Gulf Arabic

Template:Short description Gulf Arabic or Khaleeji ( local pronunciation: or , local pronunciation: ) is a variety of Arabic spoken in Eastern ArabiaTemplate:Sfnp around the coasts of the Persian Gulf in Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, southern Iraq, eastern Saudi Arabia, northern Oman, and by some Iranian Arabs.

Gulf Arabic can be defined as a set of closely related and more-or-less mutually intelligible varieties that form a dialect continuum, with the level of mutual intelligibility between any two varieties largely depending on the distance between them. Similar to other varieties, Gulf Arabic is not completely mutually intelligible with varieties spoken outside the Gulf.Template:Sfnp The specific dialects differ in vocabulary, grammar and accent. There are considerable differences between, for instance, Kuwaiti Arabic and the dialects of Qatar and the UAE, especially in pronunciation, that may hinder mutual intelligibility.Template:Sfnp The Gulf has two major dialect types that differ phonologically and morphologically, typically referred to as badawī 'Bedouin' and ḥadarī 'sedentary', which in simpler terms mean "desert dweller" and "city dweller". The differences mark important cultural differences between those who historically practiced pastoralism and those who were sedentary.Template:Sfnp

Gulf varieties' closest related relatives are other dialects native to the Arabian Peninsula, i.e. Najdi Arabic, Mesopotamian Arabic and Bahrani Arabic.Template:Sfnp Although spoken over much of Saudi Arabia's area, Gulf Arabic is not the native tongue of most Saudis, as the majority of them do not live in Eastern Arabia.Template:Sfnp There are some 200,000 Gulf Arabic speakers in the country, out of a population of over 30 million, mostly in the aforementioned Eastern Province.Template:Sfnp

Name

File:Peninsular Arabic.svg

Peninsular Arabic varieties (Gulf Arabic indicated by dark maroon)

The dialect's full name ( local pronunciation: ) can be translated as 'the dialect of the gulf'. However, it is most commonly referred to as Khaliji ( ), in which the noun (; ) has been suffixed with the Nisba, literally meaning 'of the bay' or 'of the gulf'.Template:Sfnp

Phonology

Consonants

Gulf Arabic consonant phonemesTemplate:Sfnp

		Labial	Dental	Denti-alveolar		Palatal	Dorsal		Pharyn- geal	Glottal
				plain	emphatic		Velar	Uvular
Nasal		Template:IPA link		Template:IPA link
Plosive	voiceless	(Template:IPA link)		Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link		Template:IPA link
	voiced	Template:IPA link		Template:IPA link		Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link
Fricative	voiceless	Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link		Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link
	voiced		Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link		Template:IPA link		Template:IPA link
Trill				Template:IPA link
Approximant				Template:IPA link		Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link

Phonetic notes:

• only occurs in loanwords;Template:Sfnp the non-native letter Template:Angbr, or its native counterpart Template:Angbr, are used to denote this sound e.g.: piyāḷah ( or , 'small glass'), from Persian.
• A feature that distinguishes Gulf Arabic dialects from other Arabic varieties is the retention of the dental fricatives and , which in many other dialects merged with other sounds; similarly, the reflex of the merger of classical * Template:Angbr and * Template:Angbr is often in some dialects but is a fricative (either or ) in Gulf dialects.Template:SfnpTemplate:Sfnp It shares this feature with most Peninsular and Mesopotamian dialects.
• Template:Angbr has merged to Template:Angbr.
• Historically, became in Gulf Arabic. Due to influence from MSA, the sound was reintroduced in a handful of classicisms.Template:Sfnp A number of speakers realize this restricted phoneme as a voiced uvular stop;Template:Sfnp these same speakers have post-velar or uvular realizations of and ( and , respectively).Template:Sfnp For such speakers, and the are in free variation while other speakers distinguish from . Thus may be realized as or for such speakers.Template:Sfnp
• The emphatic consonants are variably described in the literature as having secondary velarization or pharyngealization. Other emphatic consonants can be found, but these are the result of a process that spreads the velarization/pharyngealization of these sounds on surrounding consonants. E.g. ('championship') ('championship').Template:Sfnp

