Sudanese Arabic
| Sudanese Arabic | |
|---|---|
| Native to | Sudan |
| Region | Sudan |
|
Native speakers
|
(17 million cited 1991) |
|
Afro-Asiatic
|
|
| Arabic alphabet | |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | |
| Glottolog | suda1236 |
Sudanese Arabic is the variety of Arabic spoken throughout Sudan. Some of the tribes in Sudan still have similar accents to the ones in Saudi Arabia.
In 1888 the Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain claimed that the Arabic spoken in Sudan was "a pure but archaic Arabic". The pronunciation of certain letters was like Hijazi, and not Egyptian, such as g being the pronunciation for the Arabic letter Qāf and J being the pronunciation for Jim.
Sudanese Arabic is distinct from Egyptian Arabic and does not share some of the characteristic properties of that dialect despite the overall similarity of the two dialects. Sudanese Arabic is more closely related to Hejazi Arabic
The Arabic letter ج maintains an archaic pronunciation [ɡʲ] in Sudanese (other dialects typically have [dʒ], [ʒ] or [j], while Egyptian Arabic has [ɡ]).
Sudanese Arabic also maintains an archaic rendering of qaf as [ɢ] (Voiced uvular plosive) while Egyptian (like some other modern Urban dialects) renders it as [ʔ]. The uvular rendering of qaf has been lost in nearly every other Arabic dialect and is also considered a relic.
Also peculiar to Sudanese is the quality of the Arabic vowel transliterated as u/ū; this is usually transliterated as o in materials on Sudanese because the sound ranges from ɵ~o rather than the typical ʊ~u.
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