Emirati Arabic

Emirati Arabic: A Comprehensive Grammar offers readers a

reference tool for discovering and studying in detail the specific
dialect of Arabic spoken in the United Arab Emirates.
It covers all major areas of Emirati Arabic grammar, describing
in detail its phonological, morphological, syntactic, and semantic
systems. Each grammatical point is illustrated with numerous
examples drawn from native Emirati Arabic speakers and is
thoroughly discussed providing both accessible and linguistically
informed grammatical description.
This book is a useful reference for students of Gulf Arabic and/or
Modern Standard Arabic or other Arabic dialects with an interest
in the dialect spoken in the UAE, researchers interested in Arabic
language and linguistics as well as graduate students and scholars
interested in Arabic studies.
Tommi Tsz-Cheung Leung is Associate Professor in the Department
of Cognitive Sciences at the United Arab Emirates University.
His research specializes in syntax, phonology, typology, and
psycholinguistics.
Dimitrios Ntelitheos is Associate Professor in the Department of
Cognitive Sciences at the United Arab Emirates University. His
research interests include the investigation of morphological and
syntactic structures from a theoretical perspective, as well as their
cross-linguistic realization and their development in child language.
Meera Al Kaabi is Assistant Professor and Chair in the Department
of Cognitive Sciences at the United Arab Emirates University and
a visiting academic at New York University Abu Dhabi. Her
research interests include neurolinguistics, psycholinguistics,
language disorders, morphology, and Semitic languages.
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A Comprehensive Grammar
Tommi Tsz-Cheung Leung, Dimitrios Ntelitheos and Meera Al
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Emirati Arabic
A Comprehensive Grammar

Tommi Tsz-Cheung Leung,

Dimitrios Ntelitheos and
Meera Al Kaabi
First published 2021
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
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Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa
business
© 2021 Tommi Tsz-Cheung Leung, Dimitrios Ntelitheos and
Meera Al Kaabi
The right of Tommi Tsz-Cheung Leung, Dimitrios Ntelitheos and
Meera Al Kaabi to be identified as authors of this work has been
asserted by them in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted
or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic,
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‘To my mother Nerissa for her unconditional support,
and to Seri, my source of joy and energy.’
—Tommi
‘To Rachel, Alexi, and Lukas and to my friends,
colleagues, and students who have inspired me over
the years.’
—Dimitrios
‘To my beloved parents, who will never read this
book, and to those who inspire it.’
—Meera
 Contents

List of figures xii

List of tables xiii
Acknowledgements xvii
Abbreviations xix

Chapter 1 Introduction 1
1.1 Emirati Arabic 1
1.2 Triglossia in the UAE 4
1.3 The descriptive approach to Emirati Arabic 5
1.4 Transcription 7
1.5 Glossing 8
1.6 Abbreviations 8
Further reading 9

Chapter 2 The sounds of Emirati Arabic 10

2.1 Consonants 10
2.2 Vowels 15
Further reading 19

Chapter 3 Phonological processes 20

3.1 Feature-level processes 20
3.2 Segment-level processes 28
3.3 Suprasegmental processes and phonotactics 31
Further reading 35

Chapter 4 Morphology and word formation 36 vii

4.1 Non-linear morphological processes 36
4.2 Affixation 37
Contents 4.3 Reduplication 38
4.4 Compounding 42
4.5 Loanwords 44
4.6 Acronyms, abbreviations, and blending 47
4.7 Back formation 47
4.8 Conversion 48
Further reading 48

Chapter 5 Syntactic categories and parts

of speech 49
5.1 Nouns 49
5.2 Verbs 63
5.3 Adjectives 91
5.4 Adverbs and adverbial expressions 105
5.5 Prepositions 117
5.6 Quantification: numerals and quantifiers 131
5.7 Complementizers 157
5.8 Pronouns 161
Further reading 174

Chapter 6 The noun phrase 176

6.1 Definiteness 177
6.2 Possession 184
6.3 Appositives 194
6.4 Nominal modifiers 196
6.5 Agreement in the noun phrase 203
6.6 Demonstratives 206
6.7 Word order in the noun phrase 209
Further reading 211

Chapter 7 The verb phrase 212

7.1 The copular structure 212
7.2 State verbs 214
7.3 Experiencer verbs 215
7.4 Unergative verbs 216
7.5 Unaccusative verbs 217
7.6 Ditransitive verbs 217
7.7 Existential and possessive predicates 219
7.8 Raising predicates 220
7.9 Control verbs 223
viii 7.10 Reflexive verbs 225
7.11 Complex predicates 226
 7.12 Causative verbs 228 Contents
7.13 Passive verbs 229
7.14 Complement-taking verbs 231
Further reading 233

Chapter 8 Aspect 234

8.1 The perfective aspect 234
8.2 The imperfective aspect 237
8.3 Participles 242
8.4 Lexical aspect 244
8.5 Grammatical aspect 248
Further reading 253

