Jordanian Arabic

Jordanian Arabic is a dialect continuum of mutually intelligible varieties of Levantine Arabic spoken by the population of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. Together with Palestinian Arabic, it has the ISO 639-3 language code "ajp", known as South Levantine Arabic.
Jordanian Arabic varieties are Semitic. They are spoken by more than 6 million people, and understood throughout the Levant and, to various extents, in other Arabic-speaking regions.
As in all Arab countries, language use in Jordan is characterized by diglossia; Modern Standard Arabic is the official language used in most written documents and the media, while daily conversation is conducted in the local colloquial varieties.
Regional Jordanian Arabic varieties.
Although there is a common Jordanian dialect mutually understood by most Jordanians, the daily language spoken throughout the country varies significantly through regions. These variants impact altogether pronunciation, grammar, and vocabulary.
The Jordanian Arabic comprises five varieties:
Pronunciation.
General remarks.
The following sections focus on modern Jordanian.
There is no standard way to write Jordanian Arabic. The sections below use the alphabet used in standard Arabic dialect studies, and the mapping to IPA is given.
Stress.
One syllable of every Jordanian word has more stress than the other syllables of that word. Some meaning is communicated in Jordanian by the location of the stress of the vowel. This is much truer than in other Western languages in the sense that changing the stress position changes the meaning (e.g. ['katabu] means "they wrote" while [katabu'] means "they wrote it"). This means one has to listen and pronounce the stress carefully.
Consonants.
There are some phonemes of the Jordanian language that are easily pronounced by English speakers; others are completely foreign to English, making these sounds difficult to pronounce.
Vowels.
Contrasting with the rich consonant inventory, Jordanian Arabic has much fewer vowels than English. Yet, as in English, vowel duration is relevant (compare /i/ in "bin" and "bean").
Note : It is tempting to consider /e/ and /i/ as variants of the same phoneme /i/, as well as /o/ and /u/. For the case of e/i, one can oppose 'ente' (you, masculine singular) to 'enti' (you, feminine singular), which makes the difference relevant at least at the end of words.
Grammar.
The grammar in Jordanian is quite the mixture. Much like Hebrew and Arabic, Jordanian is a Semitic language at heart, altered by the many influences that developed over the years.
Article definitions.
"Il-bāb" meaning "the door."
This e is pronounced as in a rounded short backward vowel or as in an "e" followed by the first letter of the word that follows the article. For example: "ed-desk" meaning "the desk", "ej-jakét" meaning "the jacket", "es-seks" meaning "the sex" or "hāda' et-téléfón" meaning "that is the telephone."
'l
Pronouns.
Note: The Modern dialect is understood by almost everyone in the country and the entire region.
Possessiveness.
Similar to ancient and modern semitic languages, Jordanian adds a suffix to a word to indicate possession.
General sentence structure.
In a sentence, the pronouns change into prefixes to adjust to the verb, its time and its actor. In present perfect and participle with a verb that starts with a consonant "Ana" becomes "ba", "Inta" becomes 'Bt', "Inti" becomes "Bıt" and so-on.
For example: The verb "ḥıb" means "to love", Baḥıb means "I love", Btḥıb means "you love", Baḥıbbo means "I love him", Bıtḥıbha means "she loves her", Baḥıbhom means "I love them", Baḥıbhālí means "I love myself".
"Qdar" is the infinitive form of the verb "can". Baqdar means "I can", I can't is "Baqdareş", adding an eş or ış to the end of a verb makes it negative; if the word ends in a vowel then a "ş" should be enough.
An in-depth example of the negation: Baqdarelhomm figuratively means "I can handle them", Baqdarelhommeş means "I cannot handle them", the same statement meaning can be achieved by "Baqdareş l'ıl homm"
Legal status and writing systems.
The Jordanian Levantine is not regarded as the official language even though has diverged significantly from Classic Arabic and Modern Standard Arabic (MSA), or even the colloquial MSA. A large number of Jordanians, however, will call their language "Arabic" while they will refer to the original Arabic language as Fusħa. This is common in many countries that speak languages or dialects derived from Arabic and can prove to be quite confusing. The writing system varies; whenever a book is published, it is usually published in English, French, or in MSA and not in Levantine. There are many ways of representing Levantine Arabic in writing. The most common is the scholastic Jordanian Latin alphabet (JLA) system which uses many accents to distinguish between the sounds (this system is used within this article). Other Levantine countries, however, use their own alphabets and transliterations, making cross-border communication inconvenient.
External Influences.
Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) is spoken in formal TV programs, and in Modern Standard Arabic classes, as well as to quote poetry and historical phrases. It is also the language used to write and read in formal situations if English is not being used. However, MSA is not spoken during regular conversations. MSA is taught in most schools and a large number of Jordanian citizens are proficient in reading and writing formal Arabic. However, foreigners residing in Jordan who learn the Levantine language generally find it difficult to comprehend formal MSA, particularly if they did not attend a school that teaches it.
Other influences include English, French, Turkish, and Persian. Many loan words from these languages can be found in the Jordanian dialects, particularly English. However, students also have the option of learning French in schools. Currently, there is a small society of French speakers called Francophone and it is quite notable in the country. The language is also spoken by people who are interested in the cultural and commercial features of France.