Hejazi Arabic

Hejazi Arabic or Hijazi Arabic (HA) (حجازي, ), also known as West Arabian Arabic, is a variety of Arabic spoken in the Hejaz region in Saudi Arabia. Strictly speaking, there are two main groups of dialects spoken in the Hejaz region, one by the urban population, originally spoken mainly in the cities of Jeddah, Mecca, Medina and partially in Ta'if and another dialect by the urbanized rural and bedouin populations. However, the term most often applies to the urban variety which is discussed in this article.

In antiquity, the Hejaz was home to the Old Hejazi dialect of Arabic recorded in the consonantal text of the Qur'an. Old Hejazi is distinct from modern Hejazi Arabic, and represents an older linguistic layer wiped out by centuries of migration, but which happens to share the imperative prefix vowel /a-/ with the modern dialect.

Classification
Also referred to as the sedentary Hejazi dialect, this is the form most commonly associated with the term "Hejazi Arabic", and is spoken in the urban centers of the region, such as Jeddah, Mecca, and Medina. With respect to the axis of bedouin versus sedentary dialects of the Arabic language, this dialect group exhibits features of both. Like other sedentary dialects, the urban Hejazi dialect is less conservative than the bedouin varieties in some aspects and has therefore shed some Classical forms and features that are still present in bedouin dialects, these include gender-number disagreement, and the feminine marker -n (see Varieties of Arabic). But in contrast to bedouin dialects, the constant use of full vowels and the absence of vowel reduction plus the distinction between the emphatic letters $⟨ض⟩$ and $⟨ظ⟩$ is generally retained.

Innovative features

 * 1) The present progressive tense is marked by the prefix بـ  or قاعد  or جالس  as in بيدرس  or قاعد يدرس  or جالس يدرس  ("he is studying").
 * 2) The future tense is marked by the prefix حـ  as in حيدرس  ("he will study").
 * 3) the internal passive form, which in Hejazi, is replaced by the pattern (اَنْفَعَل, يِنْفَعِل ) or (اَتْفَعَل , يِتْفَعِل ).
 * 4) Loss of the final  sound in the 3rd person masculine singular pronoun ـه. For example, بيته  ("his house"), أعرفه  ("I know him"), قالوه  ("they said it"), عليه  ("on him") and شفناه  ("we saw him") vs. شفنا  ("we saw").
 * 5) loss of gender-specificity in numbers except for the number "one" which is واحد m. and وحدة f..
 * 6) The pronunciation of the interdental letters $⟨ث⟩$ ,$⟨ذ⟩$, and $⟨ظ⟩$. (See Hejazi Arabic Phonology)
 * 7) loss of gender-specificity in plural verb forms, e.g. يركبوا instead of masculine يركبون  and feminine يركبن.
 * 8) loss of gender-specificity in plural adjectives, e.g. طفشانين "bored" can be used to describe both feminine and masculine plural nouns.
 * 9) The verb forms V, VI and IIQ have an additional initial $⟨ا⟩$, e.g. اتْكَسّر "it shattered" (V), اتْعامَلَت  "she worked" (VI) and اتْفَلْسَفوا  "they babbled" (IIQ).

Conservative features

 * 1) Hejazi Arabic does not employ double negation, nor does it append the negation particles -sh to negate verbs: Hejazi ما أَعْرِف  ("I don't know"), as opposed to Egyptian معرفش  and Palestinian بعرفش.
 * 2) The habitual present tense is not marked by any prefixes as in يِدْرُس ("he studies") and أحبك  ("I love you"), as opposed to Egyptian بيدرس  and بحبك.
 * 3) The prohibitive mood of Classical Arabic is preserved in the imperative: لا تروح  ("don't go").
 * 4) The possessive suffixes are generally preserved in their Classical forms. For example, بيتكم  "your (pl) house".
 * 5) The plural first person pronoun is نِحْنَ  or إحنا, as opposed to حنّا  or إنّا.
 * 6) When indicating a location, the preposition في  (also written as a prefix فِـ) is preferred to بـ  as in في المدينة or فالمدينة  ("in Medina").
 * 7) The pronunciation of the $⟨ض⟩$ is as in Modern Standard Arabic as in الرياض  ("Riyadh").
 * 8) The hamzated verbs like أخذ  and أكل  keep their classical form as opposed to خذا  and كلى.
 * 9) The use of  in form 1 verbs is retained as in قُلْت, شُفْت  and نُطْق  as opposed to ,  and  in Najdi and Gulf dialects.
 * 10) The glottal stop can be added to final syllables ending in a vowel as a way of emphasising.
 * 11) the definite article الـ is always pronounced as opposed to Egyptian or Kuwaiti  and the final ـة is always pronounced.
 * 12) Compared to neighboring dialects, urban Hejazi retains most of the short vowels of Classical Arabic with no vowel reduction or ghawa syndrome, for example:
 * سَمَكَة ("fish"), as opposed to ,
 * ضَرَبَتُه ("she hit him"), as opposed to.
 * وَلَدُه ("his son"), as opposed to.
 * عَلَيَّ ("on me"), as opposed to.
 * جيبَنَا ("our pocket") and عيلَتِي  ("my family"), as opposed to Najdi  and  and Egyptian  and.
 * عِنْدَكُم ("in your possession" pl.), as opposed to Najdi, Egyptian , and Levantine.

