On phonological variations in Kafrelsheikh Egyptian Arabic

Abstract

This study attempts a close investigation of areal variation in the major phonological features of the Egyptian Arabic spoken in the agrarian northern region of Kafrelsheikh (KEA): their contexts and patterns. Targeting old, rural speech, a survey of all the localities is conducted through recordings of natural speech and a questionnaire. The instrumentally investigated phonological variables in KEA include major allophonic variants, and some typical instances of assimilation, dissimilation, metathesis, sound addition and sound deletion. Most instances of variation in the present data prove to be linguistically conditioned. Analysis shows that the differences between the dialect areas do not involve all the previous variants. KEA roughly seems to have five speech areas, with each enjoying intra-variation and comprising many relic features. Finally, the findings are interpreted with reference to the phonological system of (Egyptian) Arabic as a whole and various models of language variation patterning.