Allophony

and are often palatalized when occurring before front vowels unless the following consonant is emphatic. The actual realization is in free variation, and can be or, more commonly, .Template:SfnpTemplate:Sfnp Speakers who exhibit variation between and do so in words derived from historical (e.g. 'opposite'); is a contemporary reflex of historical and so there are also sets of words where and appear in free variation (e.g. (e.g. 'neighbor').Template:SfnpTemplate:Sfnp

Voiced stops tend to devoice in utterance-final position, especially as the final element in clusters, e.g. ('dog') .Template:Sfnp

A notable aspect of Gulf Arabic is the different realization of a number of phonemes inherited from Classical Arabic. These differences are the result, in part, of natural linguistic changes over time. After these changes occurred, the original sounds (or close approximations to them) were reintroduced as a result of contact with other dialects, as well as through influence of Modern Standard Arabic as a language of media, government, and religion. For many of these sounds, speakers exhibit free variation between the MSA form and the colloquial form.Template:Sfnp The following table provides a rough outline of these differences:

Letter	MSA pronunciation	Khaliji varieties	Examples	Notes
	Template:IPAslink	Template:IPAblink or	mōy or mōj ( or , 'wave'); masyid or masjid ( or , 'mosque')	Changes are optional, although jim () never changes to Template:IPAblink in recent loanwords from MSA.Template:Sfnp
	Template:IPAslink	Template:IPAslink (in Classical Arabic words); Template:IPAblink and, when followed by a front vowel (, , or )	jiddām ( , 'in front of'); sharji ( 'eastern')	Many Literary Arabic loanwords preserve the sound, but optionally use . By Persian influence, extremely rarely the qaf () changes to ghayn () .Template:Sfnp
		,	qannā ( , 'to sing')	Ghayn occasionally changes to or by Persian influence.Template:Sfnp
	Template:IPAslink	Template:IPAslink, Template:IPAblink if preceded or followed by a front vowel or if 2nd person feminine singular suffixed/object pronoun	ubūch ( ; 'your [f.sg.] father')	This change is optional, but encountered with more often when the kaf () is used to denote the 2nd person feminine singular suffixed/object pronoun.Template:SfnpTemplate:Sfnp
	Template:IPAslink	Template:IPAblink	ẓāʼ ( , 'to lose')	Ẓāʼ () and Ḍad () are not distinguished by pronunciation, as the Gulf dialects lack the emphatic .Template:Sfnp However, they retain their orthographic distinction.Template:Sfnp

Vowels

Gulf Arabic has five long vowels and three or four short monophthongs. Two recent studies point to a lack of phonemic contrast between [i] and [u], and Shockley (2020) argues that backness is not phonemically contrastive in short vowels.Template:SfnpTemplate:Sfnp The most recent grammar of Gulf Arabic similarly points to a reduced central vowel [ə] as a frequent reflex of all short vowels.Template:Sfnp

Gulf Arabic Vowel PhonemesTemplate:Sfnp

	Front		Back
	short	long	short	long
Close	Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link
Mid		Template:IPA link	(Template:IPA link)	Template:IPA link
Open	Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link

Allophony

Regional variations in vowel pronunciation is considerable, particularly outside of educated speech. Unless otherwise noted, the following are major allophonic variants shared across the entire Gulf region.

Front vowels

In the context of emphatic consonants, long and exhibit centralized vowel onglides and offglides.Template:Sfnp For example:

• ('mud') → .
• ('summer') → .
• ('she menstruates') → .

Similarly, the normal realization of short is except in final position, where it is ; when adjacent to emphatic, uvular, or bilabial consonants, is centralized to .

• ('my daughter') → .
• ('book') → .
• ('go! [f]') → .

