The Arabic Dialect of Baqa al-Gharbiyya Aspects of Phonology and Morphology

Abstract

This paper is a study in Arabic dialectology. It describes the structure of the Palestinian Arabic spoken today by the residents of Baqa al-Gharbiyya and analyzes the charecteristics of this dialect's phonology and morphology.

For the purpose of the study we recorded a native Arab Muslim informant, a fifty-one year old woman, whose speech reflects the local dialect. In addition, we recorded another Muslim informant, a forty-nine year old woman, who lives in Baqa al-Gharbiyya but who was born in Acre. The two women were recorded in order to compare their speech.

The purpose of this paper is thus to examine a dialect that has not beed studied so far and to describe its features and any unique characteristics it may possess.