My first exposure to Bedouin dialect was when I stayed with a Bedouin family in the Empty Quarter near the Yemeni-Saudi-Omani border.

A Bedu Family living at the edge of the Empty Quarter

At the time I had lived in Sana’a for about ten months, but my MSA was still shaky and I had no exposure to other dialects besides Sana’ani and its variants spoken in the northern and western highlands of Yemen. Needless to say I didn’t understand much the first couple of days, but as soon as I figured out that they pronounce jeem as ya, things got better. Through long sitting sessions over bitter coffee, I learned some words and expressions, but was far from being able to understand any conversation not spoken directly at me. The family members were illiterate and had no exposure to mass media, so my attempt to communicate with them using either MSA or Sanani dialect, the only dialect I knew at the time, was hit-and-miss. In the subsequent years I went back to the same area two more times and noticed that I was able to understand more and more until I could have daily conversations without any problems.

Here are more photos from my trips to the Empty Quarter: Part 1 and Part 2

Ramadan is the time when EVERY Arabic TV channel debuts multiple TV series in every dialect available out there: Syrian, Egyptian, Saudi, Kuwaiti, Emarati, Bedouin, Moroccan, Yemeni, and even Classical Arabic. Most were produced with low budget stretched to fill the 30-episode time slot, but a few were gems. During Ramadan last year, I followed an excellent Kuwaiti show called “Mother of the Daughters”, a history show about early Muslims in Classical Arabic called “Kept His Promise”, and a Bedouin show called “A Cup of Blood”. If you know me, you know I love desert, camels, and nomads. A Bedouin show has just the right elements to get me hooked. Unfortunately, I was not able to follow the show during Ramadan because of frequent power cuts, and I’ve been wanting to know the rest of the story. I was told that unlike other Bedouin series, this one was based on actual events that took place in the Al Noofuth desert in Saudi Arabia at the beginning of the nineteenth century. The other day I stumbled upon a DVD set that has all 30 episodes at a random music store. I bought it right away; now I’m watching one or two episodes a day, and will finish the whole series in a month or so.

The actors and actresses are Saudis, Jordanians, and Syrians. I don’t think any of them, except the extras, are actual Bedu, but in the show they all spoke Bedouin dialect, a close relative of Hijaz and Gulf Arabic. There are claims that Bedouin dialect is the closest to MSA with very little foreign influence. True or not, it certainly is one of the hardest to understand. Bedu, real or actors, tend to talk really fast and string words together. This video is a short clip taken from the beginning of Finjan Addam (a Cup of Blood.) I transcribed the dialogue and translated it into MSA and English in order to give you a flavor of a very different dialect. If you already know MSA or another dialect, listen once before you read the transcript and see how much you can understand. If you are a beginner or are thinking about learning Arabic, I certainly don’t recommend that you start with Bedouin dialect. Bedu are such endangered species these days, you won’t be able to find anyone to practice with.

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