When between two emphatic, uvular, or bilabial consonants, is fully backed to .Template:Sfnp

• ('medicine') → .
• ('turn over!') → .Template:Sfnp

The normal realization of short is a front ;Template:Sfnp when adjacent to dorsal and pharyngeal consonants, the normal realization is a back ; when adjacent to emphatic consonants (and, for some speakers, bilabial consonants), the realization is a back and rounded :Template:Sfnp

• ('Bedouin') → .
• ('after') → .
• ('coffee') → .
• ('row') → .

When both a dorsal/pharyngeal consonant and emphatic consonant are adjacent to a vowel, the realization is .Template:Sfnp

For , the pattern is largely the same except that, when adjacent to dorsal/pharyngeal consonants, the realization is .Template:Sfnp

• ('he fasted') → .
• ('he said') → .
• ('health') → .

Word-finally, long is shortened and subjected to the same phonological rules as short . This shortening can lead to alternations based on morphological conditioning, e.g. ('lunch') vs. ('your lunch').Template:Sfnp

Back vowels

is normally realized as . Similarly, is realized except when unstressed, in which case it is reduced to if it is not deleted altogether (e.g. → or 'houses').Template:Sfnp

The short vowel phoneme occurs rarely as a variant of the diphthong in a handful of words (e.g. لو 'if').Template:Sfnp

Morphology

Similarly to other Arabic varieties, Gulf Arabic has lost much of the case inflection of Classical Arabic. Possession is marked with the particles and , which are attached to possessive enclitics.Template:Sfnp

Pronouns

Gulf Arabic has 10 personal pronouns.Template:Sfnp The conservative dialect has preserved the gender differentiation of the 2nd and 3rd person in the plural forms, whereas dual forms have not survived. The following table bears the generally most common pronouns:

Person		Singular	Plural
1st		ānā ()	niḥin ()
2nd	masculine	inta ()	intum ()
	feminine	inti ()	intin1 ()
3rd	masculine	huwa ()	hum ()
	feminine	hiya ()	hin2 ()

• ^1 Many speakers do not distinguish between masculine and feminine forms in the second person plural, replacing intum and intin with intu ().
• ^2 Speakers that do not distinguish between masculine and feminine forms in the third person plural will also use hum () for both genders in the third person plural, respectively.

Some pronouns, however, have other (less frequent, resp. local) forms:

• ānā ():

  anā ()

  āni () (especially Baḥrānī)

• inta ():

  init ()

• huwa ():

  hū ()

  huwwa () (especially Qaṭarī)

  uhu ()

• hiya ():

  hī ()

  hiyya () (especially Qaṭarī)

  ihi ()

• niḥin ():

  niḥna ()

  iḥna () (especially Baḥrānī and Qaṭarī)

  ḥina () (Qaṭarī)

• intum ():

  intu ()

• hum ():

  humma () (especially Qaṭarī)

  uhum ()

Syntax

The normal word order in main clauses is the following:Template:Sfnp

Subject – (Verb) – (Direct Object) – (Indirect Object) – (Adverbials)

The following sentence indicates the normal word order of declarative statements: Template:Interlinear

When forming interrogative statements, any of these elements can be replaced by interrogative words. Template:Harvcoltxt identifies five such words in Gulf Arabic:Template:Sfnp

• ('who')
• (alternatively, , or ) ('what')
• ('how')
• (alternatively ) ('why')
• ('when')

Unless it is desired to stress one of these elements, this order of elements is preserved in the formation of interrogative questions.Template:Sfnp Template:Interlinear Template:Interlinear Template:Interlinear

When placing emphasis on the questioned element, word order can change. Specifically, the element of a clause can be questioned by moving it, generally to initial position. With the subject (which is normally initial), it is moved to final position:Template:Sfnp Template:Interlinear The moved element receives strong stress; in the case of a question word, the intonation is a high fall. When the point is to seek clarification, the element questioned has a high rising intonation.Template:Sfnp

See also

• Varieties of Arabic
• Peninsular Arabic
• Arabic language