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. I have heard learned men of Syria
express their ignorance of many Bedouin terms used by tribes in the
interior of the Desert, especially the Aenezey, who, on the other hand,
do not comprehend certain words of the Syrian town-language; but the
wants and habits of a Bedouin are so different from those of a town-
person, that the one frequently cannot find terms to express the ideas
of the other.
As to pronunciation, the best is that of the Bedouins of Arabia, of the
Mekkans, and people of the Hedjaz; that of Baghdad and of Yemen is next
in purity. At Cairo the pronunciation is worse than in any other part of
Egypt; after which I should rank the language of the Libyan Arabs, who
have a tinge of the Moggrebyn pronunciation mixed with the Egyptian.
Then comes the Arabic spoken in the eastern and western plains of Syria,
(at Damascus, Aleppo, and on the sea-coast); then the dialect of the
Syrian mountaineers, the Druzes, and Christians; next, that of the
Barbary coast, of Tripoly, and of Tunis; and lastly, the rough
articulation of the Marocco and Fez people, which has a few sounds
different from any other, and is subdivided into several dialects.
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