Re: Varieties of Arabic

[Paul D]

On 2006-08-17 20:57:23 +0900, "Dr. Jamshid Ibrahim" 
<Jdibrahim@xxxxxxxxxxxx> said:

> I understand it is not that easy to classify the many varieties of
> Arabic but it is still useful for orientation.I would like now to make
> the following proposal (subject to change):
>
>
>
> 1. Middle East
> - Mesopotamian          Iraq / Kuwait
> - Levantine:                    Syria / Lebanon / Jordan / Palestine
> - Arabian Peninsular:           Saudi Arabia / UAE / Bahrain
> - Yemen& Oman               Yemen / Oman
>
> 2. Africa
> - Egyptian:                     Egypt, Sudan, Libya
> - North African (Maghreb)       Algeria / Morocco / Tunisia
>   West Arabian
>
> - African                               Mauritania, West Sahara
>                                                 Somalia, / Djibouti?,
> Eritrea?
>                                                 Chad?

What about Malta? Maltese is an Arabic dialect, albeit with a lot of 
borrowing from Sicilian.