1. Introduction

Saudi Arabia is an area of considerable linguistic uniformity. With regard to languages that are native to the country, on the basis of the most recent data, only one language, Arabic, is spoken, although dialect diversity is considerable. In fact, in the southwest on the border of Yemen, unconfirmed reports have the dialect of Fayfa to be mutually unintelligible with local Arabic dialects and showing a substratum of the Ḥimyaritic languages of Ancient…