Gulf Arabic

Gulf Arabic ( ' or ', ) is a variety of the Arabic language spoken in Eastern Arabia around the coasts of the Persian Gulf in Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, as well as parts of eastern Saudi Arabia (Eastern Province), southern Iraq (Basra Governorate and Muthanna Governorate), and by some Iranian Arabs and northern Oman.
Gulf Arabic can be defined as a set of closely related and more or less mutually intelligible varieties that form a dialect continuum, with the level of mutual intelligibility between any two varieties largely depending on the distance between them. Similarly to other Arabic varieties, Gulf Arabic varieties are not completely mutually intelligible with other Arabic varieties spoken outside the Gulf. The specific dialects differ in vocabulary, grammar and accent. There are considerable differences between, for instance, Kuwaiti Arabic and the dialects of Qatar and the UAE—especially in accent, that may hinder mutual intelligibility.
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.
Name.
The dialect's full name ' ( ) can be translated as 'the dialect of the gulf'. However, it is most commonly referred to as Khaliji ( ' ), in which the noun (; "") has been suffixed with the Nisba, literally meaning 'of the bay' or 'of the gulf'.
Phonology.
Consonants.
Phonetic notes:
The differences in the phonology of the Arabic dialect group of the Persian Gulf, compared to Modern Standard Arabic, are following:
Vowels.
Following vowel chart applies to the Gulf Arabic dialect continuum:
 stipulates at least two qualities of : He further explains that these qualities also apply to , so that ⁓⁓ can therefore be assumed.
Elsewhere in the article, the open central vowels are written without the diacritic for the sake of simplicity.
Morphology.
Pronouns.
Gulf Arabic has 10 personal pronouns. The conservative dialect has preserved the gender differentiation of the 2nd and 3rd person in the plural forms, whereas dual forms have not survived. The following table bears the generally most common pronouns:
Some pronouns, however, have other (less frequent, resp. local) forms: