eskandar wrote:I was surprised by how easily I could understand both of them - not that I understood everything (far from it) but usually Iraqi is damn near impenetrable for me. I think it's the coolest dialect but honestly most of the time it might as well be Chinese for me. I wonder if part of the reason you could understand this much better than the Egyptian interview you posted, aside from the fact that you're stronger in Iraqi than Egyptian, is that the Iraqis are speaking much more slowly here, and at times their language (to my ears) sounds a bit toned down, like لغة بيضة, whereas the Egyptians in that interview speak rapid-fire and in full-blown Egyptian dialect.
Yeah, definitely. Juliana's accent is definitely not a typical Iraqi one and neither is the rhythm of her speech. As far as I know, Juliana is actually from Hassakeh (Syria), so that really does explain a lot - this just sounds like a person speaking very good Iraqi Arabic with a foreign accent.
Normal Iraqi is much harder, as you say
By the way, at like 1:20 in the Iraqi interview, Juliana says "talibootha ya3ni khuTooba" and the interviewer responds "bale" like in Persian/Kurdish!?!?!?!?!??!?! (Of course, the origins of Persian بله are from classical Arabic بلی ... but I don't think this word is used this way in any other dialect!!)
Yup, Iraqi Arabic has a stronger Persian (and Kurdish) influence than most other dialects. It's true that Khaleeji dialects also have a Persian influence, but not to this extent.
The interesting thing is that Assyrian neo-Aramaic also has a strong Persian influence to a larger degree than the other Aramaic languages. I think it's just an example of how much Iran and Iraq have influenced each other over time!
Kuwaiti Arabic has lots of similarities to Iraqi (most striking is the shared "aku/maaku" for "there is/isn't" where most other dialects use "fi/mafi or mafish"), though it has been creeping closer to "general" Khaleeji over the decades.
I actually like Kuwaiti Arabic too. I've spent many Ramadans watching
Fahad al-Kandari's Youtube programs wherein he tends to vacillate between fuS7a, Kuwaiti "white dialect", and full Kuwaiti. That, along with the English subtitles, made it pretty easy for me to follow him. (Also he enunciates very clearly, doesn't always speak too quickly, and often isn't saying anything too complicated-- like in his مسافر مع القرآن series practically half the show was him listening to various randos recite the Qur'an and then saying سبحان الله. تبارك الرحمان. صوت جميل، قراءة رائعة
) Kuwaiti also seems to have a good deal of Persian and other languages in it. It blew my mind to hear the girl ask سچ؟ (from Hindi/Urdu) and the guy say خاک تو سرت (from Persian) in
this clip starting at 17:49![/quote]
Wait, "sedj" comes from Hindi/Urdu!? I always figured that it was a Kuwaiti/Bahraini/Emirati pronunciation of صدق or something, since those dialects often pronounce ق as "j" (as in a proper hard "j", not the Lebanese "zh") as in رفيق = rafij, قدام = jedam, قديم = jideem etc. That's crazy if it comes from Hindi/Urdu!!!
I wanna listen to this guy then! He sounds interesting
I used to hang out with lots of Kuwaitis and Emiratis but I haven't for a long time. This is interesting!