Thus They Say Zahab, [Arabic] Safar, [Arabic]Lahem, [Arabic] Matar, [Arabic] Saby, [Arabic] And Others.

The people of Yemen whom I saw at Mekka pronounced and spoke Arabic almost equally well as the Mekkans:

Those from Szanaa spoke with purity, but a harsh accent; but the Hedjazi, like the Bedouin accent, is as soft as the language will admit.

It has been said that the dialects of Arabic differ widely from each other; and Michaelis, one of the most learned orientalists, affirms that the Hedjazi is as different from the Moggrebyn dialect as Latin from Italian; and a noble Sherif traveller makes a strong distinction between Moorish and Arabic, pretending to understand the latter and not the former; and even the accurate and industrious Niebuhr seems to have entertained some erroneous notions on this subject. But my own inquiries have led me to a very different opinion. There certainly exists a great variety of dialects in Arabic; more perhaps than in other languages: but notwithstanding the vast extent of country in which Arabic prevails, from Mogador to Maskat, whoever has learned one dialect will easily understand all the others. In respect to pronunciation, whoever can spell correctly will feel little embarrasment

[p.467] from the diversity of sound, and soon become familiar with it. The same sense is often expressed by different terms; but this is applicable rather to substantive nouns than to verbs. Many words are used in one country and not in another: thus bread is called khobs in Syria, and aysh in Egypt; both terms being genuine Arabic, a language rich in synonyms: but the Syrian dialect still retains what has become obsolete in the Egyptian. From the specimen given by Niebuhr of the Egyptian and Hedjazi dialect, I could show, word by word, that there is not one provincialism in the whole. If the Egyptian says okod, and the Arabian edjles, they both use genuine Arabic words to express the same thing, one of which is more common in Arabia, the other in Egypt, when both terms are well understood by all who have mixed in the busy crowd, or have had even an ordinary education. An Englishman is justified in using "steed" for "horse;" thus the Moggrebyn calls a horse owd, the eastern Arab hoszan; but many poets use the word owd, which is at present unknown to the vulgar in Egypt. This variation of terms arose probably from the settlement of different tribes, each having their peculiar vocabulary; for it is known that Feyrouzabady compiled the materials of his celebrated Dictionary (the Kamous) by going from one tribe to another. The Arabs spreading over conquered countries took their idioms with them, but the joint-stock of the language continued known to all who could read or write.

Pronunciation may have been affected by the nature of different countries, retaining its softness in the low valleys of Egypt and Mesopotamia, and becoming harsh among the frozen mountains of Barbary and Syria. As far as I know, the greatest difference exists between the Moggrebyns of Marocco, and the Hedjaz Bedouins near Mekka; but their dialects do not differ more from each other than the German of a Suabian peasant does from that of a Saxon.

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