Chapter 9 Mood and modality 254

9.1 Deontic modality 254
9.2 Epistemic modality 260
9.3 Dynamic modality 263
9.4 Modal adverbs 265
9.5 Verbs expressing modality 268
9.6 Evidential modality 270
9.7 Imperatives 271
9.8 Counterfactuals 273
9.9 Hortatives 275
9.10 Optatives 276
Further reading 277

Chapter 10 Negation 278

10.1 Verbal negation 278
10.2 Non-verbal predicate negation 280
10.3 The negative particle ‫ ال‬laa ‘no’ 283
10.4 The negative prefix -‫ ال‬laa- ‘not’ and -‫غير‬
ɣeer- ‘non-’ 284
10.5 Negative imperatives 284
10.6 Negative coordination 285
10.7 Negation in ellipsis 286
10.8 Negative polarity items 287
10.9 Negative concord 299
Further reading 305

Chapter 11 Word order 306 ix

11.1 Subject-verb (SV) and verb-subject (VS) 306
Contents 11.2 Subject-verb-object (SVO) 309
11.3 Double-object constructions 310
11.4 Word order permutation 313
Further reading 321

Chapter 12 Relative clauses 322

12.1 Restrictive relative clauses 322
12.2 Nonrestrictive relative clauses 326
12.3 Free relative clauses 326
12.4 Noun complement clauses 330
Further reading 331

Chapter 13 Questions 332

13.1 Yes-no questions 332
13.2 Wh-questions 340
13.3 Echo questions 350
13.4 Embedded questions 353
13.5 Rhetorical questions 356
13.6 Exclamatives 359
Further reading 360

Chapter 14 Subordination 361

14.1 Temporal clauses 361
14.2 Reason clauses 370
14.3 Purpose clauses 371
14.4 Conditional clauses 372
14.5 Concessive clauses 377
14.6 Other subordinators 380
14.7 Parentheticals 380
Further reading 381

Chapter 15 Coordination 382

15.1 Conjunction ‫ و‬w-/wa ‘and’ 382
15.2 Agreement in coordination 388
15.3 Fixed expressions formed by ‫ و‬w-/wa 389
15.4 Pragmatic uses of ‫ و‬w-/wa 393
15.5 Informal use of ‫ و‬w-/wa 394
15.6 ‫ بس‬bas ‘but’ 395
15.7 Disjunction ‫ واال‬wəlla ‘or’ 398
x 15.8 ‫ أو‬ʔaw ‘or’ 401
15.9 -‫ ف‬fa- ‘and then/so’ 402
 15.10 Contrastive coordinator ‫ أما‬ʔamma ‘as for’ 402 Contents
15.11 Comparative coordinator ‫ عن‬ʕan ‘than’ 403
15.12 Negative coordinator ‫ مب‬mub ‘not’ 404
15.13 Correlatives in coordination 405
15.14 Paratactic coordination 408
Further reading 409

Chapter 16 Ellipsis 410

16.1 Gapping 410
16.2 Stripping 411
16.3 NP ellipsis 412
16.4 VP ellipsis 415
16.5 PP ellipsis 417
16.6 Clausal ellipsis 417
16.7 Comparative deletion 418
16.8 Sluicing 420
Further reading 422

Chapter 17 Interjections 423

17.1 Primary interjections 423
17.2 Borrowed interjections 436
17.3 Secondary interjections 437
Further reading 439

Chapter 18 Speech conventions 440

18.1 Politeness 440
18.2 Terms of address 456
18.3 General honorific terms 457
18.4 Trendy language 461
Further reading 464

Glossary of terms 465

References 481
Index 491

xi
 Figures

1.1 Gulf Arabic and the Arabian Peninsula 3

1.2 Dialects spoken in the United Arab Emirates 4
2.1 Vowels of Emirati Arabic 16
3.1 The pitch pattern for penultimate stress 33
13.1 The intonation pattern for declarative sentences 333
13.2 The intonation pattern for yes-no questions 335
13.3 The intonation pattern for wh-questions 344

