Baghdadi Arabic is the

Arabic Arabic (, , or , ) is a Central Semitic languages, Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in the Arab world. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) assigns lang ...

dialect A dialect is a Variety (linguistics), variety of language spoken by a particular group of people. This may include dominant and standard language, standardized varieties as well as Vernacular language, vernacular, unwritten, or non-standardize ...

spoken in

Baghdad Baghdad ( or ; , ) is the capital and List of largest cities of Iraq, largest city of Iraq, located along the Tigris in the central part of the country. With a population exceeding 7 million, it ranks among the List of largest cities in the A ...

, the capital of

Iraq Iraq, officially the Republic of Iraq, is a country in West Asia. It is bordered by Saudi Arabia to Iraq–Saudi Arabia border, the south, Turkey to Iraq–Turkey border, the north, Iran to Iran–Iraq border, the east, the Persian Gulf and ...

. During the 20th century, Baghdadi Arabic has become the

lingua franca A lingua franca (; ; for plurals see ), also known as a bridge language, common language, trade language, auxiliary language, link language or language of wider communication (LWC), is a Natural language, language systematically used to make co ...

of Iraq, and the language of commerce and education. It is considered a subset of

Iraqi Arabic Mesopotamian Arabic (), also known as Iraqi Arabic or the Iraqi dialect (), or just as Iraqi (), is a group of varieties of Arabic spoken in the Mesopotamian basin of Iraq, as well as in Syria, southeastern Turkey, Iran, Kuwait and Iraqi diaspor ...

Phonology

Vowels

The vowel phoneme (from standard Arabic ) is usually realised as an opening diphthong, for most speakers only slightly diphthongised , but for others a more noticeable , such that, for instance, ''lēš'' ("why") will sound like ''leeyesh'', much like a

drawl A drawl is a perceived feature of some varieties of spoken English and generally indicates slower, longer vowel sounds and diphthongs. The drawl is often perceived as a method of speaking more slowly and may be erroneously attributed to laziness ...

in English. There is a vowel phoneme that evolved from the diphthong () to resemble more of a long () sound, as in words such as ''kaun'' ("universe") shifting to ''kōn''. A schwa sound is mainly heard in unstressed and stressed open and closed syllables.

Consonants

Even in the most formal of conventions, pronunciation depends upon a speaker's background. Nevertheless, the number and phonetic character of most of the 28 consonants has a broad degree of regularity among Arabic-speaking regions. Arabic is rich in uvular, pharyngeal, and

pharyngealized Pharyngealization is a secondary articulation of consonants or vowels by which the pharynx or epiglottis is constricted during the articulation of the sound. IPA symbols In the International Phonetic Alphabet, pharyngealization can be indicate ...

(" emphatic") sounds. The emphatic coronals (, , and ) cause assimilation of emphasis to adjacent non-emphatic coronal consonants. The phonemes ⟨ پ⟩ and ⟨ ڤ⟩ (not used by all speakers) are not considered to be part of the phonemic inventory, as they exist only in foreign words and they can be pronounced as ⟨ ب⟩ and ⟨ ف⟩ respectively depending on the speaker.Teach Yourself Arabic, by Jack Smart (Author), Frances Altorfer (Author)Hans Wehr, ''

Dictionary of Modern Written Arabic ''A Dictionary of Modern Written Arabic'' (originally published in German language, German as 'Arabic dictionary for the contemporary written language'), also published in English as ''The Hans Wehr Dictionary of Modern Written Arabic'', is a tra ...

'' (transl. of ''Arabisches Wörterbuch für die Schriftsprache der Gegenwart'', 1952) Phonetic notes: * and occur mostly in borrowings from Persian, and may be assimilated to or in some speakers. * is heard in borrowings of non-Arabic languages. * is the pronunciation of // in Baghdad Arabic and the rest of southern Mesopotamian dialects. *The gemination of the flap /ɾ/ results in a trill /r/.

References

Sources

* Kees Versteegh, et al. ''Encyclopedia of Arabic Language and Linguistics'', BRILL, 2006. * *

Phonology

Vowels

Consonants

See also

References

Sources

Further reading