History
The Arabic of today is derived principally from the old dialects of Central and North Arabia which were divided by the classical Arab grammarians into three groups: Hejaz, Najd, and the language of the tribes in adjoining areas. Though the modern Hejazi dialects has developed markedly since the development of Classical Arabic, and Modern Standard Arabic is quite distinct from the modern dialect of Hejaz. Standard Arabic now differs considerably from modern Hejazi Arabic in terms of its phonology, morphology, syntax, and lexicon, such diglossia in Arabic began to emerge at the latest in the sixth century CE when oral poets recited their poetry in a proto-Classical Arabic based on archaic dialects which differed greatly from their own.

Urban Hejazi Arabic belongs to the western Peninsular Arabic branch of the Arabic language, which itself is a Semitic language. It includes features of both urban and bedouin dialects given its development in the historical cities of Jeddah, Medina and Mecca in proximity to the bedouin tribes that lived on the outskirts of these cities, in addition to a minimal influence in vocabulary from other urban Arabic dialects and Modern Standard Arabic, and more recently the influence of the other dialects of Saudi Arabia, all of which made Urban Hejazi a dialect that is distinctly unique but close to peninsular dialects on one hand and urban Arabic dialects on the other.

Historically, it is not well-known in which stage of Arabic the shift from the Proto-Semitic pair qāf and  gīm came to be Hejazi  gāf and jīm $⟨ج, ق⟩$, although it has been attested as early as the eighth century CE, and it can be explained by a chain shift * →  →  that occurred in one of two ways:

* The original value of Proto-Semitic qāf was probably an emphatic not.
 * 1) Drag Chain: Proto-Semitic gīm  palatalized to Hejazi jīm  first, opening up a space at the position of, which qāf * then moved to fill the empty space resulting in Hejazi gāf , restoring structural symmetrical relationships present in the pre-Arabic system.
 * 2) Push Chain: Proto-Semitic qāf * changed to Hejazi gāf  first, which resulted in pushing the original gīm  forward in articulation to become Hejazi jīm, but since most modern qāf dialects as well as standard Arabic also have jīm, then the push-chain of qāf to gāf first can be discredited, although there are good grounds for believing that old Arabic qāf had both voiced  and voiceless  as allophones; and later on the gīm  was fronted to jīm , possibly as a result of pressure from the allophones.

The development of to  have also been observed in languages like Azeri in which the Old Turkic  is pronounced as a velar ; e.g. قال / qal 'to stay, remain' is pronounced, rather than  as in Turkish or  in Bashkir, Uyghur, Kazakh, etc.

Phonology
In general, Hejazi native phonemic inventory consists of 26 (with no interdental ) to 28 consonant phonemes depending on the speaker's preference, in addition to the marginal phoneme. Furthermore, it has an eight-vowel system, consisting of three short and five long vowels. Consonant length and Vowel length are both distinctive and being a Semitic language the four emphatic consonants are treated as separate phonemes from their plain counterparts.

The main phonological feature that differentiates urban Hejazi from other peninsular dialects in regards to consonants; is the pronunciation of the letters $⟨ث⟩$ ,$⟨ذ⟩$, and $⟨ظ⟩$ (see Hejazi Phonology) and the pronunciation of $⟨ض⟩$ as in Standard Arabic. Another differential feature is the lack of palatalization for the letters ك, ق and ج , unlike in other peninsular dialects where they can be palatalized in certain positions e.g. Hejazi جديد 'new'  vs. Gulf Arabic  and Hejazi عندك 'with you'  vs. traditional Najdi.

The marginal /ɫ/ is only used in the word الله 'God' /aɫːaːh/ (except when it follows an as in بسمِ الله ) and in words derived from it, It contrasts with /l/ in والله 'I swear' /waɫːa/ vs. ولَّا 'or' /walːa/. Unlike other neighboring dialects; is not velarized in certain positions, as in عقل 'brain' pronounced with a light Lām  in Hejazi and velarized one  in other peninsular Arabic dialects. Two additional foreign sounds ⟨پ⟩ and  ⟨ڤ⟩ are used by a number of speakers while many substitute them with  ⟨ب⟩ and  ⟨ف⟩ respectively, in general  is more integrated and used by more speakers than.