xii
 Tables

1.1 Correspondences between Arabic letters and IPA

symbols in transcription 7
2.1 International Phonetic Alphabets (IPA) chart
for consonants of Emirati Arabic 11
2.2 Consonants of Emirati Arabic 11
3.1 Place assimilation 21
4.1 Examples of morphological derivations in
Emirati Arabic 37
4.2 Forms of verbal inflections in Emirati Arabic 38
4.3 Other morphological inflections in Emirati
Arabic 38
4.4 Prefixes and circumfixes of imperfective verbs 39
4.5 Suffixes of perfective verbs 39
4.6 Loanwords in Emirati Arabic 45
4.7 Loanwords in Emirati Arabic 46
5.1 Masculine and feminine nouns 49
5.2 Masculine plural paradigm 51
5.3 Feminine plural paradigm 51
5.4 Masculine dual paradigm 51
5.5 Feminine dual paradigm 51
5.6 Non-linear plural templates and examples 52
5.7 Ethnicity nouns 55
5.8 Unit nouns 55
5.9 Adjective-to-noun derivation 56
5.10 Agentive noun derivation 56
5.11 Instrumental noun derivation 58
5.12 Locative noun derivation 59
5.13 Result noun derivation 59
5.14 Masdar templates and examples 60
5.15 Diminutives 62 xiii
Tables 5.16 The verbal forms of MSA and Emirati Arabic 63
5.17 Defective verbs 64
5.18 Hollow verbs 65
5.19 Doubled verbs 66
5.20 Quadriliteral roots 66
5.21 Form I 68
5.22 Form II 70
5.23 Form III 72
5.24 Form V 73
5.25 Form VI 75
5.26 Form VII 77
5.27 Form VIII 78
5.28 Form IX 79
5.29 Form X 80
5.30 The perfective aspect of sound verbs 81
5.31 The perfective aspect of defective verbs
with a final /j/ or /aa/ 82
5.32 The perfective aspect of defective verbs
with an initial /ʔ/ 82
5.33 The perfective aspect of hollow verbs with
a medial /aa/ 82
5.34 The perfective aspect of hollow verbs with an
underlying /w/ 83
5.35 The perfective aspect of doubled verbs 83
5.36 The imperfective aspect of sound verbs 85
5.37 The imperfective aspect of defective verbs with
a final /j/ 86
5.38 The imperfective aspect of defective verbs with
an initial /ʔ/ 86
5.39 The imperfective aspect of defective verbs with
an initial /w/ 86
5.40 The imperfective aspect of defective verbs with
an initial /j/ 87
5.41 The imperfective aspect of hollow verbs 87
5.42 The imperfective aspect of doubled verbs 88
5.43 The imperfective aspect of quadriliteral
verbs 88
5.44 The irrealis modality prefix -‫ ب‬b- 90
5.45 The negative prefix -‫ ما‬maa- ‘not’ 90
5.46 Derivation of adjectives from nouns 98
5.47 Adverbs of time 106
5.48 Adverbs of place and direction 107
5.49 Adverbs of manner 108
xiv 5.50 Adverbs of degree 109
5.51 Adverbs of frequency 113
5.52 Adverbs of speech act 115
 5.53 Simple prepositions 119 Tables
5.54 Complex prepositions 123
5.55 Cardinal numerals 132
5.56 Ordinal numerals 141
5.57 Fractions 145
5.58 Quantifiers 147
5.59 The complementizer ‫ انه‬ʔənn(ah) ‘that’ 158
5.60 The complementizer ‫ جنه‬ʧannah ‘as though’ 160
5.61 Free pronouns in Emirati Arabic 162
5.62 Bound pronoun suffixes in Emirati Arabic 164
5.63 Pronoun suffixes of subordinators 167
5.64 Pronoun suffixes of complementizers 169
5.65 Possessive pronouns 172
5.66 Demonstrative pronouns 173
6.1 Semantic relations expressed by the construct
state 187
7.1 Experiencer verbs 215
7.2 Unergative verbs 216
7.3 Unaccusative verbs 217
7.4 Ditransitive verbs 218
7.5 Control verbs 224
7.6 Reflexive verbs 226
7.7 Common verbs used in complex predicates 227
7.8 Causative verbs 228
7.9 Complement-taking verbs 231
8.1 Stative verbs 245
8.2 Activity verbs 246
8.3 Achievement verbs 247
8.4 Accomplishment verbs 247
9.1 Deontic modal auxiliaries 254
9.2 Epistemic modal auxiliaries 261
9.3 Dynamic modal verbs and adjectives 263
9.4 Modal adverbs 266
9.5 Verbs expressing modality 268
9.6 Optative constructions 277
12.1 Wh-words for free relatives 327
14.1 Temporal subordinators 361
15.1 Fixed expressions formed by ‫ و‬w-/wa 390
15.2 Fixed expressions formed by ‫ واال‬wəlla ‘or’ 400
17.1 Primary interjections 424
17.2 Secondary interjections 438
18.1 Conventional expressions of appreciation 445
18.2 Terms of honorifics 458
18.3 Kinship terms for consanguineous family xv
members 459
18.4 Kinship terms through marriage 460
Tables 18.5 Kinship terms for step-siblings and step-parents 461
18.6 Kinship terms for foster siblings and parents
(with breast-feeding) 461
18.7 Trendy expressions 462

