro-Asiatic Semitic West Semitic Central Semitic Arabic Northwest Arabian Arabic
Writing system	Arabic alphabet
Language codes
ISO 639-3	avl
Glottolog	east2690

The dialect of the Maʿāzah in the Egyptian Eastern Desert borders the dialect of the ʿAbābdah, who speak a dialect more closely related to Sudanese Arabic.^[3] Research is needed to establish whether the Maʿāzah dialect is the southwestern extremity of Northwest Arabian on the Egyptian mainland.^[3]

In Saudi Arabia, the dialects of the eastern coast of the Gulf of Aqaba, the Hisma, and the Harrat al-Riha belong to the Northwest Arabian type, but the dialect of the Bili to the south is not closely related.^[4]

Classification

The Northwest Arabian Arabic dialects display several innovations from Proto-Arabic:^[2]

1. The voiced reflex of *q ([g])
2. The gaháwah syndrome: insertion of /a/ after X in (C)aXC(V) sequences where X is /h/, /ʿ/, /ḥ/, /ġ/, or /ḫ/, e.g. gahwa(h) > gaháwa(h) "coffee", baġl > baġal "mule".
3. The definite article al- and the relative pronoun alli are stressable as an integral part of the word, e.g. álwalad, áljabal. The initial /a/ is stable enough to be preserved after -ī (-iy), which is dropped: f-albēt, rāʿ-álġanam.
4. A number of typical Bedouin lexical items (gōṭar "to go", sōlaf "to tell, narrate", ṭabb "to arrive", nišad ~ nišád "to ask").
5. Absence of tanwīn and its residues.
6. Absence of final /n/ in the imperfect, 2nd person feminine singular, 2nd person masculine plural, and 3rd person masculine plural.
7. The pronominal suffix of the 2nd person masculine plural is -ku (-kuw).
8. Stressed variants -ī and -nī of the pronominal suffix in the 1st person singular.
9. Plural comm. forms haḏalla, haḏallāk, etc.
10. Initial /a/ in Forms VII, VIII, and X in the perfect, and stressed when in stressable position.
11. Initial /a/ in a number of irregular nouns (amm, aḫt, aḫwan, adēn, afám).

Varieties

Northwest Arabian Arabic can be divided into a western branch spoken in Sinai and the Naqab, and an eastern branch spoken to the east of the Wadi Araba.^[2] Several dialects of the eastern branch, such as that of the Zalabiah and Zawaidih of Wadi Ramm,^[5] and that of the Bdul,^[6] have been argued to be closely related to the western branch.

Differences between western and eastern branches:^[2]

	Western branch	Eastern branch
b- imperfect	in regular use	does not occur in plain colloquial
analytic genitive	šuġl, šuġlah, šuġlīn, šuġlāt as genitive markers
Form I imperfect performative	vowel harmony	generalized /a/
reflexes of *aw and *ay	partially monophthongized; monophthongs fluctuate with long phonemes /ō/ ~ /ū/, /ē/ ~/ī/.	well-established monophthongs /ō/ and /ē/
gahawa syndrome	gaháwa only	ghawa ~ gaháwa
I-w imperfect	yawṣal ~ yōṣal	yāṣal
3FSG object suffix	-ha/-hiy in Naqab	-ha
3MSG object suffix	phonetically conditioned C-ih/-ah, C-u(h) in southern Sinai	C-ah
1CPL subject pronoun	iḥna, aḥna	ḥinna, iḥna
reflex of -ā(ʾ) in neutral environments	-iy	-a

Phonology

Consonants

		Labial	Interdental		Dental/Alveolar		Palatal	Velar		Uvular	Pharyngeal	Glottal
			plain	emph.	plain	emph.		plain	emph.
Nasal		m			n
Plosive	voiceless				t	tˤ		k	kˤ	(q)		(ʔ)
	voiced	b			d			ɡ
Affricate							d͡ʒ
Fricative	voiceless	f	θ		s	sˤ	ʃ	x			ħ	h
	voiced		ð	ðˤ	z	(zˤ)	(ʒ)	ɣ			ʕ
Trill					r	(rˤ)
Approximant					l	lˤ	j	w

• Phonemes in parentheses occur either marginally or across different dialects
• [ʒ] can be heard as an allophone of /d͡ʒ/.
• /rˤ/ is mostly heard in the Hindiy and Ṭuwara dialects

Vowels

Vowels occur in both long and short positions:^[7]

	Front	Back
Close	i iː	u uː
Mid	eː	oː
Open	a aː

Vowels are recognized as allophones in the following positions:^[8]

