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, which means "common or colloquial" in Modern Standard Arabic.

Mashriqi Arabic
ʿAmmiya, Eastern Arabic
عامية
RegionMashriq
EthnicityUsed as a first language by Arabs and as a second language by non-Arab minorities
Native speakers
300 million (2018–2022)[1]
Dialects
Arabic alphabet
Language codes
ISO 639-3Variously:
abv – Baharna Arabic
adf – Dhofari Arabic
avl – Eastern Egyptian Bedawi Arabic
arz – Egyptian Arabic
afb – Gulf Arabic
ayh – Hadhrami Arabic
acw – Hijazi Arabic
apc – Levantine Arabic
acm – Mesopotamian Arabic
ayp – North Mesopotamian Arabic
ars – Najdi Arabic
acx – Omani Arabic
ayn – Sanʽani Arabic
ssh – Shihhi Arabic
aec – Saʽidi Arabic
apd – Sudanese Arabic
acq – Ta'izzi-Adeni Arabic
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Modern Standard Arabic (الفصحى al-fuṣḥá) 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

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References

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  1. ^ 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)
  2. ^ "Mashriq". Britannica. Retrieved 5 July 2015.
  3. ^ "European Neighbourhood Policy in the Mashreq Countries: Enhancing Prospects for Reform". Archived from the original on 1 February 2014. Retrieved 15 April 2015.
  4. ^ Introduction to Migration and the Mashreq Archived 2014-02-03 at the Wayback Machine
  5. ^ "Migrants from the Maghreb and Mashreq Countries" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2014-02-02. Retrieved 2015-08-12.

Further reading

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  • Singer, Hans-Rudolf (1980) “Das Westarabische oder Maghribinische” in Wolfdietrich Fischer and Otto Jastrow (eds.) Handbuch der arabischen Dialekte. Otto Harrassowitz: Wiesbaden. 249–76.