The Arabic Language

10.4 The presentation of the dialects
The traditional classification of the Arabic dialects distinguishes the following 
groups:
1. dialects of the Arabian peninsula;
2. Mesopotamian dialects;
3. Syro-Lebanese dialects;
4. Egyptian dialects;
5. Maghreb dialects.
In presenting the dialects in Chapter 11, we shall stick to this traditional distinc
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tion of five dialect areas. Each area will be presented briefly, with a survey of the 
most important representative dialects, the most characteristic features and a 
number of text samples that illustrate the idiosyncrasies of each dialect. Chapter 
15 will be devoted to the dialects of the various language islands of Arabic, that 
is, varieties of Arabic that are spoken outside the Arabophone world in linguistic 
enclaves in an environment in which other languages predominate. Examples of 
such language islands are Maltese Arabic, Cypriot Maronite Arabic, the Arabic 
of Uzbekistan and Afghanistan, the Arabic dialects of central Anatolia, Nigerian 
Shuwa Arabic, and the creolised Arabic of Uganda and Kenya (Ki-Nubi), the latter 
to be dealt with in Chapter 16. The dialects spoken in the linguistic enclaves 

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The Arabic Language
ultimately derive from dialect groups in the central areas, Cypriot Maronite 
Arabic being a Syro-Lebanese type of dialect, Maltese being a North African type 
of dialect, and so on. But their isolation from the Arabophone world and their 
lack of exposure to the Classical language have contributed to the preservation 
of features that were lost elsewhere. The contact with the dominant languages of 
the region has led to borrowings and innovations that are not present elsewhere 
either. For these reasons, it is preferable to treat the dialects of the linguistic 
enclaves separately.
Further reading
An excellent methodological introduction to Arabic dialectology is the German 
one by Behnstedt and Woidich (2005); also useful is the introduction to Behnstedt’s 
and Woidich’s dialect atlas of the Egyptian dialects (1985: 11–42).
Dialect geography used to be one of the poor points in Arabic linguistics, but 
the situation has improved significantly with the publication of dialect atlases. 
The first surveys were made by Cantineau (dialect atlas of the Ḥōrān, 1940, 1946) 
and by Bergsträßer (dialect atlas of the Syro-Lebanese dialects, 1915). Dialect 
maps of the Lebanese dialects were produced by Fleisch (1974). More recently, 
an extensive dialect atlas of the Egyptian region was produced by Behnstedt and 
Woidich (1985, 1987, 1988, 1994, 1999), consisting of an atlas with commentary, 
two volumes of texts, and an Egyptian–German glossary. Behnstedt also produced 
a dialect atlas of the North Yemenite region (1985, 1992), and a Syrian dialect atlas 
(1997). The dialect atlas of Tunisia is an ongoing project; see the presentation by 
Mejri (2002) and the latest report by Ben Abdessalem Karaa (2008, 2012) and a 
number of papers in 
AIDA 
VI. Elements for a dialect atlas of Lebanon were collected 
by Kallas (2003). For the initiatives towards a Moroccan dialect atlas, see Caubet 
(2000–1); the project concerning the dialects in northern Israel was presented by 
Talmon (2002). Large parts of the Arabophone area are literally 
terra incognita
, in