Phoneme/Sound	Allophone	Notes
i [i]	[ɪ]	in lax position
u [u]	[ʊ]	in lax position
	[o]	when preceding emphatic sounds
a [a]	[ɐ]	in lax position
	[ɑ]	when preceding or following emphatics
eː [eː]	[ɛː]	when following emphatic or back fricatives
oː [oː]	[ɔː]	when preceding velar consonants
aː [aː]	[ɑː]	in velarized environments
	[ɐː]	when following pharyngeal consonants
	[ɛː ~ æː]	in neutral position in the Tarabin dialect

Imala

Word-internal imala of */-ā-/

Some varieties of Naqab Arabic are characterized by word-internal imala of *-ā- to /ē/ in patterns where /i/ historically occurred in an adjacent syllable. It does not occur when one of the adjacent consonants is emphatic or a back consonant. Some of the patterns where it is found include the following:^[9]

• Reflexes of *CāCiC: šēyib “elder, old man”, ḥēmiy “hot”, gēyil “having said”, bēkir “morning”, wēḥid “one”, ṯēniy “second”
• Reflexes of *CiCāC(ah): srēǧ “oil lamp”, ktēbih “writing”
• Reflexes of *miCCāC(ah): miftēḥ “key”, miknēsih “broom”
• Broken plurals *CaCāCiC: gibēyil “tribes”, šinētiy “bags”
• Imperfect *yuCāCiC: ysēwiy “it equals”, yǧēwib “he replies”

Similar raising is found in the Bdul dialect of Jordan: minǣsif “mansaf (pl.)”, hǣḏi “this (f.)”, ḏ̣aygǣt “narrow (pl.)”, iblǣdna “our land”.^[6]

Word-final imala of */-ā(ʾ)/

Some of the western dialects of Northwest Arabian Arabic (Central Sinai and Naqab in particular) are characterized by an Imala of Old Arabic word-final *-ā(ʾ) to /iy/ in certain patterns of nouns and adjectives. Emphatics seem to block the shift. The following examples are from Naqab Arabic:^[10]

• Reflexes of *CiCāʾ, *CuCāʾ: štiy “rainy season”, ḥḏiy “footwear”, dʿiy “cursing”, ndiy “call”, zniy “adultery”, ġniy “song”, ʿšiy “evening prayer”, dliy “pails (pl.)”, mliy “full (pl.)”, rwiy “well-watered (pl.)”, miy “water”
• Reflexes of *CiCā, *CuCā: lḥiy “beards”, griy “hospitality”, hdiy “right guidance”, hniy “here”
• Reflexes of *CiCCā(ʾ), *CuCCā(ʾ): yimniy “right side”, yisriy “left side”, sifliy “nether millstone”, ʿilyiy “upper millstone”, miʿziy “goats”, ḥimmiy “fever”, ḥinniy “henna”, juwwiy “inside”, ḥiffiy “barefoot (pl.)”, mūsiy “Moses”, ʿīsiy “Jesus”
• Feminine adjective *CaCCāʾ: sawdíy “black”, ṭaršíy “deaf”, tarjíy “sloping downwards (ground)”, šahabíy “grey, light blue”, ḥawwíy “salt-and-pepper, black with white spots (animal)”, zargíy “blue”, ʿawjíy “crooked”, šadfíy “left-handed, left”, ḥawlíy “cross-eyed”, safʿíy “black-eared (goat)”
• Broken plural *CaCCā:^[9] nōmiy “asleep (pl.)”, mōtiy ~ máwtiy “dead (pl.)”

In the dialects of southern Sinai, word-final imala typically results in /iʾ/. Some examples are íštiʾ “winter”, ǧiʾ “he came”, ḏiʾ “this, these”, tižibhiʾ “you get it”, ifṭarniʾ “we had breakfast”. In some, but not all groups, /a/ in a previous syllable blocks this imala. Like the dialects of central Sinai and Naqab, the imala of feminine adjectives of color and defect on the pattern CaCCāʾ results in stressed /íy/: sōdíy “black; bad”.^[3]

Characteristics

The following are some archaic features retained from Proto-Arabic:^[2]

1. Gender distinction in the 2nd and 3rd person plural pronouns, pronominal suffixes, and finite verbal forms.
2. Productivity of Form IV (aC₁C₂aC₃, yiC₁C₂iC₃).
3. The initial /a/ in the definite article al- and the relative pronoun alli.
4. Frequent and productive use of diminutives (glayyil "a little", ḫbayz "bread").
5. Absence of affricated variants of /g/ (< */q/) and /k/.
6. The use of the locative preposition fi (fiy).
7. The invariable pronominal suffix -ki of the 2nd person feminine singular.

See also

• Varieties of Arabic
• Peninsular Arabic