North Mesopotamian Arabic

North Mesopotamian Arabic, also known as Moslawi (meaning 'of Mosul'), Mardelli (meaning 'of Mardin'), Mesopotamian Qeltu Arabic, or Syro-Mesopotamian Arabic, is one of the two main varieties of Mesopotamian Arabic, together with Gilit Mesopotamian Arabic.^[1]

North Mesopotamian Arabic
Moslawi Arabic Mardelli Arabic Qeltu Mesopotamian Arabic Syro-Mesopotamian Arabic
لهجة موصلية
Native to	Iraq, Syria, Turkey[1]
Speakers	10 million (2019–2023)[1]
Language family	Afro-Asiatic Semitic West Semitic Central Semitic Arabic Mesopotamian North Mesopotamian Arabic
Dialects	Anatolian Arabic Judeo-Iraqi Arabic Cypriot Arabic
Writing system	Arabic alphabet
Language codes
ISO 639-3	ayp
Glottolog	nort3142
ELP	North Mesopotamian Arabic
[image reference needed]

Relationship to Gilit Mesopotamian

Gelet/qeltu verb contrasts^[9]

s-stem	Bedouin/gelet	Sedentary/qeltu
1st sg.	ḏạrab-t	fataḥ-tu
2nd m. sg.	ḏạrab-t	fataḥ-t
2nd f. sg.	tišṛab-īn	tǝšrab-īn
2nd pl.	tišṛab-ūn	tǝšrab-ūn
3rd pl.	yišṛab-ūn	yǝšrab-ūn

This section is an excerpt from Mesopotamian Arabic § Varieties.[edit]

Mesopotamian Arabic has two major varieties: Gelet Mesopotamian Arabic and Qeltu Mesopotamian Arabic. Their names derive from the form of the word for "I said" in each variety.^[2] Gelet Arabic is a Bedouin variety spoken by Muslims (both sedentary and non-sedentary) in central and southern Iraq and by nomads in the rest of Iraq. Qeltu Arabic is an urban dialect spoken by Non-Muslims of central and southern Iraq (including Baghdad) and by the sedentary population (both Muslims and Non-Muslims) of the rest of the country.^[3] Non-Muslims include Christians, Yazidis, and Jews, until most Iraqi Jews were exiled from Iraq in the 1940s–1950s.^[4][5] Geographically, the gelet–qeltu classification roughly corresponds to respectively Upper Mesopotamia and Lower Mesopotamia.^[6] The isogloss is between the rivers Tigris and Euphrates, around Fallujah and Samarra.^[6]

During the Siege of Baghdad (1258), the Mongols killed all Muslims.^[7] However, sedentary Christians and Jews were spared and northern Iraq was untouched.^[7] In southern Iraq, sedentary Muslims were gradually replaced by Bedouins from the countryside.^[7] This explains the current dialect distribution: in the south, everyone speaks Bedouin varieties close to Gulf Arabic (continuation of the Bedouin dialects of the Arabian Peninsula),^[7][8] except urban Non-Muslims who continue to speak pre-1258 qeltu dialects while in the north the original qeltu dialect is still spoken by all, Muslims and Non-Muslims alike.^[7]

Dialects

This section is an excerpt from Mesopotamian Arabic § Dialects.[edit]

Qeltu dialects include:^[6]

• Qeltu
  • Anatolian Qeltu
    • Mardin dialects: Mardin and surrounding villages, Mhallami, Qamishli, Nusaybin (Christians), Cizre (Jews)
    • Siirt dialects
    • Diyarbakır dialects: Diyarbakır (Christians and Jews), Diyarbakır villages (Christians), Siverek, Çermik and Urfa (Jews)
    • Kozluk–Sason–Muş dialects
  • Tigris Qeltu
    • Moslawi: Mosul and surrounding villages (Bahzani, Bashiqa, Ain Sifni)
    • Moslawi group (Jews only)
      • Northern Moslawi: Sandur, Akre, Erbil, Šoš
      • Southern Moslawi: Kirkuk, Tuz Khurmatu, Khanaqin
    • Tikrit and surroundings
    • Baghdad and southern Iraq (Jews and Christians only)
  • Euphrates Qeltu
    • Khawetna (Syria, Iraq, Turkey)
    • Deir ez-Zor
    • Anah and Abu Kamal
    • Hit, Iraq

Baghdadi Arabic is Iraq's de facto national vernacular, as about half of the population speaks it as a mother tongue, and most other Iraqis understand it. It is spreading to northern cities as well.^[10] Other Arabic speakers cannot easily understand Moslawi and Baghdadi.^[10]

The peripheral Anatolian Arabic varieties in Siirt, Muş and Batman are quite divergent.^{[citation needed]}

Cypriot Arabic shares a number of common features with North Mesopotamian Arabic, and one of its pre-Cypriot medieval antecedents has been deduced as belonging to this dialect area.^[11][12] However, its current form is a hybrid of different varieties and languages, including Levantine Arabic and Greek.^[11]

Aramaic substrate

This paragraph is an excerpt from Mesopotamian Arabic § Substrate.[edit]

Mesopotamian Arabic, especially Qeltu, has a significant Eastern Aramaic substrate,^[13] and through it also has significant influences from ancient Mesopotamian languages of Sumerian and Akkadian. Eastern Aramaic dialects flourished and became the lingua franca throughout Mesopotamia during the Achaemenid and Hellenistic period, where different dialects such as Syriac, Mandaic and Hatran Aramaic came to being.^[14][15] Mesopotamian Arabic also retains influences from Persian, Turkish, and Greek.^[16]