xvi
 Acknowledgements

The idea to compile a comprehensive grammar of Emirati Arabic

dates back to 2007 when Tommi Leung and Dimitrios Ntelitheos
first set foot in Al Ain, the ‘garden city’ of the United Arab Emir-
ates, as Assistant Professors of Linguistics. During course material
preparation for the undergraduate linguistics courses offered to
the (mostly Emirati) Arabic students, they noticed that almost all
‘Arabic’ examples used in teaching materials were dismissed by
the students as ‘unnatural’ or ‘utterly formal.’ To their surprise,
although the situation had slightly improved after incorporating
several examples from ‘Gulf Arabic’ grammars, students still dis-
missed particular usage as ‘non-Emirati,’ with a strong ‘Iraqi’ or
‘Kuwaiti’ flavor. This feedback from their students confirmed the
existence of an Emirati-specific variety of Arabic, which had more
or less been established and mostly agreed upon by Emirati speak-
ers. Given the paucity of reliable language sources for the purpose
of teaching and research, the need was felt for a comprehensive
description of Emirati Arabic as a largely uniform spoken vari-
ety. Many hours of consultation with native speakers of Emirati
Arabic followed, along with the collection of a one-million-word
Emirati Arabic corpus, a labor which began in 2010 (Halefom
et al., 2013). The team was later joined by Meera Al Kaabi, an
alumna of the UAEU who finished her PhD studies in Linguistics
at New York University. She brought a native speaker’s perspec-
tive to the process and helped lay the foundations for the present
volume.
We would like to express our gratitude to the continuous assis-
tance from the following colleagues, research assistants, and
students at the United Arab Emirates University and elsewhere,
without whom this grammar would never have been completed:
Eiman Al Ahbabi, Salama Al Dhahri, Noor Al Hashmi, Souad Al xvii
Helou, Fatima Al Kaabi, Sara Alkamali, Mariam Alneyadi, Hind
Acknowledge- Alnuaimi, Haya Alsayegh, Maryam Alsereidi, Fatima Al Shamsi,
ments Fatma Al Suwaidi, Abeer Bader, Uhood Bahr, Fatima Boush, Ali
Idrissi, Meriem Madi, Wafa Mubarak, Mariam Omar, Mariam
Poolad, Sara Qahtani, and Bakhita Raeisi. In particular, Fatima
Boush, Souad Al Helou, Meriam Madi, Mariam Omar, and Bakh-
ita Raeisi deserve additional acknowledgment for undertaking the
painstaking task to proofread all examples and descriptions.
In addition, we express our gratitude for the continuous support
from the College of Humanities and Social Sciences at UAEU
and our colleagues in the Department of Cognitive Sciences (Lin-
guistics). We also thank the reviewers and Editorial Board of the
Routledge Comprehensive Grammars Series, especially Andrea
Hartill and Claire Margerison for their support in the publication
process, and Ellie Auton for her editorial assistance.
We hope that Emirati speakers cherish this comprehensive
description of their ‘dialect’ as a highly convergent language vari-
ety which deserves the attention of both a general and academic
readership. However, we conclude with a word of caution: all
living languages/dialects are subject to change. This is especially
true for Emirati Arabic, as the UAE is a cultural and financial
hub, which facilitates contact between people from all over the
Gulf region and beyond, fueling a linguistic koineization process.
Therefore, this comprehensive grammar offers just a snapshot of
the language spoken within the UAE at the beginning of the 21st
century. We can only hope that continuous research engagement
with this language variety will maintain an accurate reflection of
the dynamicity of its transformation in the future.
Tommi Leung
Dimitrios Ntelitheos
Meera Al Kaabi
Al Ain, July 2020

xviii
Abbreviations

adj adjectival
caus causative
du dual
EA Emirati Arabic
e.o each other
f feminine
imp imperative
imperf imperfective
lnk linking particle
m masculine
MSA Modern Standard Arabic
part participle
pass passive
perf perfective
pers person
pl plural
poss possessive particle
refl reflexives
sg singular
s.o someone
s.th something
var phonological variant
// phoneme/morpheme
[] actual pronunciation

