Najdi Arabic
نجدي (Najdi)
Native to	Saudi Arabia,Jordan,Iraq,Syria[1]
Native speakers	19 million (2018–2023)[1]
Language family	Afro-Asiatic Semitic West Semitic Central Semitic Arabic Peninsular Najdi Arabic
Writing system	Arabic alphabet
Language codes
ISO 639-3	ars
Glottolog	najd1235
Areas where Najdi Arabic is spoken.

Najdi Arabic (Arabic:اللهجة النجدية,romanized: al-lahja an-najdiyya, Najdi Arabic:نجدي,Najdi pronunciation:[nadʒˈdi]) is the group ofArabic varieties originating from theNajd region ofSaudi Arabia. Outside of Saudi Arabia, it is also the main Arabic variety spoken in theSyrian Desert ofIraq,Jordan, andSyria (with the exception ofPalmyra oasis and settlements dotting theEuphrates, whereMesopotamian Arabic is spoken) as well as the westernmost part ofKuwait.

Najdi Arabic can be divided into four region-based groups:

1. Northern Najdi, spoken by the tribe ofShammar and surrounding tribes inHa'il Region in Najd and the Syrian Desert.^[2][3]
2. Mixed northern-central Najdi ofAl-Qassim, Northern Riyadh region ofSudair, and the tribe ofDhafeer aroundKuwait.^[3][4]
3. Central Najdi, spoken in the city ofRiyadh and surrounding towns and farming communities, and by the tribe ofAnazah in the Syrian Desert.^[3][2] This dialect group includes the modern urban dialect of Riyadh, which has become the prestige dialect of Saudi Arabia.
4. Southern Najdi, spoken by the tribes ofQahtan andBanu Yam, including in theRub' al-Khali andNajran, as well as the branches of Banu Yam,Ajman andAl Murrah in Eastern Arabia.^[3][4]

Below is the table of the consonant phonemes of Najdi Arabic.

Phonetic notes:

• /ɡ/ is the modern reflex of earlier/q/⟨ق⟩, though[q] can appear in a few loanwords fromModern Standard Arabic and proper names, as inالقرآن[alqurˈʔaːn] ('Quran') andقانون[qaːnuːn] ('law').^[6]
• The distinction between theOld Arabic[dˤ]⟨ﺽ⟩ and[ðˤ]⟨ظ⟩ was completely lost in Najdi Arabic, and both are realised as[ðˤ].^[7]/tˤ/ is sometimes voiced.^[5]
• The phonemes/ɣ/⟨غ⟩ and/x/⟨خ⟩ are in free variation with uvular fricatives[ʁ] and[χ] respectively.
• Northern and central dialects feature affricates[t͡s] and[d͡z] as allophonic variants of the velar stops/k/ and/ɡ/, respectively, particularly in the context of front vowels e.g.كَلْب[t͡salb] ('dog').^[8][7][9] Dialect leveling as a result of influence from the Riyadh-based prestige varieties has led to the affricate allophones becoming increasingly less common among younger speakers.^[9]
• Historically,/ʔ/ was deleted. It now appears only in borrowings from Classical Arabic; word-medially, this deletion comes along with the lengthening of short vowels.^[10]
• The phones[p] ⟨پ⟩ and[v] ⟨ڤ⟩ (not used by all speakers) are not considered to be part of the phonemic inventory, as they exist only in foreign words and can be pronounced as/b/ and/f/ respectively depending on the speaker.^[11]

Unless adjacent to/ɣxhħʕ/,/a/ is raised in open syllables to[i],[ɨ], or[u], depending on neighboring sounds.^[14] Remaining/a/ may become fronted to[æ~ɛ] in the context of front sounds, as well as adjacent to the pharyngeals/ħʕ/.^[12]

Najdi Arabic exhibits the so-called gahawa syndrome, insertion of epenthetic /a/ after (/hx,ɣħ,ʕ/). For example, [gahwah] > [gahawah].

When short/a/ appears in an open syllable that is followed by a nonfinal light syllable, it is deleted. For example,/saħab-at/ is realized as[sˈħa.bat].^[15] This, combined with the gahawa syndrome can make underlying sequence of/a/ and a following guttural consonant (/hx,ɣħ,ʕ/) to appearmetathesized, e.g./ʔistaʕʒal/ ('got in a hurry')[ʔistˈʕaʒal].^[16]

Short high vowels are deleted in non-final open syllables, such as/tirsil-uːn/ ('you [m. sg.] send')[tirsˈluːn].^[17]

There is both limited distributional overlap and free variation between[i] and[u], with the latter being more likely in the environment of bilabials, pharyngealized consonants, and/r/.^[5]

The mid vowels/eːoː/ are typically monophthongs, though they can be pronounced as diphthongs when preceding a plosive, e.g./beːt/ ('house')[beit].^[12][ei]

Najdi Arabic sentence structure can have the word order VSO and SVO, however, VSO usually occurs more often.^[18] NA morphology is distinguished by three categories which are: nounsism, verbfial, and particleharf.Ism means name in Arabic and it corresponds to nouns and adjectives in English.Fial means action in Arabic and it corresponds to verbs.Harf means letter and corresponds to pronouns, demonstratives, prepositions, conjunctions and articles.

