Colloquial Arabic [antikvár]

PKEFACE rriHIS manual aims at providing an easy guide to the colloquial Arabic of Egypt, Syria, and Mesopotamia. There are differences of usage and pronunciation between those several parts, but they are differences in detail, not separate languages, and there seems no good reason why they may not be treated reasonably together provided that reference is made, as here, to those differences. To a very large extent those countries have had a common cultural life with close and constant intercourse, and so the language which has served as a medium of that intercourse has a very large common factor. But we are here using " colloquial" to mean the language of ordinary speech which serves as the general medium of communication between various districts and different classes and groups of men. Beneath this common speech in general use there are many local dialects, just as there are in the various parts of England, and at first it is not always easy to understand the speech of a man who uses a dialect of marked character, a difficulty which also may happen in many parts of England. Certainly these local dialects have points of great philological interest, and are well worth accurate observation and record, but it seems fair and reasonable to treat " colloquial Arabic " as the current speech in general use amongst those who have perhaps received some measure of education, and whose intercourse is not confined to a small group of fellow villagers. In these pages, therefore, although note is frequently taken of the peculiarities of local dialects which will be heard, the aim has been, not to reproduce any one of those marked dialects in its entirety but to set