xix
 Chapter 1

Introduction

1.1 Emirati Arabic

This book is a comprehensive grammar of Emirati Arabic, the

variety of Arabic spoken in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
The Arabic dialect spoken in the wider area around the Arabic
Gulf is known as Gulf Arabic (‫ خليجي‬khaliji in Arabic). Gulf Ara-
bic is classified as an Afro-Asiatic, Semitic, Central South Ara-
bic language. It belongs to the Semitic language subgroup which
also includes languages such as Hebrew, Aramaic, and Amharic.
Semitic languages form part of the larger Afro-Asiatic family of
languages, which includes the Chad, Cushitic, and Berber lan-
guages, all spoken in territories within North Africa.
Gulf Arabic is a kind of accepted koine, an educated ‘standard’
dialect which has emerged through contact between several smaller,
mutually intelligible colloquial varieties spoken in areas within and
around both shores of the Gulf, including Kuwait, Saudi Arabia,
Bahrain, Qatar, UAE, and parts of Oman, Iran, and Iraq. Gulf
Arabic is a widely accepted term in Arabic dialectology, designat-
ing it as a separate dialect within the Arabic dialect spectrum. The
current edition of Ethnologue (Eberhard et al., 2020), an author-
itative database with statistics on all languages in the world, lists
Gulf Arabic as the main Arabic dialect spoken by the majority of
nationals in the UAE, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, and in small areas
in Saudi Arabia, Oman, southern Iran, and Iraq. The Ethnologue
further classifies Gulf Arabic into smaller, named varieties. These
include the varieties of Gulf Arabic spoken in Kuwait (Gulf Arabic,
Kuwaiti), Qatar (Gulf Arabic, Qatari), Bahrain (Bahraini Gulf Ara-
bic), and pockets within Saudi Arabia (Eastern Province and Najran
region: inland from the southeast Kuwaiti border, east to the Gulf
north of Al Damman; south, near the Yemeni and Omani borders),
Oman (Omani Bedawi Arabic), Iraq (Al Basrah governorate: south 1
of Basra city, near the Gulf), Iran (Hormozgan province and nearby
Gulf islands; also Bushehr, Fars, Kerman, and Yazd provinces).
 1 This area is vast, with many differences between local varieties,
Introduction although several dialects have not been studied or described as
well as would be desirable. It is perhaps more accurate to think of
‘Gulf Arabic’ as a dialectal continuum with core similarities rather
than as a single dialect. Gulf Arabic remains a koine, but the dia-
lect allows significant variation. Early studies of the varieties of
Arabic spoken in the Arabian Peninsula describe in detail the dif-
ferent regional sub-dialects within Gulf Arabic. Johnston (1967)
refers to the varieties spoken in the region as the ‘Eastern Ara-
bian dialects,’ a subgroup within the Northern Arabian dialects,
which also include the Syro-Mesopotamian, Shammari, and Anazi
dialects. These dialects originate from the northeastern Arabian
Peninsula, the region known as Najd, and especially the tribes of
Aniza and Shammar (see Ingham, 1982; Palva, 1991; Versteegh,
1997). Gulf Arabic varieties originate from the Anazi subgroup
of dialects and includes the varieties spoken in the geographical
areas described previously. Johnstone (1967, p. 18) notes that ‘the
coastal dialects from Kuwait to Khor Fakkān1 have many more
features in common than differences, and can be clearly distin-
guished as a group from the dialects of Oman, SW Arabia, Central
Neij, S. Iraq, and the Syrian Desert.’ The map in Figure 1.1 shows
the broader region in which Gulf Arabic is used as a koine.
Oil, and later, tourism, brought financial advancement to the Gulf
region, and with them ease of communication and travel. These
in turn allowed for a greater degree of contact between differ-
ent peoples in the region, and a ‘smoothing out’ of cross-dialectal
variation. As a result a Gulf Arabic koine began to emerge among
well-educated Arabs. Holes (1990) describes a general educated
spoken variety, common in the area extending roughly from the
southern Iraqi port of Basra to Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, and the
UAE, and including the eastern region (al-Hasa) of Saudi Arabia.
However, Holes (1990, p. xi) indicates that

even in a region as ethnically and topographically homoge-

nous as the Gulf littoral, in which ancient tribal and familial
ties cut across the boundaries of the more recently established
political entities, there has always been and still remains, a
good deal of both geographically and socially based dialectal
diversity.

To the extent that this diversity has been considerably leveled

by modern travel and communication, access to education has
given Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) a greater influence on the
2
educated spoken koine. Nonetheless, speakers of the different
varieties (especially regional or administratively defined varieties)
 Emirati
Arabic

Figure 1.1 Gulf Arabic and the Arabian Peninsula

continue to recognize whether individual speech belongs to their

own variety or originates from elsewhere in the region.
The term ‘Emirati Arabic’ is neither listed in the Ethnologue data-
base nor the all-encompassing Encyclopedia of Arabic Language
and Linguistics (Versteegh et al., 2006), and it is not widely used
among Arabic dialectologists. The term is occasionally used in the
linguistic literature to refer to that set of varieties specific to the peo-
ple living within the confines of the UAE, as shown in Figure 1.2.
Under this rubric, Emirati Arabic is infrequently used in linguistic
discourse that originates in academic institutions in the UAE and
the broader region. In this, Emirati Arabic refers to a group of
varieties that share core characteristics with specific phonological,
lexical, and morphosyntactic idiosyncrasies and a certain degree of
intra-dialectal variation, which is mostly geographically defined.
It incorporates grammatical properties of smaller varieties within
the UAE, mainly of tribal nature, which may be grouped roughly
3
into three broader sub-varieties: the first spoken in the Northern
Emirates of Dubai, Sharjah, Ajman, Umm al-Quwain, and part
 1
Introduction

Figure 1.2 Dialects spoken in the United Arab Emirates

of Ras al-Khaimah; the second in the eastern part of the coun-

try, mainly in the Emirate of Fujairah, the Khawr Fakkan region,
and the eastern part of Ras al-Khaimah; and the third in the Abu
Dhabi region, including the oasis city of Al Ain. The dialect spo-
ken in the Emirates is also attested in the Omani area close to the
Al Ain region. The variety spoken in the Omani territory of Al
Buraimi, across the border from Al Ain, is closely related to the
variety spoken in Al Ain in the Emirates.
Speakers of Emirati Arabic identify themselves as speakers of a
distinct variety (as compared with neighboring dialects such as
Qatari Arabic or Kuwaiti Arabic), based on several phonological,
morphological, and syntactic properties that distinguish Emirati
Arabic from other Gulf Arabic varieties.