A conservative feature that Hejazi holds is the constant use of full vowels and the absence of vowel reduction, for example قلنا لهم 'we told them', is pronounced in Hejazi with full vowels but pronounced with the reduced vowel  as  in Najdi and Gulf Arabic, in addition to that, the absence of initial consonant cluster (known as the ghawa syndrome) as in بَقَرة 'cow', قَهْوة 'coffee', نِعْرِف 'we know' and سِمْعَت 'she heard' which are pronounced, ,  and  respectively in Hejazi but , ,  and  in other peninsular dialects.

Consonants
Phonetic notes:
 * the affricate $⟨ج⟩$ and the trill  $⟨ر⟩$ are realised as a  and a tap  respectively by a number of speakers or in a number of words.
 * the phonemes $⟨غ⟩$ and  $⟨خ⟩$ can be realised as uvular fricatives  and  in few instances.
 * the reintroduced phoneme $⟨ث⟩$ is used as an alternative phoneme, while most speakers merge it with  or  depending on the word.
 * the reintroduced phoneme $⟨ذ⟩$ is used as an alternative phoneme, while most speakers merge it with  or  depending on the word.
 * can be analyzed as an alternative phoneme for $⟨ظ⟩$, while most speakers pronounce it distinctly as or merge it with  $⟨ض⟩$ depending on the word.
 * $⟨ن⟩$ has the velar allophone, which occurs before stop velars $⟨ق, ك⟩$ as in انكب  ('it spilled') and مِنقَل  ('brazier') and  is an allophone before $⟨ف⟩$  as in قُرُنْفُل  ('clove') which is pronounced.
 * due to the influence of Modern Standard Arabic, has been introduced as an allophone of  $⟨ق⟩$ in some words and phrases especially in the scientific and religious fields as in اقتصاد ('economy') which is phonemically  but can be pronounced as  or  depending on the speaker, although older speakers prefer  in all positions.
 * Word-Initial and other clusters like  occur only in loanwords and they are not considered to be a single phoneme but a cluster of two, e.g.  ⟨ت⟩ and  ⟨ش⟩ as in تْشِيلي  ('Chile'). This cluster has merged with  in earlier loanwords that are more integrated e.g. شَيَّك  ('he checked’) from English check. The cluster also occurs phonetically in native words affected by syncope when connected, e.g. لا تِشِيلِي  ('don't lift') pronounced  or.

Vowels
Phonetic notes:
 * and are pronounced either as an open front vowel  or an open central vowel  depending on the speaker, even when adjacent to emphatic consonants, except in some words such as ألمانيا  ('Germany'), يابان  ('Japan') and بابا  ('dad') where they are pronounced with the back vowel.
 * and are pronounced as true mid vowels  and  respectively.
 * short (also analyzed as ) is pronounced allophonically as  or less likely  in word initial or medial syllables e.g. أخت  ('sister') and مشط  ('comb') and strictly as  at the end of words e.g. شافوا  ('they saw') or before  as in هُوَّ  ('he') or when isolate.
 * short (also analyzed as ) is pronounced allophonically as  or less likely  in word initial or medial syllables e.g. إسلام  ('Islam') and قسم  ('section') and strictly as  at the end of words e.g. عندي  ('I have') or before  as in هِيَّ  ('he') or when isolate.
 * the close vowels can be distinguished by tenseness with and  being more tense in articulation than their short counterparts  and, except at the end of words where they are all tense even in loanwords, e.g. شِكاقو  ('Chicago') which is less likely to be pronounced.
 * The diphthongs:, , e.g. يِوْقَف  ('he stops') and  e.g. بيقول  ('he's saying') (also pronounced  for emphasis) are not considered as separate phonemes.

Monophthongization
Most of the occurrences of the two diphthongs and  in the Classical Arabic period underwent monophthongization in Hejazi, and are realized as the long vowels  and  respectively, but they are still preserved as diphthongs in a number of words which created a contrast with the long vowels, ,  and. Not all instances of mid vowels are a result of monophthongization, some are from grammatical processes قالوا 'they said'  →  قالوا لها  'they said to her' (opposed to Classical Arabic  قالوا لها ), and some occur in modern Portmanteau words e.g. ليش  'why?' (from Classical Arabic لأي  'for what' and شيء  'thing').

Vocabulary
Hejazi vocabulary derives primarily from Arabic Semitic roots. The urban Hejazi vocabulary differs in some respect from that of other dialects in the Arabian Peninsula. For example, there are fewer specialized terms related to desert life, and more terms related to seafaring and fishing. Loanwords are uncommon and they are mainly of French, Italian, Persian, Turkish and most recently of English origins, and due to the diverse origins of the inhabitants of Hejazi cities, some loanwords are used by only some families. Some old loanwords are fading or became obsolete due to the influence of Modern Standard Arabic and their association with lower social class and education, e.g. كنديشن "air conditioner" (from English Condition) was replaced by Standard Arabic مكيّف.

