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1. General The dialect of Khuzestan is of the Southern Mesopotamian or gilit type, to follow the terminology introduced by Haim Blanc. Specifically, it is similar to the dialect of the adjoining areas of Iraq, namely south of Kūt on the Tigris and Nāṣiriyyah on the Euphrates. 1.1 Area Khuzestan is the area of southwestern Persia or Iran to the east of the Šaṭṭ al-ʿArab and generally up to the fringes of the Zagros Mountains. This area has been Arabic speaking from approximately the 17th century. The area of Khuzestan is named after the Xūz, the original inhabitants of the area at the tim…

1. General 1.1 Area The Arabic dialect of Afghanistan is an offshoot of the better described dialects of Central Asia, which became known initially through the work of Ceret'eli (1956). The tradition of the speakers is that they arrived in the area in the time of Tamerlane, Amīr Taymūr Kūraghān as they called him, i.e. in the 14th century C.E. There may be some truth in this as Tamerlane is known to have deported Arab populations from Syria to Central Asia. They also claim to be of the Qurayš coming from Yaman. This is less easy to substantiate. However, linguistic evidence suggest…

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 South Arabia. Although modern…

1. General This entry provides a description of the Arabic dialect of Najd in Central Arabia. Because this is a large area, showing considerable linguistic diversity, the description is based on the dialect of Sudayr in the central area, mentioning variation in the northern and southern areas where relevant. 1.1 Area Geographically, the Najdi dialects span the following regions: i.The speech of the sedentary population of the areas of Central Najd and of Qaṣīm and Jabal Šammar to the north and Najrān and Bīša to the south. ii.The speech of the main Bedouin tribes of those regions,…