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Paul D wrote:
> 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.
Arabists (including e.g. Kaye & Rosenhouse) usually agree that Maltese
is a separate language, because of the immense Italian input, the roman
alphabet, the non-Islamic culture -- and the non-mutual-intelligibility.
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