Sanʽani Arabic is an Arabic dialect spoken in northern

Yemen Yemen, officially the Republic of Yemen, is a country in West Asia. Located in South Arabia, southern Arabia, it borders Saudi Arabia to Saudi Arabia–Yemen border, the north, Oman to Oman–Yemen border, the northeast, the south-eastern part ...

in the city of

Sana'a Sanaa, officially the Sanaa Municipality, is the ''de jure'' capital and largest city of Yemen. The city is the capital of the Sanaa Governorate, but is not part of the governorate, as it forms a separate administrative unit. At an elevation ...

Phonology

The Sanaani dialect is distinguished among Yemeni dialects by its use of the sound in the place of the (' ) used in

Modern Standard Arabic Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) or Modern Written Arabic (MWA) is the variety of Standard language, standardized, Literary language, literary Arabic that developed in the Arab world in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and in some usages al ...

Consonants

* is voiced to in initial and intervocalic positions.

Vowels

* The short vowels can have lax allophones of . * within emphatic environments can be heard as back . *In unstressed syllables, Sanaani short vowels may be reduced to .

Grammar

Along with these phonological similarities to other dialects, Sanʽani Arabic also has several unique features. It uses the classical ''mā'' in the meaning of "what", as well as in negations. Unlike the classical usage, this ''mā'' is used without distinction in verbal and nominal sentences alike. Sanʽani Arabic represents the future aspect with a complex array of prefixes, depending on the person of the verb. For first-person verbs the prefix (ša-) or (‘ad) is used. The derivation of (''ša-'') is apparently related to the classical (''sa-''), and (''‘ad'') is likely an abbreviation of (''ba‘d''), meaning "after". For all other persons in Sanʽa proper the simple prefix (''‘a-'') is used, although many of the villages around Sanʽa extend the use of (''ša-'') for all persons.

Syntax

Sanʽani syntax differs from other Arabic dialects in a number of ways. It is one of few remaining Arabic dialects to retain the ''mā af‘al'' exclamatory sentence type with the meaning "how (adjective)". For instance, ''mā ajmal'', is used to mean "how beautiful", from the adjective ''jamīl'', meaning "beautiful"; a construction it shares with

Libyan Arabic Libyan Arabic (), also called Sulaimitian Arabic by scholars, is a variety of Arabic spoken in Libya, and neighboring countries. It can be divided into two major dialect areas: the eastern centred in Benghazi and Bayda, and the western centre ...

and

Levantine Arabic Levantine Arabic, also called Shami (Endonym and exonym, autonym: or ), is an Varieties of Arabic, Arabic variety spoken in the Levant, namely in Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine, Israel and southern Turkey (historically only in Adana Prov ...

Vocabulary

The Sanʽani vocabulary is also very distinct and conservative. The classical verb ''sāra'', ''yasīr'' is retained with the meaning of "to go" (similar to Moroccan). ''Shalla'', ''yashill'' is used to mean "to take/get".Janet C. E. Watson, ''Sbahtu! A Course in Sanʽani Arabic''. Semitica Viva: Series Didactica, 3. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1996. xxvii, 324 pp., glossary, index As an example of its distinctiveness, during an appearance of the would-be parliament speaker of Yemen, Abdullah Alahmar, on Al-Jazeera TV some years ago, viewers and the TV host needed a translation of his Yemeni dialect into Standard Arabic in order to understand what he said.

Loanwords

References

{{Varieties of Arabic Peninsular Arabic Languages of Yemen