Most of the loanwords tend to be nouns e.g.  "Bicycle",   "balcony" and   "shrimp", and sometimes with a change of meaning as in:   "overpass" from Turkish  originally meaning "bridge" and وَايْت  "water tanker truck" from English  and   "shoe" from Turkish  originally meaning "boot", loaned verbs which are less common include   "to hack" from English "" and   "to agitate" from French "" or English "".

Words that are distinctly of Hejazi origin include دحين or  "now", إيوه  "yes", إيش  "what?", أبغى  "I want", ديس  "breast" (used with the more formal صدر ), فهيقة  "hiccup", and قد  or قيد  "already", Other general vocabulary includes ندر  "to leave" with its synonyms خرج  and طلع, زهم  "to call over" with its synonym نادى  and بالتوفيق  "good luck". (see vocabulary list)

Portmanteau
A common feature in Hejazi vocabulary is portmanteau words (also called a blend in linguistics); in which parts of multiple words or their phones (sounds) are combined into a new word, it is especially innovative in making Interrogative words, examples include:
 * إيوه (, "yes"): from إي (, "yes") and و (, "and") and الله (, "god").
 * معليش (, is it ok?/sorry): from ما (, nothing) and عليه (, on him) and شيء (, thing).
 * إيش (, "what?"): from أي (, "which") and شيء (, "thing").
 * ليش (, "why?"): from لأي (, for what) and شيء (, "thing").
 * فين (, where?): from في (, in) and أين (, where).
 * إلين (, "until"): from إلى (, "to") and أن (, "that").
 * دحين ( or, "now"): from ذا (, "this") and الحين (, part of time).
 * بعدين (, later): from بعد (baʕd, after) and أَيْن (ʔayn, part of time).
 * علشان or عشان ( or, "in order to"): from على (, "on") and شأن (, "matter").
 * كمان (, "also"): from كما (, "like") and أن (, "that").
 * يلّا (, come on): from يا (, "o!") and الله (, "god").
 * لسّة or لسّا or لِسَّع ( or, not yet, still): from للساعة (, "to the hour") also used as in لِسّاعه صغير ("he is still young")

Numerals
The Cardinal number system in Hejazi is much more simplified than the Classical Arabic A system similar to the German numbers system is used for other numbers between 20 and above: 21 is واحد و عشرين which literally mean ('one and twenty') and 485 is أربعمية و خمسة و ثمانين  which literally mean ('four hundred and five and eighty').

Unlike Classical Arabic, the only number that is gender specific in Hejazi is "one" which has two forms واحد m. and وحدة f. as in كتاب واحد ('one book') or سيارة وحدة  ('one car'), with كتاب being a masculine noun and سيّارة a feminine noun.


 * for 2 as in 'two cars' 'two years' 'two houses' etc. the dual form is used instead of the number with the suffix ēn or tēn  (if the noun ends with a feminine ) as in كتابين  ('two books') or سيّارتين  ('two cars'), for emphasis they can be said as كتابين اثنين or سيّارتين اثنين.
 * for numbers 3 to 10 the noun following the number is in plural form as in أربعة كتب ('4 books') or عشرة سيّارات  ('10 cars').
 * for numbers 11 and above the noun following the number is in singular form as in:-
 * from 11 to 19 an ـر [ar] is added to the end of the numbers as in أربعطعشر كتاب ('14 books') or احدعشر سيّارة  ('11 cars').
 * for 100s a [t] is added to the end of the numbers before the counted nouns as in ثلثميّة سيّارة ('300 cars').
 * other numbers are simply added to the singular form of the noun واحد و عشرين كتاب ('21 books').

Subject pronouns
In Hejazi Arabic, personal pronouns have eight forms. In singular, the 2nd and 3rd persons differentiate gender, while the 1st person and plural do not. The negative articles include لا as in لا تكتب  ('do not write!'), ما  as in ما بيتكلم  ('he is not talking') and مو  as in مو كذا  ('not like this')

Verbs
Hejazi Arabic verbs, as with the verbs in other Semitic languages, and the entire vocabulary in those languages, are based on a set of three, four, or even five consonants (but mainly three consonants) called a root (triliteral or quadriliteral according to the number of consonants). The root communicates the basic meaning of the verb, e.g. ' 'to write', ' 'to eat'. Changes to the vowels in between the consonants, along with prefixes or suffixes, specify grammatical functions such as : Hejazi has two grammatical number in verbs (Singular and Plural) instead of the Classical (Singular, Dual and Plural), in addition to a present progressive tense which was not part of the Classical Arabic grammar. In contrast to other urban dialects the prefix (b-) is used only for present continuous as in بِيِكْتُب "he is writing" while the habitual tense is without a prefix as in أَحُبِّك  "I love you" f. unlike بحبِّك in Egyptian and Levantine dialects and the future tense is indicated by the prefix (ħa-) as in حَنِجْري  "we will run".
 * Two tenses (past, present; present progressive is indicated by the prefix (bi-), future is indicated by the prefix (ħa-))
 * Two voices (active, passive)
 * Two genders (masculine, feminine)
 * Three persons (first, second, third)
 * Two numbers (singular, plural)

