Dhofari Arabic, also known as Dhofari or Zofari, is a variety of Arabic spoken around Salalah in Oman's Dhofar Governorate.[1][2] It has the ISO 639-3 language code "adf".[3]

Dhofari Arabic
Zofari Arabic
Native toOman
Speakers130,000 (2020)[1]
Arabic alphabet
Language codes
ISO 639-3adf
Glottologdhof1235
Location of Dhofari Arabic

Nomadic and sedentary communities living in the area speak Dhofari Arabic as a first language, second language, or lingua franca, with varying degrees of fluency.[4]

Phonology

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Consonants

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Labial Interdental Dental/Alveolar Palatal Velar Uvular Pharyngeal Glottal
plain emph. plain emph.
Nasal m n
Stop voiceless t k q ʔ
voiced b d ɡ
Fricative voiceless f θ s ʃ x ħ h
voiced ð ðˤ z (ʒ) ɣ ʕ
Tap ɾ
Approximant l () j w
  • [ʒ] only rarely occurs among speakers
  • [] mostly occurs in formal speech.

Vowels

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Front Back
Close i u
Mid
Open a
  • A schwa sound [ə] may also occur as a lax realization of short vowels.
Phoneme Sound/Allophones
/i/ [i], [ɪ]
/a/ [æ], [ɑ]
/u/ [u], [ʊ]
/aː/ [æː], [ɑː]

See also

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References

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  1. ^ a b Dhofari Arabic at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022)  
  2. ^ Davey 2016, Abstract.
  3. ^ "639 Identifier Documentation: adf". sil.org. Retrieved 2020-06-25.
  4. ^ MORANO, ROBERTA (October 2018). "Richard J. Daley, Coastal Dhofari Arabic: Sketch Grammar". Journal of Semitic Studies. 69 (2): 545–547. doi:10.1093/jss/fgy024.

Bibliography

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