South Mesopotamian Arabic

South Mesopotamian Arabic (Arabic:اللهجة العراقية الجنوبية,romanized:al-lahja l-ʿirāqiyya l-janūbiyya) or Marsh Arabic or commonly known as Basrawai is a variety of Mesopotamian Arabic spoken by Southern Iraqis in Basra, Maysan, Dhi Qar, Wasit and Muthanna. This dialect differs distinctly from other dialects of Iraq and features a strong Aramaic and Sumerian influence. One of the most noticeable features of South Mesopotamian Arabic is the existence of the sounds [ɡ] (< */q/), [tʃ] (< */k/), [ʒ] (< */dʒ/) and /p/.

Phonology

The following describes the sounds of the Baṣra dialect:

Consonants

• Sounds /p, pˤ/ are only heard from loanwords.
• [ɡ] is more commonly heard as the reflex of /q/ in the Baṣra dialect, whereas /q/ more commonly is heard in cultural words or names.
• /d͡ʒ/ may also be heard as a fricative [ʒ] in rural areas.

Vowels

• /i/ can be heard as [ɪ] in word-final positions. It may be pronounced as [ɨ̞] when in positions of pharyngeal consonants
• /u/ can be heard as [ʊ] in word-final positions. It may be pronounced as [o] when after pharyngealized consonants.
• /a, aː/ is typically heard as [æ, æː] when in palatal consonant environments. It is heard as [ɒ, ɒː] when in pharyngealized environments.

See also

• Varieties of Arabic
• Mesopotamian Arabic

This article incorporates by Saja Albuarabi available under the CC BY 4.0 license.