Regular verbs
The most common verbs in Hejazi have a given vowel pattern for past (a and i) to present (a or u or i). Combinations of each exist:

According to Arab grammarians, verbs are divided into three categories; Past ماضي, Present مضارع and Imperative أمر. An example from the root ' the verb katabt/ ʼ a'ktub'' 'i wrote/i write' (which is a regular sound verb):

While present progressive and future are indicated by adding the prefix (b-) and (ħa-) respectively to the present (indicative) :


 * The verbs highlighted in silver sometimes come in irregular forms e.g. حبيت (ħabbē)-t "i loved", حبينا (ħabbē)-na "we loved" but ّحب (ħabb) "he loved" and حبُّوا (ħabb)-u "they loved".
 * additional final ا to ـوا  in all plural verbs is silent.
 * The Active Participles قاعد, قاعدة and قاعدين  can be used instead of the prefix بـ [b-] as in قاعد اكتب  ('i'm writing') instead of بأكتب  or بكتب  ('i'm writing') without any change in the meaning. The active participles جالس , جالسة  and جالسين  are used in the same way.
 * The past tenses of the verbs قعد ('he sat/remained') or جلس  ('he sat') can be used before present verbs to express a past continuous tense which is similar to the English usage of "kept" as in قعد يكتب عنه  ('he kept writing about him').
 * A way of emphasizing the past tense is by adding the verbs قام ('he stood') or راح  ('went') and its derivatives before the past verbs which is similar to the English usage of "went", as in قام جري له  ('he went and ran to him') and راح كتب عنه  ('he went and wrote about him').
 * the 3rd person past plural suffix -/u/ turns into -/oː/ (long o) instead of before pronouns, as in راحوا  ('they went') → راحوا له  ('they went to him'), or it can be originally an -/oː/ as in جوا  ('they came') and in its homophone جوه  ('they came to him') since the word-final 3rd person masculine singular pronoun ـه is silent.
 * word-final hollow verbs have a unique conjugation of either or, if a verb ends in ـي  in its past simple form as in نسي nisi 'he forgot' (present ينسى yinsa 'he forgets') it becomes نسيت nisīt 'I forgot' and نسيت nisyat 'she forgot' and نِسْيوا nisyu 'they forgot'. While if the verb ends in ـى or ـا  in its past simple form as in شوى šawa 'he grilled' (present يشوي yišwi 'he grills') it becomes شَويت šawēt 'I grilled' and شَوَت šawat 'she grilled and شَووا šawu 'they grilled'. Most of these verbs correspond to their Classical Arabic forms like رضي, دعا, صحي, لقي, and سقى but some exceptions include بكي biki 'he cried', جري jiri 'he ran', مشي miši 'he walked' and دري diri 'he knew' as opposed to the Classical بكى baka, جرى jara, مشى maša, درى dara.

Example: katabt/aktub "write": non-finite forms

Active participles act as adjectives, and so they must agree with their subject. An active participle can be used in several ways:
 * 1) to describe a state of being (understanding; knowing).
 * 2) to describe what someone is doing right now (going, leaving) as in some verbs like رحت ("i went") the active participle رايح ("i'm going") is used instead of present continuous form to give the same meaning of an ongoing action.
 * 3) to indicate that someone/something is in a state of having done something (having put something somewhere, having lived somewhere for a period of time).

Passive Voice
The passive voice is expressed through two patterns; (اَنْفَعَل, يِنْفَعِل ) or (اَتْفَعَل , يِتْفَعِل ), while most verbs can take either pattern as in أتكتب or أنكتب  "it was written" and يتكتب  or ينكتب  "it is being written", other verbs can only have one of the two patterns as in اتوقف  "he was stopped" and يتوقف  "he is being stopped".

Adjectives
In Hejazi, adjectives, demonstratives and verbs fully agree in gender and number, e.g. ولد كبير "big boy" and بنت كبيرة  "big girl". But there are two exceptions; First, there is no agreement in dual number; e.g. بنتين "two girls" takes the plural adjective as in بنتين كبار  "two big girls". Second, and more importantly, gender agreement is syncretic in the plural, in which inanimate plural nouns take a feminine singular adjective e.g. سيارات كبيرة "big cars" instead of the plural adjective, while animate plural nouns take the plural adjective as in بنات كبار  "big girls". The plural feminine adjective كبيرات can be used as well but it is rather archaic.

Enclitic pronouns
Enclitic forms of personal pronouns are suffixes that are affixed to various parts of speech, with varying meanings:


 * To the construct state of nouns, where they have the meaning of possessive demonstratives, e.g. "my, your, his".
 * To verbs, where they have the meaning of direct object pronouns, e.g. "me, you, him".
 * To verbs, where they have the meaning of indirect object pronouns, e.g. "(to/for) me,(to/for) you, (to/for) him".
 * To prepositions.

