Variation and Change in Arabic urban vernaculars

This article acknowledged that education, social class and gender were all factors of differing uses of Modern Standard Arabic and mixed dialects, however, it states that most of these studies ignored dialectal diversity. Many of these studies were done in cities with established Educated Spoken Arabic languages, not representative of the entire Arabic world. This ignored vernaculars that have been brought by non-urban groups. This ‘Bedouin factor’ or the influence of tribal and communal affiliations is a factor. Things like idiomatic expressions, poetic devices and musical choices must all be investigated instead of just phonological variables. It also brings up youth languages, which could be analyzed as we know nothing about them in Arab cities and they are very important in other countries. This article gave me other theories about the changes and development of the Arabic language into multiple dialects. While before my reading had been mainly focused on phonological aspects, this article brought up the fact that culture is also a relevant factor.