1.2 Triglossia in the UAE

The rich linguistic diversity of the region poses difficulties in

clearly defining a distinct Emirati Arabic variety. An additional
problem stems from the widespread use of more than one lan-
guage in the UAE. While Emirati Arabic is the colloquial variety
used in everyday communication between Emirati people, more
formal contexts require the use of MSA, for instance, in education,
public speeches, Arabic literature, and Islamic studies classes, and
4 in news reports on UAE television channels such as ‫تلفزيون دبي‬
‘Dubai TV’ and ‫‘ سما دبي‬Sama Dubai.’ The extent to which MSA
is used in these contexts depends on both the occasion and the
speaker’s awareness of language register. It is not surprising to The descrip-
hear Emirati Arabic spoken in public speeches, mixed with some tive approach
high-register vocabulary or fixed expressions drawn from MSA. to Emirati
In addition, the English language has become the lingua franca Arabic
in the UAE, especially when non-Arabic speaking people are
involved in the communication. The influence of English in the
Gulf first rose with the growth of British naval power in the 19th
century. Later, in the 1960s, the British Council began to offer
English classes to students in the Gulf region. In 1991, the UAE’s
national curriculum was approved, and, since 1994–1995, the
English language has been formally taught in all grades beyond
kindergarten. To date, the numbers of weekly teaching hours for
English and Arabic are similar, and, since Grade 10, students spend
more classroom hours learning English than Arabic. The UAE’s
National Admissions and Placement Office (NAPO), established
in 1996 to oversee the transition from secondary to higher edu-
cation, requires all students applying to study abroad or attend
the three national universities (United Arab Emirates University,
Higher Colleges of Technology, and Zayed University) to take
the Common Educational Proficiency Assessment (CEPA), which
consists of an English and a mathematics examination.
The intermingling use of three languages—MSA as the ‘high’
(primarily written) variety, Emirati Arabic as the ‘low’ (spoken)
register, and English as the lingua franca for non-Arabic speak-
ing communities—constitutes a ‘triglossic’ situation. An Emirati
speaker, especially a young person, will normally converse in Emi-
rati Arabic with a friend, switch to MSA in reading an Arabic
newspaper or Arabic literature, and to English in the classroom.
This gives rise to code-switching in everyday communication (e.g.
the use of Arabic interjections in English sentences, or the use
of ‘trendy’ English expressions in Emirati Arabic). Older gener-
ations, including Emiratis and non-Emirati Arabs, are likely to
view this as a ‘bad’ form of language use.
Finally, the large expatriate population of South Asians in the UAE
since the recruitment of South Asian skilled laborers, which com-
menced in 1990, has contributed to the creation of a pidginized
Arabic which uses Arabic vocabulary inserted into grammatical
structures influenced by South Asian languages. This pidgin is
heard among the expatriates mentioned in their communicative
exchanges with native Arab speakers, including Emiratis.

1.3 The descriptive approach to Emirati Arabic

5
The present Emirati Arabic grammar follows a descriptive approach,
that is, the book aims to describe the set of rules which native
 1 speakers unconsciously manipulate when speaking in natural envi-
Introduction ronments. A descriptive grammar embodies the full language intu-
ition of native speakers as a result of years of language exposure
since their birth. This approach stands in contrast with a prescrip-
tive approach to grammar in which learners are advised to speak
and (mostly) write their language in a ‘proper’ way. The disparity
between ‘prescriptive grammar’ and ‘descriptive grammar’ is evi-
dent in many languages. In English, ‘split infinitives’ are considered
a bad practice in writing, but they are unconsciously recognized as
acceptable usage in spoken English. In Arabic, the contrast between
prescriptive and descriptive grammar is sharpened because MSA
(as a written language) is widely considered as prestigious, whereas
other spoken vernacular varieties are seen as substandard and
unsystematic. This is a misconceived view which primarily stems
from the unscientific belief that a spoken language must be paired
with a standardized writing system to be considered as standard.
While the writing system and the prescriptive grammar of MSA
remain highly valuable, the present work seeks to emphasize the
view that a comprehensive descriptive grammar such as this pro-
vides the best snapshot of the spoken Arabic produced by Emirati
speakers. The examples used in the book depict the actual usage
and intuition of the spoken language by Emirati speakers, and what
is considered as grammatical by native speakers. The data which
form the basis for this grammatical description have been drawn
from fieldwork sessions with native speakers of the language.
Thus, the grammar will be particularly useful for learners who
seek to study Emirati Arabic as a ‘live’ language, and for language
researchers from various perspectives who wish to investigate
how the language is actually used. The intended audience for this
work includes non-native speakers of Arabic who want to study
the Gulf dialect of Emirati Arabic as spoken in the touristic and
business hubs of Dubai and Abu Dhabi, as well as in the emerg-
ing centers of the rest of the Emirates. The audience additionally
includes native speakers of other Arabic dialects with an interest
in the linguistic idiosyncrasies of the Arabic dialect spoken in the
UAE. Its comprehensive coverage of Emirati Arabic grammatical
properties makes it valuable for language teachers who need a
reference tool for teaching, non-native students who study Emi-
rati Arabic as a second or foreign language, and anyone with an
interest in language studies. The work also targets scholars and
researchers of MSA who seek a better understanding of a con-
temporary spoken dialect of the language. Finally, given the thor-
ough use of current linguistic research in compiling the grammar,
6
albeit without a particular theoretical framework, the grammar
is a resource for teachers, students, and researchers working in
linguistics, linguistic theory, or typological studies of Semitic and Transcription
Afro-Asiatic languages.