Verbs are inflected for number, gender, person, tense, aspect and transitives. Nouns show number (singular and plural) and gender (masculine and feminine).^[19]

Complementizers in NA have three different classes which are: relative particle, declarative particle, and interrogative particles. The three different complementizers that are used in Najdi Arabic are:illi,in,itha.^[20]

Two particles are used in negation, which are:ma andla. These particles come before the verb in verbal sentences.^[18]ma is used with all verbal sentences butla is used with imperative verb forms indicating present and future tense.^[19]

Najdi Arabic exhibits a number of discourse particles whose main function is to mark different tenses and aspects, including the perfective, imperfective, and progressive aspects. These speech particles "form a link between the time of occurrence of the verb and a point of reference not concurrent with it".^[21][22] cites six "relative time markers":^[21]

• [d͡zid] ('already')
• [ʕaːd] ('still, anymore')
• [maːʕaːd] ('no longer, no more')
• [baʕad] ('still')
• [maːbaʕad] ('not yet')
• [taww-] ('just')

Most of these discourse particles are preverbal, yet a few of them can show up in non-verbal sentences.^[21] These discourse particles have a number of features when they show up in speech:^[23]

1. The particle[taww] occurs with the perfective and active particle and is almost always followed by a personal pronoun suffix.
2. A few of these particles are not pre-verbal, i.e, they can show up with non-verbal sentences.
3. Their function is similar, "setting the time of occurrence of the situation referred to by the sentence in relation to a point of reference".^[21]
4. The particles[ʕaːd] and[baʕad] can sometimes have a suffix in the affirmative.
5. The particle[maːʕaːd] occurs with the perfective and imperfective.
6. The particles[ʕaːd] and[baʕad] occur with the imperfective and the active participle.
7. The particle[maːbaʕad] occurs with the perfective.

The following examples illustrate the use of these discourse particles in Najdi Arabic:^[24]

• [ʕaːd]

• [maʕaːd]

• [baʕad]

• [maːbaʕad]

• [taww]

In addition to these,[d͡zid] ('already') may occur before the main verb[25]^{[page needed]} to convey that something has been done but is no longer the case (equivalent to theexperiential perfect in English).^[26] There are a number of meanings of[d͡zid] depending on context:

• 'had done' when occurring with a past reference point
• 'has done' when occurring with a present reference point
• 'already' when the action has actually occurred previously to the time of utterance
• 'never' with a negative sentence that has a present reference point
• 'ever' with an interrogative sentence with a present reference point.

The following examples illustrate the use of the particle[d͡zid]:^[27]

In addition, the progressive aspect is marked by the particle[qaʕid] ('to sit').[28]^{[page needed][29]} The particle[qaʕid] surfaces with a verb in the imperfective aspect but cannot surface with a verb in the perfective aspect, as shown in the following two sentences:^[30]

The progressive aspect in Najdi Arabic (as well as other dialects is expressed by the imperfective form of the verb, often preceded by the active particle[qaʕid].Holes (1990)^{[page needed]} The following examples to illustrate the use of[qaʕid] to express the progressive aspect:^[31]

• Varieties of Arabic
• Peninsular Arabic

• Al Aloula, Meshael (2021),The Emergence of a Progressive Aspect in Najdi Arabic, George Mason University
• Al-Mozainy, Hamza Q (1981).Vowel Alternations in a Bedouin Hijazi Arabic Dialect: Abstractness and Stress (Thesis). Austin, Texas: University of Texas, Austin.
• Al-Rojaie, Y. (2013), "Regional dialect leveling in Najdi Arabic: The case of the deaffrication of [k] in the Qaṣīmī dialect",Language Variation and Change,25 (1):43–63,doi:10.1017/s0954394512000245,S2CID 145173628
• Al Motairi, Sarah Soror (2015),An Optimality-Theoretic Analysis of Syllable Structure in Qassimi Arabic
• Alothman, Ebtesam (2012),Digital Vernaculars: An Investigation of Najdi Arabic in Multilingual Synchronous Computer-Mediated Communication(PDF), University of Manchester, pp. 96–121
• Alshammari, Ahmad; Alshammari, Wafi Fhaid (2020), "The Word gid in Najdi Arabic: An Evidentiality Head",Linguistic Forum,2 (4):33–41,doi:10.53057/linfo/2020.2.4.5,ISSN 2707-5273,S2CID 236846500
• Holes, Clive (1990),Gulf Arabic, London: Routledge
• Ingham, Bruce (1986), "Notes on the Dialect of the Āl Murra of Eastern and Southern Arabia",Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London,49 (2):271–291,doi:10.1017/s0041977x00024162,S2CID 128624297
• Ingham, Bruce (1994),Najdi Arabic: Central Arabian, Amsterdam: John Benjamins,ISBN 9789027238016
• Lewis Jr., Robert (2013),Complementizer Agreement in Najdi Arabic(PDF), University of Kansas, archived fromthe original(PDF) on 2018-06-19, retrieved2018-08-28
• McCarthy, John J. (2007),Hidden Generalizations: Phonological Opacity in Optimality Theory, London: Equinox Publishing Ltd.,ISBN 9781845530518

• P.F. Abboud. 1964. "The Syntax of Najdi Arabic", University of Texas PhD dissertation.
• Al-Sudais, M. S.A critical and comparative study of modern Najdi Arabic Proverbs. PhD diss., University of Leeds, 1976.

Najdi Arabic test ofWikipedia atWikimedia Incubator

• Bedouin Arabic
• Mashriqi Arabic
• Languages of Saudi Arabia
• Languages of Jordan
• Languages of Iraq
• Languages of Syria
• Peninsular Arabic

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