Arabic vs. Arabic is a comparative reference book that examines Modern Standard Arabic alongside fourteen regional colloquial dialects: Moroccan, Algerian, Tunisian, Sudanese, Egyptian, Palestinian, Jordanian, Lebanese, Syrian, Iraqi, Qatari, Bahraini, Saudi (Hejazi), and Yemeni Arabic.
The book presents vocabulary, grammar, and expressions in side-by-side tables organized by linguistic themes such as common nouns, social expressions, grammatical structures, and time. Additional features include linguistic and cultural notes, native-speaker survey results on dialect perception and mutual intelligibility, and examples illustrating how formal Arabic vocabulary appears in spoken sentence structures. Special orthographic symbols are used to represent dialect-specific pronunciation.
Side-by-side comparison of 15 Arabic varieties
Coverage of Modern Standard Arabic and major regional dialects
Thematic organization by vocabulary and grammar
Native-speaker survey insights on intelligibility and perception
Identification of regional foreign loanwords
Space for learner annotations and observations
The book is intended for learners of all levels and can be used alongside the study of Modern Standard Arabic, a spoken dialect, or both. Audio is included for all dialect samples.