Jordanian Arabic
Jordanian Arabic is a dialect continuum of mutually intelligible varieties of Arabic spoken in Jordan.
Jordanian Arabic can be divided into sedentary and Bedouin varieties. Sedentary varieties belong to the Levantine Arabic dialect continuum. Bedouin varieties are further divided into two groups, Northwest Arabian Arabic varieties of the south, and Najdi Arabic and Shawi Arabic varieties of the north. Jordan Arabic incorporates vocabulary and expressions influenced by neighboring dialects, including those from Palestine, Syria, Iraq and Saudi arabia.
Arabic is a member of the Semitic language family. Jordanian Arabic varieties are spoken by more than 8.5 million people, and understood throughout the Levant and, to various extents, in other Arabic-speaking regions. As in all Arab countries, language use in Jordan is characterized by diglossia; Modern Standard Arabic is the official language used in most written documents and the media, while daily conversation is conducted in the local colloquial varieties.
Regional Jordanian Arabic varieties
Although there is a common Jordanian dialect mutually understood by most Jordanians, the daily language spoken throughout the country varies significantly through regions. These variants impact altogether pronunciation, grammar, and vocabulary.Jordanian Arabic can primarily be divided into sedentary and Bedouin varieties, each of which can be further divided into distinct subgroups:
Sedentary varieties
- Hybrid variety /Ammani: It is the most current spoken language among Jordanians. This variety was born after the designation of Amman as capital of the Jordanian kingdom early in the 20th century. It is the result of the merger of the language of populations who moved from northern Jordan, southern Jordan, Saudi Arabia and later from Palestine. For this reason, it mixes features of the Arabic varieties spoken by these populations. The emergence of the language occurred under the strong influence of the northern Jordanian dialect. As in many countries English is used to substitute many technical words, even though these words have Arabic counterparts in modern standard Arabic.
- Balgawi-Horani: Mostly spoken in the area from Amman to Irbid in the far north. As in all sedentary areas, local variations are many. The pronunciation has /q/ pronounced and /k/ mostly. This dialect is part of the southern dialect of the Levantine Arabic language.
- Southern/Moab: Spoken in the area south of Amman, in cities such as Karak, Tafilah, Ma'an, Shoubak and their countrysides, it is replete with city-to-city and village-to-village differences. In this dialect, the pronunciation of the final vowel commonly written with tāʾ marbūtah is raised to . For example, Maktaba ' becomes Maktabe ', Maktabeh ' and Mektaba '. Named after the ancient Moab kingdom that was located in southern Jordan, this dialect belongs to the outer southern dialect of the Levantine Arabic language.
- Aqaba variety
- Northwest Arabian Arabic: Spoken by the Hwetat, Bani Atiya, the Bdul of Petra, and N'emat tribes in Southern Jordan. According to Palva, the dialects spoken in Jordan belong to the Eastern group of NWA dialects. Nevertheless, the dialects of the Bdul and N'emat share features with the Western group of NWA dialects spoken in the Negev. In addition, the dialect of the Zawaida tribe is argued to be closely related to Negev Arabic.
- North Arabian dialects: Spoken by the Sirhan, Bani Saxar, and Bani Khalid tribes. They are further divided into Anazi-type dialects which are related to Central Najdi Arabic, and Shammari-type dialects which are related to Northern Najdi Arabic.
- Syro-Mesopotamian Bedouin dialects: These dialects show many similarities with Iraqi “gelet”-dialects and with Gulf Arabic. Herin divides this group into a Central “ygulu” and Northern “ygulun” Shawi Arabic, both types being identical except for the presence of /n/ in the plural imperfect of the latter group. The Central “ygulu” dialects are spoken by the Ajarma, Adwan, and Ababid tribes.
Social dynamics
Phonology
Consonants
- is realized as a voiced fricative, across different speakers and dialects.
- /t͡ʃ/ is a lexically distributed alternant of /k/ in sedentary Horani/Balqawi dialects. is historically also an allophone of /k/ in the Syro-Mesopotamian Bedouin dialects.
Vowels
- /e/ and /i/ are only contrastive word-finally as shown by the minimal pair kalbe “dog ” and kalbi “my dog”.
- /o/ and /u/ are only contrastive word-finally as shown by the minimal pair katabo “he wrote it” vs. katabu “they wrote”.
- can be heard as in lax form.
- can occur as a back mostly after, an open-front before, and as in word-final positions, except after velarized, emphatic, back or pharyngeal sounds.
- is heard within the position or as a long back or front among speakers. Among people who are first generation, Palestinian-dialect speakers, it can also be heard as.
- A central can be epenthetic within some long vowel sounds like as.
Stress
Grammar
Nominal morphology
Definiteness
/il-/ is used in most words that don't start with a vowel. It is affixed onto the following word. Il-bāb meaning the door. /iC-/ is used in words that start with a consonant produced by the blade of the tongue. This causes a doubling of the consonant. This e is pronounced as in a rounded short backward vowel or as in an e followed by the first letter of the word that follows the article. For example: ed-desk meaning the desk, ej-jakét meaning the jacket, es-seks meaning the sex or hāda' et-téléfón meaning ''that is the telephone.''Pronouns
Contrary to MSA, dual pronouns do not exist in Jordanian; the plural is used instead. Because conjugated verbs indicate the subject with a prefix or a suffix, independent subject pronouns are usually unnecessary and mainly used for emphasis. Feminine plural forms modifying human females are found primarily in rural and Bedouin areas.Bound pronouns typically attach to nouns, prepositions, verbs andalso to certain adverbs, conjunctions and other discourse markers:
Indirect object / dative pronouns arise from the merging of l- “for, to”, and the bound pronouns. Note that geminated forms like Ammani after-CC katabt-illo “I wrote for him” are not to be found in Salti, which has katabt-lo:
Demonstratives can appear pre-nominally or post-nominally
Verbal morphology
Form I
Strong verbs
In Amman, Form I strong verbs usually have perfect CaCaC with imperfect CCuC/CCaC, and perfect CiCiC with imperfect CCaC. In Salt, CaCaC and CiCiC can occur with imperfect CCiC.Geminated verbs
Geminate verbs generally have perfect CaCC and imperfect CiCC. In Amman and Salt, the 2nd person singular masculine and the 1st person singular perfect inflect as CaCCēt: ḥassēt, šaddēt. In Amman, the active participle alternates between CāCC and CāCC. In Salt, only CāCC is present.Verbs Iʾ
Verbs Iw/y
Note that Salt forms the perfect on a different template than Amman. In any case, the perfect is conjugated as a strong verb:Verbs IIw/y
The vowel of the short base of the perfect usually has the same quality as the vowel of the imperfect: gām~ygūm~gumt and gām~ygīm~gimt. An exception is šāf~yšūf~šuft. Verbs with yCāC imperfects usually have CiCt perfects.Verbs IIIw/y
In the perfect, both CaCa and CiCi are found.Form IV
Form IV is not productive in the sedentary dialects of Amman or Karak. A conservative feature of the sedentary Balqāwi-Hōrani group is the preservation of Form IV, which is productive in three uses:- to create transitive verbs from nouns and adjectives:
- * bʿad—''yibʿid “to go away”
- to create “weather verbs”:
- * štat—tišti “to rain”
- to derive causative verbs from intransitive verbs with stem CvCvC:
- * gʿad—yigʿid'' “to wake sth. up”
Negation
An in-depth example of the negation: Baqdarelhomm figuratively means I can handle them, Baqdarelhommeş means I cannot handle them, the same statement meaning can be achieved by ''Baqdareş l'ıl homm''