1. General

Ṣanʿānī Arabic is the dialect of the original inhabitants of the Old City of ṣanʿāʾ and its traditional suburbs, al-Bawniyah and al-Qāʿ (Qāʿ al-Yahūd). ṣanʿānī belongs to the Eastern Muslim dialect type, and it is also spoken by Jews who emigrated from ṣanʿāʾ to Israel after 1948. There are approximately one hundred thousand speakers in and around the Old City today, a figure which includes Ṣanʿānīs who left the Old City followi…