Ṣaʽīdi Arabic (autonym: , ), or Upper Egyptian Arabic, is a variety of

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 ...

spoken by the Upper Egyptians in the area that is South/Upper Egypt, a strip of land on both sides of the

Nile The Nile (also known as the Nile River or River Nile) is a major north-flowing river in northeastern Africa. It flows into the Mediterranean Sea. The Nile is the longest river in Africa. It has historically been considered the List of river sy ...

that extends from

Aswan Aswan (, also ; ) is a city in Southern Egypt, and is the capital of the Aswan Governorate. Aswan is a busy market and tourist centre located just north of the Aswan Dam on the east bank of the Nile at the first cataract. The modern city ha ...

and downriver (northwards) to

Lower Egypt Lower Egypt ( ') is the northernmost region of Egypt, which consists of the fertile Nile Delta between Upper Egypt and the Mediterranean Sea, from El Aiyat, south of modern-day Cairo, and Dahshur. Historically, the Nile River split into sev ...

. It shares linguistic features with

Egyptian Arabic Egyptian Arabic, locally known as Colloquial Egyptian, or simply as Masri, is the most widely spoken vernacular Arabic variety in Egypt. It is part of the Afro-Asiatic language family, and originated in the Nile Delta in Lower Egypt. The esti ...

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 ...

, and the

Classical Arabic Classical Arabic or Quranic Arabic () is the standardized literary form of Arabic used from the 7th century and throughout the Middle Ages, most notably in Umayyad Caliphate, Umayyad and Abbasid Caliphate, Abbasid literary texts such as poetry, e ...

of the

Quran The Quran, also Romanization, romanized Qur'an or Koran, is the central religious text of Islam, believed by Muslims to be a Waḥy, revelation directly from God in Islam, God (''Allah, Allāh''). It is organized in 114 chapters (, ) which ...

. Dialects include Middle and Upper Egyptian Arabic. Speakers of Egyptian Arabic do not always understand more conservative varieties of Ṣaʽīdi Arabic. Ṣaʽīdi Arabic carries little

prestige Prestige may refer to: Arts, entertainment and media Films *Prestige (film), ''Prestige'' (film), a 1932 American film directed by Tay Garnett: woman travels to French Indochina to meet up with husband *The Prestige (film), ''The Prestige'' (fi ...

nationally, but it continues to be widely spoken in the South, and in the north by Southern migrants who have also adapted to

. For example, the Ṣaʽīdi

genitive In grammar, the genitive case ( abbreviated ) is the grammatical case that marks a word, usually a noun, as modifying another word, also usually a noun—thus indicating an attributive relationship of one noun to the other noun. A genitive can ...

exponent In mathematics, exponentiation, denoted , is an operation involving two numbers: the ''base'', , and the ''exponent'' or ''power'', . When is a positive integer, exponentiation corresponds to repeated multiplication of the base: that is, i ...

is usually replaced with Egyptian ''bitāʿ'', but the realisation of as is retained (normally realised in Egyptian Arabic as ). Ṣaʽīdi Arabic has various sub-dialects and varies widely between locales. Because of the tribal nature of Upper Egypt, and because some of the Upper Egyptian tribes have had links to the formal Arabic language with its proper pronunciations, or the classical Arabic language could be vividly noticed in many sub-dialects. For example, the word "" meaning "sit", is used throughout Egypt, Sudan, and the Maghreb, and continues to be widely used in Upper Egypt. Furthermore, in addition to similar pronunciation of letters with Hejazi cities such as

Jeddah Jeddah ( ), alternatively transliterated as Jedda, Jiddah or Jidda ( ; , ), is a List of governorates of Saudi Arabia, governorate and the largest city in Mecca Province, Saudi Arabia, and the country's second largest city after Riyadh, located ...

and

Mecca Mecca, officially Makkah al-Mukarramah, is the capital of Mecca Province in the Hejaz region of western Saudi Arabia; it is the Holiest sites in Islam, holiest city in Islam. It is inland from Jeddah on the Red Sea, in a narrow valley above ...

, words such as "" meaning "still" and "" meaning "wild pigeon" are in wide use in Upper Egypt. Other examples are classical words such as "" meaning "chicken", as opposed to "" that is used in Northern Egypt. Second- and third-generation Ṣaʽīdi migrants are

monolingual Monoglottism ( Greek μόνος ''monos'', "alone, solitary", + γλῶττα , "tongue, language") or, more commonly, monolingualism or unilingualism, is the condition of being able to speak only a single language, as opposed to multilingualism. ...

in Egyptian Arabic but maintain cultural and family ties to the south. The Egyptian poet Abdel Rahman el-Abnudi wrote in his native Sa'idi dialect and was the voice of the 2011 Egyptian Revolution and a prominent Egyptian nationalist.

Dialects

Behnstedt and Woidich classify the dialects of Upper Egypt into four broad groupings: # Upper Egyptian 1 — dialects spoken south of

Asyut AsyutAlso spelled ''Assiout'' or ''Assiut''. ( ' ) is the capital of the modern Asyut Governorate in Egypt. It was built close to the ancient city of the same name, which is situated nearby. The modern city is located at , while the ancient city i ...

to the region of

Luxor Luxor is a city in Upper Egypt. Luxor had a population of 263,109 in 2020, with an area of approximately and is the capital of the Luxor Governorate. It is among the List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest continuously inhabited c ...

. The ''niktib''-''níkitbu'' paradigm is dominant in this group. # Upper Egyptian 2 — dialects spoken in the bend of the Nile from

Nag Hammadi Nag Hammadi ( ; ) is a city and Markaz (administrative division), markaz in Upper Egypt. It is located on the west bank of the Nile in the Qena Governorate, about north-west of Luxor. The city had a population of close to 61,737 . History ...

to south of Qena, which have some typical Upper Egyptian features (glottalization of /ṭ/, breaking of /ē/ and /ō/, /d/ for Ǧīm, and the ''aktib''-''niktibu'' paradigm of the imperfect) but which have a syllable structure akin to Middle Egyptian dialects. # Upper Egyptian 3 — dialects spoken on the west bank of the Nile from el-Bi’irat (near

) to Esna. They are characterized by a form of umlaut, the ''gahawa''-syndrome, the plural suffix -''aw'' in the perfect and imperfect conjugation, and feminine plural pronouns/conjugations. These features indicate strong Bedouin influence. # Upper Egyptian 4 — dialects spoken south of Luxor, characterized by a ‘pure’ pronunciation of /ā/, and the presence of /a/ in the definite article, as well as some pronouns. Ǧīm is realized � In the north of the region, ''aktib''-''niktib'' or ''aktib''-''nikitbu'' paradigm is used, in the south ''niktib''-''nikitbu''.

Phonology

Consonants

Ṣaʽīdi Arabic has the following consonants:Khalafallah 1969 * may also be realised as or as , when it merges with . * is heard as in the southern Upper Egyptian dialects.Nishio 1994 * An emphatic may also have a glottalized allophone of in complementary distribution.

Vowels

* Sounds /, / appear in the Qifṭi or southern dialects. * can also be heard with an allophone of . * Vowels may also have pharyngeal (emphatic) allophones as well.

Dialects

Phonology

Consonants

Vowels

See also

References

Sources

External links