Unlike Egyptian Arabic, in Hejazi no more than one pronoun can be suffixed to a word.


 * if a noun ends with a vowel (other than the of the feminine nouns) that is  or  then the suffix (-ya) is used as in أبو  ('father') becomes أبويَ  ('my father') but if it ends with an  then the suffix (-yya) is added as in كُرْسِيَّ  ('my chair') from كُرْسِي  ('chair').
 * the colon between the parentheses -[ː] indicates that the final vowel of a word is lengthened as in كرسي ('chair') → كرسيه  ('his chair'), since the word-final ـه [h] is silent in this position. although in general it is uncommon for Hejazi nouns to end in a vowel other than the  of the feminine nouns.
 * The indirect object pronouns are written separately from the verbs as per Classical Arabic convention, but they are pronounced as if they are fused with the verbs. They are still written separately by many writers as in كتبت له ('i wrote to him') but they can be written intact كتبتله since Hejazi does not have a written standard.

General Modifications:-


 * When a noun ends in a feminine vowel as in مدرسة  ('school') : a  is added before the suffixes as in → مدرستي  ('my school'), مدرسته  ('his school'), مدرستها  ('her school') and so on.
 * After a word ends in a vowel (other than the of the feminine nouns), the vowel is lengthened, and the pronouns in (vowel+) are used instead of their original counterparts :-
 * as in the noun كرسي ('chair') → كرسيه  ('his chair'), كرسينا  ('our chair'), كرسيكي  ('your chair' f.) and the verb لاحقنا  ('we followed') → لاحقناه  ('we followed him'), لاحقناكي  ('we followed you' feminine).
 * the indirect object pronouns رحنا ('we went') → رحنا له  ('we went to him').
 * After a word that ends in two consonants, or which has a long vowel in the last syllable, is inserted before the 5 suffixes which begin with a consonant, , , ,.
 * as in the noun كتاب ('book') → كتابها  ('her book'), كتابهم  ('their book'), كتابكم  ('your book' plural), كتابنا  ('our book') or the verb عرفت  ('you knew') → عرفتني  ('you knew me'), عرفتنا  ('you knew us'), عرفتها  ('you knew her'), عرفتهم  ('you knew them').
 * When a verb ends in two consonants as in رحت ('i went' or 'you went') : an  is added before the Indirect object pronoun suffixes →  رحت له  ('i went to him') or in كتبت  ('I wrote' or 'you wrote') becomes كتبت له  ('i wrote to him'),  كتبت لهم  ('i wrote to them').
 * the 3rd person past plural suffix -/u/ turns into -/oː/ (long o) before pronouns, as in عرفوا ('they knew') → عرفوني  ('they knew me'), راحوا  ('they went') → راحوا له  ('they went to him') or كتبوا  ('they wrote') → كتبوا لي  ('they wrote to me')

Hollow Verbs vowel shortening
Medial vowel shortening occurs in Hollow verbs (verbs with medial vowels ā, ū, ō, ē, ī) when added to Indirect object pronouns:


 * when a verb has a long vowel in the last syllable (shown in silver in the main example) as in أروح ('I go'),  يروح  (he goes) or نروح  ( '' we go'); the vowel is shortened before the suffixes as in أرُح له  (I go to him), يرح له  (he goes to him) and نرُح له  (we go to him) with the verbs resembling the Jussive (مجزوم majzūm) mood conjugation in Classical Arabic (shown in gold in the example), original forms as in أرُوح له or يروح له can be used depending on the writer but the vowels are still shortened in pronunciation.
 * This does effect past verbs as well but the form of the word does not change, as in راح rāḥ ('he went') which is pronounced راح له  ('he went to him!') after adding a pronoun.
 * Other hollow verbs include أعيد ('I repeat') or قول  ('say!') which become أعِيد لك / أعِد لك  ('I repeat for you') and قُول لها / قُل لها  ('tell her!')

Writing system
Hejazi does not have a standardized form of writing and mostly follows Classical Arabic rules of writing. The main difference between classical Arabic and Hejazi are the alternations of the Hamza, some verb forms and the final long vowels, this alternation happened since most word-final short vowels from the classical period have been omitted and most word-final unstressed long vowel have been shortened in Hejazi. Another alternation is writing the words according to the phoneme used while pronouncing them, rather than their etymology which mainly has an effect on the three letters $⟨ث⟩$ $⟨ذ⟩$ and $⟨ظ⟩$, for example writing تخين "thick, fat" instead of ثخين or ديل  "tail" instead of ذيل although this alternation in writing is not considered acceptable by many or most Hejazi speakers. The alphabet still uses the same set of letters as Classical Arabic in addition to two letters ⟨پ⟩ and ⟨ڤ⟩  which are only used in writing loanwords and they can be substituted by $⟨ب⟩$  and $⟨ف⟩$  respectively depending on the writer, in addition to that the vowels  and  which were not part of the CA phonemic inventory are represented by the letters $⟨و⟩$ and $⟨ي⟩$ respectively.

