Talk:Yemeni Arabic
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It is considered to be the closest to Standard Classical Arabic (the Arabic of the Qur'an).
Removed from article as looks like Yemeni pride - and there is no mention of this fact in any of our articles on arabic. Secretlondon 17:51, 18 Jun 2004 (UTC)
- I'm not sure how much stock to put on it, but my copy of Lonely Planet's guide to the Middle East (2003 edition thereof) makes the following statement (p 753, under "Courses" in the Yemen section), "San'a is an ideal place to learn Arabic; costs are low and the language spoken by Yemenis is close to classical Arabic". Not necessarily "the closest" as the original author of this article had it, but I'll add something to this effect (and try to keep it a bit more POV).
BigHaz 11:51, 25 Sep 2004 (UTC)
This is a fascinating article, but it needs references to sources of information.
The Hadhrami section seems really out of place, being verbatim out of a textbook. It has useful information in it but it needs to be edited to fit the format better. It also uses non-standard grammatical terminology e.g. it refers to verbs being "umlauted" to produce a new measure.
Well, as for the table of letters, the IPA section includes Chinese Characters. An encoding problem probably Ulashima 13:49, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
-- I've edited out some silly stuff from the hadhrami section, it reads a little easier now. 71.229.63.50 19:33, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Other dialects
- The Wailah tribes of the North and Harath. Thier dialect stands out as diff closely related to the Ismaili tirbes of Southern Najran in modern Saudi Arabia.
- The Bedouins from East of Khawlan extending through the Saudi borders back to Northern Hadharamout in Yemen. These people still speak a different dialect than Sana'ani or Hadrami.
- Western Semitic similarities in the Lower Rayma', Udayin/Al-Misrakh _AlMasharika_ (the Eatserners) all the way to the villages north of Mawza'a Southwest region in Yemen. The Arabic in that region doesnt pronounce "AL" replacing it with ('a) and a weak (R). This pronounciation is disappears in the villages that were Sabean, Himyarite important towns(?)
- Also the Jews of Yemen clearly pronounced the (Al) and (R) letters, so this can be attributed to Hebrew or any Western variant the Jews might have spoken? (besides Yemeni Jews majority were local converts).
- The Zaraika and Zaranik are tribes known for their distinguished dialect from Both Tihami, Zabidi or Taizi. They are known for being isolated and opposed to any central governemnt influence in their regions. (later used as guards of former south and North Yemen)
- The Soqatra Arabic is not what you call Hadrami, Adeni or any dialect mentioned in the article.
- The Akhdam class in Yemen (are Yemenis although they are of Aksumite origin) and they speak their own dialects.
- The "Khuban" dialect all the way to "ALAwd" use "La" before verbs for Present Continuous.
- The Rada'a region up and most Eastern Bedouins use "Dhe" instead of "Al"...
Example: Min Dhi gallak? Who told you. i Classical Arabic: Min Aldhi Gallak/Qallak?
- I am not really sure if Yemeni is the closest to Quarni Arabic? (especially Meccan siwar of the holy Quran), But thats up to modern Yemenis to decide--Skatewalk 21:30, 15 August 2007 (UTC)
Hey Skatewalk, that's quite a list of regional dialects withing Yemen. When I started this article I was really just trying to get some of the basics down, but it would be great if you could add all of the dialects that you just mentioned. The truth is that there is probably a different dialect in every village of yemen if you consider them closely enough. I'm not sure that I agree with you on the Akhdam, however. They definitely speak differently than other Yemenis, but I don't think that there is one consistent "Akhdam" dialect throughout Yemen. When I lived there my (Yemeni) friends claimed that the Akhdam dialect was derived from Tihami dialects, although that's not necessarily true... It seems like every dialect probably has some sub-dialect spoken by the Akhdam. See if you can't add a few subheadings to the article, if you have the time. Solumanculver 19:53, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Adeni Arabic
"Adeni Arabic substitutes dental fricatives for dental plosives, [θ] becomes [t], [ð] becomes [d] and the two (classical) emphatic interdental fricative [ð̣] and the emphatic dental plosive [ḍ] are both merged into one sound, namely [ḍ]."
I think that Adeni Arabic uses [ð̣] instead of [ḍ]. Can anyone verify this? I remember being surprised at this fact when I lived in Yemen because Adenis don't use the unemphatic fricatives at all. But in the emphatic form I think they do.
There is a book on Adeni Arabic that I used to own that would be able to clear this question up. Does anybody have it? I think it was called "Adeni Arabic".Solumanculver 17:37, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
- Reply:
In Adeni Arabic [ḍ] is always used. However, in some quarters of the city and in the speech of some speakers who have affiliation to the hinterland, [ð̣] is used. Generally speaking, the [ð̣]~ [ḍ] can be seen as a sociolinguistic alternation: in young people and female speech [ḍ] is more common.
[edit] The Yafi'i Arabic Dialect
The sentence "Yafi'i confuses the classical sounds [ġain](...) and [qāf], pronouncing them, respectively [qain] and [ġāf]" is unclear, because the first half of the sentence means that Yafi'i pronounces the letters <ġ> and <q> in the same (unspecified) way – a not too surprising phenomenon even if uncommon in Arabic – and the second half of the sentence means that Yafi'i pronounces [q] for Classical ġ, and conversely [ġ] for Classical q – such criss-crossing being an extremely uncommon phenomenon. A third possible interpretation (assuming inaccurate wording), would be that Yafi'i speakers have [ġ] for Classical q in *some* words (perhaps most everyday words) and [q] for Classical ġ in some *other* words (perhaps by hypercorrection in words more related to the religious, intellectual, commercial or technical domains). In this case, Yafi'i could be expected not to be uniform, but to vary in this respect according to the background and the attitude of speakers. I wonder what the real situation is. --Zxly (talk) 13:46, 20 January 2008 (UTC)
- Reply: The [ġain]~[qāf] alternation is also common in other Arabic dialects including Suadanese, Kuwaiti, Sur (Oman) as well as some other Yemeni dialects like LaHji and Abyani. It seems that it is a process of "criss-crossing". In careful speech a lot of hypercorrection is made. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.154.153.153 (talk) 15:34, 23 January 2008 (UTC)
Hi, I wrote that section on Yafi'i, sorry it's so unclear. It's like your possibility two, Yafi'i pronounces [q] for Classical ġ, and conversely [ġ] for Classical q. It is a systematic feature that occurs uniformly in all speech, not just in specialized words. It's not a hypercorrection, which is a very different phenomenon that occurs, for instance, in the sudan.
In the Sudan people are generally unable to pronounce the classical Qaaf, so in certain formal words they approximate it with a ghain, a form of hypercorrection. In Yafi' the sounds Qaaf and Ghain are systematically switched in everyday words, and even when speaking standard arabic Yafi'i speakers have a tendency to make that switch.
You're right, the phrase "Yafi'i confuses the classical sounds [ġain](...) and [qāf]" does seem to say that they pronounce them the same, that is not correct and should be changed.
As for the dialects of LaHj and Abyaan, I'm not sure if they share this feature with Yafi'i... But I'm certain that the situation in Yafi' with respect to these consonants is very different that the situation in the sudan and kuwait.
I'll try to clean that section up 71.229.63.50 (talk) 03:54, 2 February 2008 (UTC)
