Professor Cablyle on the Dialects of the Arabic Language, 581 



of Arabic, may undoubtedly be referred in some degree to the different 

 mode of pronouncing several of the letters — a difference more considerable, 

 I beheve, than in any other language. Thus, while a native of Baghdad 

 can discriminate completely between the j dal, the j dzal, the ^ dkad, and 

 the b dha, the Aleppine makes little distinction between the sound of the 

 i dzal, the b dha, and the j za, while he pronounces ^j, dhad, like a j dal. 

 On the other hand, the Syrian gives the sound of the j dal to all these 

 letters. Again, j in the mouth of an inhabitant of Baghdad, is a guttural 

 k, but at Aleppo it is formed by a previous click with the tongue.* ^ 

 with an Egyptian, is generally hard as g in go. c/, in some parts of Syria, 

 is sounded like our sh ; thus c^S\.< is pronounced as if it were k_^^. 

 The sound of the c am, as affected with vowels, is only discriminated, as 

 far as I have observed, by the Aleppines, and with them its several 

 sounds, when united to the kesra, dhamina, and fatha, can only be con- 

 veyed to the car. When joined to the first it is not indeed very different 

 from the sound of the French cei in their word ceil. Thus, in the word 

 which you adduce, jj^, the Aleppines pronounce as if it were aiddat, but 

 rather more in the throat. The discrepancies, however, amongst the 

 Arabian dialects, I apprehend to be chiefly occasioned by two other causes : 

 the first, an admixture of different foreign idioms, and the second an adop- 

 tion of different synonymes to express the same idea, by the different nations 

 amongst whom this far-spreading language is spoken. Thus, from the first 

 of these causes, we must expect to find a considerable number of Turkish 

 words in the dialect of Aleppo ; of Persian in that of Baghdad ; and 

 perhaps of Malayan in that of the Arabic which prevails in the vicinity of 

 the Indian ocean. From the second of these causes it happens (to take an 

 instance) that a horse is expressed in Egypt by the word ^U:^ , and in 

 Asia by J-^ ; both of which terms are pure Arabic ; both of them 

 expressing a species of horse. Now as the J^ was probably more common 

 in Asia, and the ^U:^ in Egypt, each of these terms lost, in the mouths of 

 the vulgar, its specific acceptation, and assumed a generic one ; and thus it 

 is with various other words, which at the first view appear totally dissimilar. 



• It would seem that in some parts of Africa, occupied by Arab tribes, tbe •• lias 

 the sound of g, as in tlie names of <dijj, Dongola ; jJ^, Shigre ; Jjliij fVangarah, and 

 others.-^ fr. M, 



