What Arabic dialects are spoken in Saudi Arabia?
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The official language of Saudi Arabia is Arabic. The three main regional variants spoken by Saudis are Hejazi Arabic, Najdi Arabic, and Gulf Arabic. There are approximately 2 million Gulf Arabic speakers in Saudi Arabia, and the dialect is only spoken in the Eastern Province. The remaining Arabic speakers in the province speak one of the other two dialects, more commonly the Najdi dialect. Saudi Sign Language is the principal language of the deaf community. The large expatriate communities also speak their own languages, the most numerous of which are Indian languages, Filipino/Tagalog, Egyptian Arabic, Indonesian, Rohingya, and Urdu.Saudi Aramco, the state-owned oil producing company of Saudi Arabia, is based in Dhahran, which is located in the Eastern Province, and most decisions on oil policy and production that affect the global economy are made there. The kingdom's main oil and gas fields are mostly located in the Eastern Province, onshore and offshore. Notable among these are the Ghawar Field and the largest crude increment in the world. Petroleum from the fields is shipped to dozens of countries from the oil port of Ras Tanura and is also used as feedstock in numerous industrial plants in Jubail.
Eastern Province, Saudi Arabia
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Hejazi Arabic or Hijazi Arabic ( '), also known as West Arabian Arabic, is a variety of Arabic spoken in the Hejaz region in Saudi Arabia. Strictly speaking, there are two main groups of dialects spoken in the Hejaz region, one by the urban population, originally spoken in the major cities of Jeddah, Mecca and Medina, and another by the Bedouin or rural populations. However, the term most often applies to the urban variety which is discussed in this article.
Hejazi Arabic
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The official language of Saudi Arabia is Arabic. The three main regional variants spoken by Saudis are Hejazi Arabic (about 6 million speakers), Najdi Arabic (about 8 million speakers), and Gulf Arabic (about 0.2 million speakers). Saudi Sign Language is the principal language of the deaf community. The large expatriate communities also speak their own languages, the most numerous of which are Tagalog (700,000), Rohingya (400,000), Urdu (380,000), Egyptian Arabic (300,000), and Indonesian (250,000).
Saudi Arabia
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Historically, the Hejaz has always seen itself as separate from the rest of Saudi Arabia. The Hejaz is the most populated region in Saudi Arabia; 35% of all Saudis live there. Hejazi Arabic is the most widely spoken dialect in the region. Saudi Hejazis are of ethnically diverse origins.
Hejaz
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Peninsular Arabic, or Southern Arabic, are the varieties of Arabic spoken throughout the Arabian Peninsula. This includes the countries of Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Oman, United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Southern Iraq and the tribal people of Jordan (the native Jordanians).
Peninsular Arabic
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Gulf varieties' closest related relatives are other dialects native to the Arabian Peninsula, i.e. Najdi Arabic and Bahrani Arabic. Although spoken over much of Saudi Arabia's area, Gulf Arabic is not the native tongue of most Saudis, as the majority of them do not live in Eastern Arabia. There are some 200,000 Gulf Arabic speakers in the country, out of a population of over 30 million, mostly in the aforementioned Eastern Province.
Gulf Arabic
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Yemeni Arabic is a cluster of varieties of Arabic spoken in Yemen, southwestern Saudi Arabia, Somalia, and Djibouti. It is generally considered a very conservative dialect cluster, having many classical features not found across most of the Arabic-speaking world.
Yemeni Arabic
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The Arabs of Eastern Arabia speak a dialect known as Gulf Arabic. Most Saudis do not speak Gulf Arabic because most Saudis do not live in Eastern Arabia. There are approximately 2 million Gulf Arabic speakers in Saudi Arabia, mostly in the coastal eastern region. Before the GCC was formed in 1981, the term "Khaleeji" was solely used to refer to the inhabitants of Eastern Arabia.
Eastern Arabia
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It is claimed by some Arab authors that the dialect of Belad Ghamid and Zahran (Now known as Al Baha province in Saudi Arabia) is nearest to classical Arabic. Ahmed Abdul Ghafur Attar (Arabic : احمد عبدالغفور عطار ) has said in an article* that the language of the Hejaz (Arabic لهجات الحجاز), especially that which is spoken in Belad Ghamdi and Zahran is close to the Classical Language.
Al Bahah
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Northwest Arabian Arabic is a variety of Arabic spoken by Bedouins of the Sinai Peninsula, the Negev, southern Jordan, and the northwestern corner of Saudi Arabia. In the eastern desert of Egypt, the dialect of the Maʿāzah borders the dialect of the ʿAbābdah, who speak a dialect more closely related to Sudanese Arabic.
Northwest Arabian Arabic
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Sudanese Arabic is the most widely spoken language in the country. It is the variety of Arabic, an Afroasiatic language of the Semitic branch spoken throughout Sudan. The dialect has borrowed much vocabulary from local Nilo-Saharan languages (Nobiin, Fur, Zaghawa, Mabang). This has resulted in a variety of Arabic that is unique to Sudan, reflecting the way in which the country has been influenced by Nilotic, Arab, and western cultures. Few nomads in Sudan still have similar accents to the ones in Saudi Arabia. Other important languages include Beja (Bedawi) along the Red Sea, with perhaps 2 million speakers. It is the only language from the Afroasiatic family's Cushitic branch that is today spoken in the territory.
Sudan