Mashriqi Arabic, or Mashriqi ʿAmmiya, encompasses the varieties of Arabic spoken in the Mashriq, including the countries of Egypt, Lebanon, Palestine, Kuwait, Jordan, Syria, Turkey, Iraq, Sudan, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Oman, Bahrain and Qatar.[2][3][4][5] The variety is sometimes referred to as Eastern Arabic, as opposed to Western Arabic (Maghrebi Arabic or Darija) and includes Mesopotamian Arabic and Peninsular Arabic, along with Egyptian Arabic, Sudanese Arabic, and Levantine Arabic. Speakers of Mashriqi call their language ʿAmmiya (عامية), which means 'common' or 'colloquial' in Modern Standard Arabic.
Modern Standard Arabic (الفصحى al-fuṣḥā) is the primary official language used in the government, legislation, and judiciary of countries in the Mashriq region. Mashriqi Arabic is used for almost all spoken communication, as well as in television and advertising in Egypt and Lebanon, but Modern Standard Arabic is used in written communication. In Lebanon, where Mashriqi Arabic was taught as a colloquial language as a separate subject under French colonization, some formal textbooks exist.
The varieties of Mashriqi have a high degree of mutual intelligibility, especially between geographically adjacent ones (such as Lebanese and Syrian or between Iraqi and Kuwaiti). On the contrary, Maghrebi dialects, especially those of Algeria and Morocco, are harder to understand for Arabic-speakers from the Mashriqi ones, as it derives from different substrata.
Varieties
References
- ^ Baharna Arabic at Ethnologue (27th ed., 2024)
Dhofari Arabic at Ethnologue (27th ed., 2024)
Eastern Egyptian Bedawi Arabic at Ethnologue (27th ed., 2024)
Egyptian Arabic at Ethnologue (27th ed., 2024)
Gulf Arabic at Ethnologue (27th ed., 2024)
Hadhrami Arabic at Ethnologue (27th ed., 2024)
(Additional references under 'Language codes' in the information box) - ^ "Mashriq". Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved 5 July 2015.
- ^ "European Neighbourhood Policy in the Mashreq Countries: Enhancing Prospects for Reform". Centre for European Policy Studies. Archived from the original on 1 February 2014. Retrieved 15 April 2015.
- ^ "Introduction to Migration and the Mashreq". Middle East Institute. Archived from the original on 2014-02-03.
- ^ "Migrants from the Maghreb and Mashreq Countries" (PDF). Regional Conference on Migration. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2014-02-02. Retrieved 2015-08-12.
Further reading
- Singer, Hans-Rudolf (1980) “Das Westarabische oder Maghribinische” in Wolfdietrich Fischer and Otto Jastrow (eds.) Handbuch der arabischen Dialekte. Otto Harrassowitz: Wiesbaden. 249–76.
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