Peninsular Arabic

Peninsular Arabic is the group of Arabic varieties spoken throughout the Arabian Peninsula, including dialects of Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Oman, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, southern Iran, southern Iraq and Jordan, with roughly 77 million speakers as of the 2018 to 2023 period. Within the Semitic branch of Afroasiatic its position runs from West Semitic through Central Semitic and Arabic down to Peninsular Arabic itself, and its modern dialects are considered closer to Classical Arabic than Arabic varieties spoken elsewhere, retaining archaic features such as nunation along with most classical syntax and vocabulary. Scholars divide the group into a southwestern sedentary set of dialects covering South Arabia and the Persian Gulf coast and a central-eastern set tracing back to Bedouin tribal migrations from the peninsula's interior, with named varieties including Yemeni, Hejazi, Najdi, Dhofari, Gulf and Bahrani Arabic.