Al-Ahsa Dialect :: Hasawi Dialect

1. INTRODUCTION. Hasawi is a variety of Arabic whose roots refer to the family of Central Semitic Languages such(prenominal)(prenominal) as Hebrew and Aramaic. The Hasawi mother tongue is spoken in the eastern part of Saudi Arabia, exactly in Al-Ahsa (Al-Hasaa) province. Therefore, the phrasal idiom of Al-Ahsa, or Hasawi (HD), is as well known as the Eastern Arabian accent mark. In fact, it is considered the dominant dialect in the area although on that point are other local dialects found in the same area, such as Badawi which is spoken by some Bedouins tribes. In 2009, the number of Hasawi speakers was estimated as 200,000 in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (Arabic, Gulf Spoken, Ethnologu, 2009).There are three reasons for selecting Hasawi for this check. First, there is little previous make water related to Hasawi even though it is considered an enormous dialect because it is expanded to other Gulf countries, such as Bahrain, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Qatar, and United Arab Emirates . Thus, HD is also spoken as a minor dialect in the previous mentioned countries so that Hasawi is sometimes called Gulf Arabic Khaliji. Secondly, the emergence of a new dialect a few years ago which is Modern Hasawi, a blend of old Hasawi and Najdi, threatens the existence of the original Hasawi in Saudi Arabia in spite of the spacious expansion of the dialect to the contiguous countries. Finally, the dialect of Al-Ahsa is seen as a humorous matter among other Saudi dialects because it is hard to understand (Bassiouney, 2010). Probably the cause of such difficulty refers to the sociolinguistic affect of non-Arabian languages, such as Farsi Persian and Turkish. However, it would be proven at the end of this paper that this unattractive dialect has unique acoustic features. Hence, the overall goal of this study is to suss out the Hasawi plosive phonemes and how they shape different allophones. This paper is divided into five main contributions the first incision is an introdu ction of the topic including an overview of the dialect the second section is a review of the literature which includes brief previous related studies the methodology used for this study is described in the third section the fourth section demonstrates the findings of this study and finally the conclusion.1.1. RESEARCH QUESTIONS.Does Hasawi dialect have various allophones of its plosive sounds? If so, what phonemes are pronounced differently? What are the phonetic facts of Hasawi allophones?1.2. phonological BACKGROUND. This part of the first section presents the inventory of Hasawi phonemes as a good reference for Results section.Al-Ahsa Dialect Hasawi Dialect1. INTRODUCTION. Hasawi is a variety of Arabic whose roots refer to the family of Central Semitic Languages such as Hebrew and Aramaic. The Hasawi dialect is spoken in the eastern part of Saudi Arabia, exactly in Al-Ahsa (Al-Hasaa) province. Therefore, the dialect of Al-Ahsa, or Hasawi (HD), is also known as the Eastern Ara bian dialect. In fact, it is considered the dominant dialect in the area although there are other local dialects found in the same area, such as Badawi which is spoken by some Bedouins tribes. In 2009, the number of Hasawi speakers was estimated as 200,000 in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (Arabic, Gulf Spoken, Ethnologu, 2009).There are three reasons for selecting Hasawi for this study. First, there is little previous work related to Hasawi even though it is considered an enormous dialect because it is expanded to other Gulf countries, such as Bahrain, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Qatar, and United Arab Emirates. Thus, HD is also spoken as a minor dialect in the previous mentioned countries so that Hasawi is sometimes called Gulf Arabic Khaliji. Secondly, the emergence of a new dialect a few years ago which is Modern Hasawi, a blend of old Hasawi and Najdi, threatens the existence of the original Hasawi in Saudi Arabia in spite of the massive expansion of the dialect to the neighboring countri es. Finally, the dialect of Al-Ahsa is seen as a humorous matter among other Saudi dialects because it is hard to understand (Bassiouney, 2010). Probably the cause of such difficulty refers to the sociolinguistic impact of non-Arabian languages, such as Farsi Persian and Turkish. However, it would be proven at the end of this paper that this unattractive dialect has unique acoustic features. Hence, the overall goal of this study is to investigate the Hasawi plosive phonemes and how they shape different allophones. This paper is divided into five main sections the first section is an introduction of the topic including an overview of the dialect the second section is a review of the literature which includes brief previous related studies the methodology used for this study is described in the third section the fourth section demonstrates the findings of this study and finally the conclusion.1.1. RESEARCH QUESTIONS.Does Hasawi dialect have various allophones of its plosive sounds? If so, what phonemes are pronounced differently? What are the phonetic facts of Hasawi allophones?1.2. PHONOLOGICAL BACKGROUND. This part of the first section presents the inventory of Hasawi phonemes as a good reference for Results section.