Differences Between Classical and Hejazi writing


 * Hamza $⟨ء⟩$ :
 * Initial hamza holds little phonemic value in Hejazi but it can be used as per Classical Arabic convention, e.g. أزرق "blue" or أخذ  "he took" can be written as ازرق or اخذ but long initial  is more important to indicate, e.g. آسف  "sorry" to differentiate it from اَسَف / أَسَف  "regret".
 * Medial hamza is merged with the semi-vowels $⟨ي⟩$ and $⟨و⟩$ as in رايِح "going" from رائِح  and لولو  "pearl" from لؤلؤ, or it can be completely elided as in جات  "she came" from جاءت  or جوا  "they came" from جاؤوا , but other words keep the medial hamza as in مسؤول  "responsible" and مسائل  "issues".
 * Final hamza is deleted in most Hejazi words as in غدا "lunch" from غداء, خضرا  "green" from خضراء , but some words keep the final hamza as in مُبْتَدئ  "beginner" and بطء  "slowness".
 * Added medial long vowels :
 * some words have elongated medial vowels in Hejazi as in معاك "with you" from مَعَكَ, ليك  "to you, for you" which could be from the classical َلَك  or إِلَيْك , and مين  "who" from مَن.
 * 2nd person masculine singular imperative in hollow verbs keep their long vowels as روح "go!" as opposed to classical رُح  and شوف  "see!" as opposed to classical شُف.
 * Final added $⟨ي⟩$ appears in:
 * Masculine singular imperative in final-weak verbs, as in امشي "go!, walk!" as opposed to classical امش . The classical pair امشي  (feminine) and امش  (masculine) merged into امشي  used as a masculine and feminine singular imperative verb in Hejazi.
 * 2nd person feminine singular past verbs, as in نسيتي "you forgot" as opposed to classical نَسِيتِ . The classical pair نَسِيتِ  (feminine) and نَسِيتَ  (masculine) became نسيتي  (feminine) and نسيت  (masculine).
 * Feminine possessive and object pronoun ـكي which occurs after a long vowel, as in يعطيكي "he gives you" as opposed to classical يُعْطِيكِ . The classical pair يُعْطِيكِ  (feminine) and يُعْطِيكَ  (masculine) became يعطيكي  (feminine) and يِعْطيك  (masculine).
 * Feminine pronouns, as in إنتي "you", as opposed to classical أَنْتِ . The classical pair أنْتِ  (feminine) and أنْتَ  (masculine) became إنتي  (feminine) and إنت  (masculine), but the classical form can still be used in Hejazi.
 * Innovative forms:
 * Some verb forms are innovative and differ from their classical equivalents as in the common plural verb شفتوا "you saw" pl. as opposed to classical شُفْتُم  (masculine) and شُفْتُنَّ  (feminine), or the final-weak verbs as in جِرْيوا  "they ran" as opposed to classical جَرَوْا  and the doubled verbs حبّيت  "I loved" opposed to classical حَبَبْتُ.
 * The verb forms V, VI and IIQ have an additional initial $⟨ا⟩$ before $⟨ت⟩$, so that Hejazi forms اتْفَعَّل , اتْفَاعَل and اتْفَعْلَق  correspond to classical forms تَفَعَّل , تَفَاعَل  and تَفَعْلَق , e.g. اَتْكَلَّم  "he spoke" (form V), اتْعامَلَت  "she worked" (form VI) and اتْفَلْسَفوا  "they babbled" (form IIQ).
 * Portmanteau words have the most alternatives in their spelling since they did not occur in Classical Arabic, so the word for "still" can be written لِسَّا لِسَّة or لِسَّه depending on the writer, all of these forms stemming from the classical للساعة (, "to the hour").
 * Loanwords can have multiple spellings as well, which is the case for the word "also" which can be written as بَرْضُه or بَرْضو.

Mistakes in Hejazi spelling
 * Final silent $⟨ه⟩$:
 * Writing $⟨و⟩$ instead of final pronoun $⟨ه⟩$ as in كتابه "his book" which is mistakenly written كتابو.
 * Mixing final $⟨ه⟩$ and $⟨ة⟩$ as in فتحة "opening" ( in construct state) and فتحه  "he opened it".
 * Missing the final $⟨ه⟩$ masculine pronoun which often indicates a final long vowel as عَوَّرتي "you hurt" vs. عَوَّرتيه  "you hurt him", this can cause an ambiguity for the reader as in the homophones جا  "he came" and جاه  "he came to him" if both were written mistakenly as جا.
 * Final :
 * Mixing final $⟨ا⟩$ and $⟨ى⟩$ as in the word ترى "by the way" which is mistakenly written ترا.
 * Mixing final $⟨ا⟩$ and $⟨ة⟩$ as in the word مَرَّة "time, once" which is mistakenly written مرا.
 * Adding a final $⟨ا⟩$ to final 1st person singular possessive pronoun as in عَلَيَّ "on me" written mistakenly written as عَلَيَّا even though Classical Arabic have the same form and pronunciation as in عَلَيَّ, other examples include مَعَايَ  "with me", لِيَّ  "to me", أبويَ  "my father" and فِيَّ  "in me".
 * Missing final silent $⟨ا⟩$ in plural verbs as in رَميتوا "you threw" or عَلَّقوا  "they hanged" even though this practice is no longer needed but it follows the Classical Arabic form.

