South Mesopotamian Arabic

South Mesopotamian Arabic is a variety of Mesopotamian Arabic spoken in the southern cities of Iraq, such as Basra, Di Qar, and Najaf. This dialect is also spoken in parts of Iran and Kuwait. It is also known as (Sharkawiya) which means the dialect of East Iraq. This dialect is characterized by reduction and switching /k/ to /g/ or /ch/ sound in many cases. Most of the farmers in Basrah province tend to turn the sound /k/ to /dh/ because it is hard for them to pronounce the /k/ sound. Also, this dialect is famous for using the word "cha" which means "so" in MSA.^[1] The origin of the word "cha" is the Aramaic word "ka" which gives the same meaning and is used in the same way, especially before verbs. This word is still used in Aramaic poems. People who speak this dialect tend to speak it fast, and for that reason sometimes it is hard to understand some of the words used by them, especially in the rural locales.^{[citation needed]}

See also[]

• Varieties of Arabic
• Mesopotamian Arabic

References[]

 This article incorporates text by Saja Albuarabi available under the CC BY 4.0 license.