1.4 Transcription

All examples in this grammar are transcribed in Arabic script and

the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). However, the use of Ara-
bic script in examples diverges at times from the standard method
for transcribing, for instance, MSA. The adopted spelling system
corresponds closely with the actual pronunciation of the variety as
commonly used by Emirati Arabic speakers, as shown in Table 1.1.

Table 1.1 Correspondences between Arabic letters and IPA symbols in

transcription

Letter IPA Example Meaning Letter IPA Example Meaning

‫ا‬ [ʔ] ʔana ‘I’ ‫ق‬ [q] lqaahǝra ‘Cairo’

[aa] ktaab ‘book’ [g] galam ‘pen’
‫ب‬ [b] baabaah ‘father’ [ʤ] tˁǝriiʤ ‘road’
‫ت‬ [t] tǝlʕab ‘she is playing’ ‫ك‬ [k] kǝriim ‘generous’
‫ث‬ [θ] θalaaθa ‘three’ [ʧ] baʕtˁiiʧ ‘I will give you’
‫ج‬ [ʤ] maʕʤuun ‘toothpaste’ ‫ل‬ [l] leeʃ ‘why’
[j] jəbal ‘mountain’ [lˤ] ʔalˤlˤa ‘God’
‫ح‬ [ħ] ħaraami ‘robber’ ‫م‬ [m] mħammad ‘Mohammed’
‫خ‬ [x] ʔaxðˁar ‘green’ ‫ن‬ [n] nʕaal ‘slipper’
‫د‬ [d] daraj ‘stairs’ ‫ه‬ [h] saagha ‘he drove it’
‫ذ‬ [ð] haaða ‘this’ ‫و‬ [w] ħəlwa ‘beautiful’
‫ر‬ [r] raaħ ‘he left’ [oo] dǝktoor ‘doctor’
‫ز‬ [z] ʕəziiz ‘Aziz’/‘dear’ [uu] maksuur ‘broken’
‫س‬ [s] sajjaara ‘car’ [aw] ʔawlaad ‘boys’
‫ش‬ [ʃ] ʃuu ‘what’ ‫ي‬ [j] waajəd ‘a lot’
[ʧ] ʧaaf ‘saw’ [ii] ʕətiiʤ ‘old’
‫ص‬ [sˤ] tsˁiiħiin ‘you are crying’ [ee] ween ‘where’
‫ط‬ [tˤ] tˁǝmaatˁ ‘tomato’ [aɪ] dbaɪ ‘Dubai’
‫ظ‬ [ðˤ] ðˤruus ‘teeth’ ‫ى‬ [aa] daraa ‘knew’
‫غ‬ [ɣ] maɣrǝfa ‘spoon’ ‫ع‬ [ʕ] ʕətiiʤ ‘old’
7
‫ف‬ [f] faatˁmah ‘Fatima’
 1 1.5 Glossing
Introduction
This grammar adopts a version of the Leipzig Glossing Rules as
its glossing system (Comrie et al., 2008). These rules comprise
an interlinear morpheme-by-morpheme glossing system which
indicates the lexical and grammatical properties of individ-
ual words and morphemes. The system is theory-neutral, with
merely the necessary information about the relevant morphemes.
All sentence examples are given in four lines. The first line is the
sentence written in Arabic script. The second presents a broad
IPA transcription, representing as closely as possible the actual
Emirati Arabic pronunciation. The third provides a morpheme-
by-morpheme gloss in English. The fourth is a free English trans-
lation. While the morphological analysis of Arabic words may
be intricate (e.g. the so-called ‘root-and-pattern’ morphological
structure), to ease the reader’s task, only linear morphemes are
glossed. The transcriptional scheme is shown in the following
example:

‫الكوفي أقوى من الشاي‬

ǝl-koofi ʔa-gwa mǝn ǝʧ-ʧaaj.
the-coffee more-strong than the-tea
‘Coffee is stronger than tea.’