The table below shows the Arabic alphabet letters and their corresponding phonemes in Hejazi:

Notes:


 * The interdental consonants:
 * $⟨ء⟩$ represents as in ثوب  & ثواب  or  as in ثابت, but the phoneme  is still used depending on the speaker's preference.
 * $⟨ب⟩$ represents as in ذيل  & ذكر  or  as in ذكي, but the phoneme  is still used depending on the speaker's preference.
 * $⟨ف⟩$ represents as in ظفر  & ظل  or  as in ظرف, but the phoneme  is still used depending on the speaker's preference.
 * words with word-medial long vowels that are pronounced short include words before the indirect object pronouns e.g. لي ,له ,لها as in عاد "he repeated" becomes عاد لهم  "he repeated to them" and رايحين له "going to him" becomes  with a shortened  or rarely, outside of this rule only few words have vowel-shortening, e.g. جاي "I'm coming" pronounced /d͡ʒaj/ or less likely /d͡ʒaːj/ which stems from classical جاءٍ.
 * $⟨ث⟩$ is silent in word-final in 3rd person masculine singular pronouns and some words, as in شفناه  "we saw him" and عِنْدُه  "he has" or the heteronym ليه pronounced  'why?' or  'for him', but it is still maintained in most other nouns as in فَواكِه  "fruits", كُرْه  "hate" and أَبْلَه  "idiot" where it is differentiated from أبلة  "f. teacher". In writing the silent $⟨ذ⟩$ helps in distinguishing minimal pairs with word-final vowel length contrast تبغي  'you want f. vs. تبغيه  'you want him f..
 * $⟨ظ⟩$ is only used at the end of words and mainly to mark feminine gender for nouns and adjectives with few exceptions (e.g. أسامة; a male noun). phonemically it is silent indicating final /-a/, except when in construct state it is a /t/, which leads to the word-final /-at/. e.g. رسالة 'message' → رسالة أحمد  'Ahmad's message'.
 * $⟨هـ⟩$ and $⟨هـ⟩$  are sometimes used to transcribe  in foreign words. $⟨ة⟩$ is especially used in city/state names as in بلغراد "Belgrade" pronounced  or, this ambiguity arose due to Standard Arabic not having a letter that transcribes  distinctively, which created doublets like كتلوق  vs. كتلوج  "catalog" and قالون  vs. جالون  "gallon". newer terms are more likely to be transcribed using the native $⟨غ⟩$ as in إنستقرام  "Instagram" and قروب  "group chat".
 * $⟨ج⟩$ is pronounced  only in few words from the two trilateral roots $⟨غ⟩$ and $⟨ق⟩$, as in ضبط ("it worked") pronounced  and not.

Rural dialects
The varieties of Arabic spoken in the smaller towns and by the bedouin tribes in the Hejaz region are relatively under-studied. However, the speech of some tribes shows much closer affinity to other bedouin dialects, particularly those of neighboring Najd, than to those of the urban Hejazi cities. The dialects of northern Hejazi tribes merge into those of Jordan and Sinai, while the dialects in the south merge with those of 'Asir and Najd. Also, not all speakers of these bedouin dialects are figuratively nomadic bedouins; some are simply sedentary sections that live in rural areas, and thus speak dialects similar to those of their bedouin neighbors.

Al-'Ula
The dialect of Al-'Ula governorate in the northern part of the Madinah region. Although understudied, it is considered to be unique among the Hejazi dialects, it is known for its pronunciation of Classical Arabic $⟨ض⟩$ as a $⟨ض ب ط⟩$  (e.g. تكذب  becomes تشذب ), the dialect also shows a tendency to pronounce long  as  (e.g. Classical ماء  becomes ميء [meːʔ]), in some instances the Classical  becomes a  as in قايلة  becomes جايلة, also the second person singular feminine pronoun  tends to be pronounced as /iʃ/ (e.g. رجلك  ('your foot') becomes رجلش.

Badr
The dialect of Badr governorate in the western part of the Madinah region is mainly noted for its lengthening of word-final syllables and its alternative pronunciation of some phonemes as in سؤال which is pronounced as سعال, it also shares some features with the general urban dialect in which modern standard Arabic ثلاجة  is pronounced تلاجة , another unique feature of the dialect is its similarity to the Arabic dialects of Bahrain.