Hijazi vs Najdi vs Egyptian Arabic

Which variety the courses are

The Hijazi book’s introduction says Saudi Arabia has three major dialect groups: Hijazi on the western coast, Najdi in the north-central area around Riyadh, and Shargi in the east. It teaches Jidda usage when cities inside the Hijaz disagreed, and it calls that form “urban” to separate it from Bedouin dialects of the same region. It says Hijazi pronunciation is variable, and that there is no standard Hijazi.

Vento’s Hijazi lessons follow that book (50 lessons). Vento also has Egyptian and Levantine courses. It does not have a Najdi course. This table does not describe Levantine. The 1975 introduction groups Palestinian with Egyptian only for one “th” sound, which is not enough to describe the Levantine course.

ق and ج

Read each cell as “what this source says”, not as a rule for every city or every age. Rajab (2021) recorded eight people reading a word list and a paragraph. Al Mahmoud (2020) used two speakers. Both are too small to settle a dialect.

One more contrast is in the Hijazi book, not in the table. For “three”, it teaches the Jidda form /talaata/. It says Classical Arabic and Najdi keep the “th”, as in /thalaatha/, and that Egyptian and Palestinian match the /talaata/ type. It also says the “th” pronunciation is still heard often in the Hijaz, so you should recognize both.

Najdi /k/ is a related note from Al Mahmoud (2020), not a ج claim: his Najdi informant could say [ts] for /k/ in some words (a bag, a dog), and the Hijazi informant kept [k]. The page leaves Najdi ج blank on purpose.

What the 1975 book says it is for

It was written for English speakers who wanted the Hijazi dialect, aimed at routine social demands and limited business requirements. The introduction’s aim after the whole book, with an instructor, is about S-2. That is the book’s sentence, not a result Vento has measured, and not the State Department’s ILR 3 figure for Arabic. If you need Cairo, use the Egyptian course. If you need Levantine, use that course. If you need Najdi, this site does not teach it.

The same introduction says the Hijazi it recorded had borrowings from Egyptian, Jordanian, and Palestinian, so the author sometimes picked one of several words in use. Treat that as a 1975 editorial note. A speaker should say whether it still describes Jeddah.

A study plan that stays inside the Hijazi book is how to learn Hijazi Arabic. The course overview is Learn Hijazi Arabic.

Modern Standard Arabic

MSA is not this course. The book says a student who reads the Arabic spelling may pronounce the word in the classical way, which is why the student text is a transcription. Arabic script in the book is marked for the instructor. Starting lesson 1 does not require an MSA textbook. Reading a newspaper later is a different task, and this page does not cover it.

Hear Hijazi lesson 1

The preview is the opening of the Hijazi course. The guest start opens those drills in the browser.

Questions