Bahraini Gulf Arabic

Bahraini Gulf Arabic (Arabic: لهجة بحرينية, romanized: Lahjat Baḥraynīyah) is a Gulf Arabic dialect spoken in Bahrain. It is spoken by Bahraini Sunni Arabs and is a dialect which is most similar to the urban dialect spoken in Qatar, the dialect spoken in Kuwait and Iraq.

Not to be confused with Bahrani Arabic.
Bahraini Gulf Arabic
Bahraini Sunni Arabic
Native toBahrain
Native speakers
70,000 (2019)[1]
Official status
Official language in
Not official in any country
Regulated byNot recognised as a language
Language codes
ISO 639-1none
ISO 639-3–
Glottologbahr1247

An sociolinguistic feature of Bahrain is the existence of three distinct dialects: Bahrani Arabic (a dialect primarily spoken by Baharna in Shia villages and some parts of Manama), Sunni and Ajami Arabic.[2]

In Bahrain, the Sunni muslims form a minority of the population, but the ruling family is Sunni. Therefore, the Arabic dialect represented on TV is almost invariably that of the Sunni population. Therefore, power, prestige and financial control are associated with the Sunni Arabs. This is having a major effect on the direction of language change in Bahrain.[3]

As with all Bahraini dialects, it is heavily influenced by the Persian language.

References
  1. Arabic, Gulf Spoken at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022) closed access
  2. Bassiouney, Reem (2009). "5". Arabic Sociolinguistics. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. pp. 105–107.
  3. Holes, C. (1984). Bahraini dialects: sectarian differences exemplified through texts.' Zeitschrift fur arabische Linguistik 10. pp.433–457.
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