The region of Najd in Central Arabia has always been regarded as inaccessible, ringed by a belt of sand deserts, the Nafūd, Dahana and the Rub’ al-Khāli and often with its population at odds with the rulers of the outer settled lands. It is however the centre of a purely Arabian culture based on a partnership between bedouin camel husbandry and settled palm cultivation. Possibly as a result of overpopulation the bedouin have periodically spread over into the lands of the Fertile Crescent. Because of their isolated position the Najdi dialect is of a very interesting and archaic type showing very little non-Arabic influence, which has led to the reputation of the Arabian bedouin as preservers of the original Classical form and considerable prestige being attached to the Najdi type. Consequently the region is a powerhouse of dialect influence so that Najdi based dialects are spoken all along the Gulf Coast and throughout most of the Syrian Desert. Interest in these dialects has led to a number of recent studies of their oral literature and of the morphology and phonology. Ingham's work concentrates on the grammatical system, syntax and usage and is based on a number of trips to the region over the last fifteen years. The data base includes bedouin oral narrative, ordinary conversation and radio plays.

The region of Najd in Central Arabia has always been regarded as inaccessible, ringed by a belt of sand deserts, the Nafud, Dahana and the Rub' al-Khali and often with its population at odds with the rulers of the outer settled lands. It is however the centre of a purely Arabian culture based on a partnership between bedouin camel husbandry and settled palm cultivation. Possibly as a result of overpopulation the bedouin have periodically spread over into the lands of the Fertile Crescent. Because of their isolated position the Najdi dialect is of a very interesting and archaic type showing very little non-Arabic influence, which has led to the reputation of the Arabian bedouin as preservers of the original Classical form and considerable prestige being attached to the Najdi type. Consequently the region is a powerhouse of dialect influence so that Najdi based dialects are spoken all along the Gulf Coast and throughout most of the Syrian Desert. Interest in these dialects has led to a number of recent studies of their oral literature and of the morphology and phonology. Ingham's work concentrates on the grammatical system, syntax and usage and is based on a number of trips to the region over the last fifteen years. The data base includes bedouin oral narrative, ordinary conversation and radio plays.

This volume brings together eleven peer-reviewed articles on Arabic linguistics. The contributions fall under three areas of linguistics: Phonology and phonetics; syntax and semantics; and language acquisition, language contact, and diglossia. They reflect some various perspectives and emphases. Including data from North African, Levantine, and Gulf varieties, Standard Arabic, as well as Arabic varieties spoken in diaspora, these articles address issues that range from sibilant merging, raising, lexicalization, agreement, to diglossia, dialect contact, and language acquisition in heritage speakers. The book is valuable reading for linguists in general and for those working on descriptive and theoretical aspects of Arabic linguistics in particular.

This volume brings together ten peer-reviewed articles on Arabic linguistics. The articles are distributed over three parts: phonetics and phonology, sociolinguistics and pragmatics, and language acquisition. Including data from North African, Levantine, and Gulf varieties of Arabic, as well as Arabic varieties spoken in diaspora, these articles address issues that range from phonetic neutralization and diminutive formation to diglossia, dialect contact, and language acquisition in heritage speakers. The book is valuable reading for linguists in general and for those working on descriptive and theoretical aspects of Arabic linguistics in particular.

Have you always wanted to learn how to speak the Hijazi, Najdi, or the Gulf Arabic dialect of Saudi Arabia? Well if so, then, look no further. You can hold in your hands one of the most advanced and revolutionary method that was ever designed for quickly becoming conversational in a language. In creating this time-saving program, master linguist Yatir Nitzany spent years examining the twenty-seven most common languages in the world and distilling from them the three hundred and fifty words that are most likely to be used in real conversations. These three hundred and fifty words were chosen in such a way that they were structurally interrelated and, when combined, form sentences. Through various other discoveries about how real conversations work--discoveries that are detailed further in this book--Nitzany created the necessary tools for linking these words together in a specific way so that you may become rapidly and almost effortlessly conversant--now. If your desire is to learn complicated grammatical rules or to speak perfectly proper and precise Arabic, this book is not for you. However, if you need to actually hold a conversation while on a trip to Saudi Arabia, to impress that certain someone, or to be able to speak with your grandfather or grandmother as soon as possible, then the Nitzany Method is what you have been looking for. This method is designed for fluency in a foreign language, while communicating in the present tense. Nitzany believes that what's most important is actually being able to understand and be understood by another human being right away. More formalized training in grammar rules, etc., can come later. This is one of the several, in a series of instructional language guides, the Nitzany Method's revolutionary approach is the only one in the world that uses its unique language technology to actually enable you to speak and understand native speakers in the shortest amount of time possible. No more depending on volumes of books of fundamental, beginner, intermediate, and advanced levels, all with hundreds of pages in order to learn a language. With Conversational Arabic Quick and Easy, all you need is this book. Learn Saudi Arabic today, not tomorrow, and get started now!

The book provides a comprehensive survey of the complex agreement system of Arabic, spanning from the pre-Islami era to the present age and including both the written form of the language and its spoken varieties.

This book explores speakers’ intentions, and the structural and pragmatic resources they employ, in spoken Arabic – which is different in many essential respects from literary Arabic. Based on new empirical findings from across the Arabic world this book elucidates the many ways in which context and the goals and intentions of the speaker inform and constrain linguistic structure in spoken Arabic. This is the first book to provide an in-depth analysis of information structure in spoken Arabic, which is based on language as it is actually used, not on normatively-given grammar. Written by leading experts in Arabic linguistics, the studies evaluate the ways in which relevant parts of a message in spoken Arabic are encoded, highlighted or obscured. It covers a broad range of issues from across the Arabic-speaking world, including the discourse-sensitive properties of word order variation, the use of intonation for information focussing, the differential role of native Arabic and second languages to encode information in a codeswitching context, and the need for cultural contextualization to understand the role of "disinformation" structure. The studies combine a strong empirical basis with methodological and theoretical issues drawn from a number of different perspectives including pragmatic theory, language contact, instrumental prosodic analysis and (de-)grammaticalization theory. The introductory chapter embeds the project within the deeper Arabic grammatical tradition, as elaborated by the eleventh century grammarian Abdul Qahir al-Jurjani. This book provides an invaluable comprehensive introduction to an important, yet understudied, component of spoken Arabic.