1.6 Abbreviations

In glossing the different examples, standard abbreviations for

grammatical functional properties are followed but the glossing
system is simplified to improve readability (see Abbreviations).
For instance, pronouns such as ‘he’ are used instead of more
descriptive linguistic terms such as ‘3sm’ (third-person singular
masculine), and ‘the’ is used instead of ‘det’ for the determiner.
The gloss ‘they’ (and similarly for other pronouns), as in ‘meet.
perf-they,’ represents an agreement feature ‘third-person plural.’
The grammatical gender of nouns and adjectives is not explicitly
indicated unless relevant to the discussion. The glosses ‘you’ and
‘they’ are by default masculine, while ‘you.f’ and ‘they.f’ express
the feminine counterparts. Morphologically segmentable mor-
phemes are separated by a hyphen, e.g. ‘the-boy,’ and dots are
used to combine morphemes that do not possess clear boundaries,
e.g. ‘book.pl.’ We also adopt the linguistic convention in using / /
and [] to represent a phoneme/morpheme and its actual pronun-
8 ciation, respectively.
Further reading Abbreviations

For a discussion of the historical development of Gulf Arabic

dialects and how they correlate with the movement of nomadic
groups from the north into the coastal regions, see Ingham (1982),
Palva (1991), Versteegh (1997), and Holes (2007). For a detailed
discussion of the demography of Gulf Arabic, see Johnstone
(1967), Holes (1989, 1990, 2007), and Gazsi (2017). For the
original discussion of Emirati Arabic as an independent spoken
variety, see Hoffiz (1995), Mazid (2006), Blodgett et al. (2007),
and work in the EMALAC project (Ntelitheos & Idrissi, 2017).
The original discussion of ‘diglossia’ was from Ferguson (1959).
Saiegh-Haddad and Henkin (2014) has a good summary of the
diglossic situation of Arabic. For a discussion of current language
policies in the UAE, see Boyle (2012) and Al Hussein and Gitsaki
(2018) and the references therein. For information on the devel-
opment of the Gulf Arabic pidgin, see Smart (1990).
As all Emirati Arabic is written in Arabic script, readers may refer
to any Arabic grammar (e.g. MSA) for an overall description of
the pronunciation and various ligatures of Arabic letters, e.g. Bad-
awi et al. (2004), Ryding (2005), and Abu-Chacra (2007).

Note

1 A town in the Emirate of Sharjah, located along the Gulf of Oman

on the east coast of the United Arab Emirates.

9
 References
1 The comparative adjective ‫ أحسن‬ʔaħsan ‘better’ may be the only
exception to the rule.
2 The Arabic script for cardinal and ordinal numerals adopts MSA
spelling to the extent that the script and actual pronunciation can be
completely independent. This is especially true for the numerals ‫احد‬
‫ عشر‬ħidaʕʃ ‘eleven’ to ‫ تسعة عشر‬təsəʕtʕaʕʃ ‘nineteen,’ and ‫ مائة‬ʔəmja
‘hundred.’ In contrast, it is considered unusual to adopt dialectal
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3 The emergence of [tʕ] potentially stems from its historical relation
with ‫ ة‬Taa marbuta in MSA, which in general is pronounced as [-ah]
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‫‪Other references written about Emirati/Gulf Arabic in Arabic:‬‬
‫حماد‪ ،‬أحمد عبدالرحمن‪“ .‬الخصائص الصوتية فى لهجة اإلمارات العربية‪:‬‬
‫دراسة لغوية ميدانية”‪ .‬االسكندرية‪ :‬دار المعرفة الجامعية‪١٩٨٥ ،‬‬
‫عبيد‪ ،‬أحمد محمد‪“ .‬ظاهرة اإلبدال في لهجات اإلمارات العربية المتحدة”‪.‬‬
‫أبوظبي‪ :‬هيئة أبوظبي للسياحة والثقافة‪ ،‬دار الكتب الوطنية‪٢٠١٣ ،‬‬
‫عبيد‪ ،‬أحمد محمد‪“ .‬لهجات اإلمارات‪ :‬مقدمات ودراسات”‪ .‬الشارقة‪ :‬دائرة‬
‫‪.‬الثقافة واإلعالم‪٢٠٠٦ ،‬‬
‫المسلّم‪ ،‬عبدالعزيز عبدالرحمن‪“ .‬اللهجة اإلماراتية‪ :‬مدخل عام” الشارقة‪:‬‬
‫‪.‬دائرة الثقافة واإلعالم‪٢٠٠١ ،‬‬
‫حنظل‪ ،‬فالح‪ .١٩٩٨ .‬معجم األلفاظ العامية في دولة اإلمارات العربية‬
‫المتحدة‪.‬‬
‫أبوظبي‪ :‬وزارة اإلعالم والثقافة‪ ،‬اإلدارة الثقافية‬