THIS IS THE FSI SAUDI ARABIC BASIC COURSE (URBAN HIJAZI DIALECT): THIS COURSE INCLUDES THE STUDENT TEXT MANUAL AS WELL AS THE Classical Arabic - The Writing System TEXTBOOK AND THE EASTERN TO WESTERN Arabic TEXTBOOK. THERE ARE 48 UNIT LEARNING SECTIONS IN ALL WITH MP3 AUDIO INSTRUCTION THAT GOES ALONG WITH THE STUDENT TEXT MANUAL.

In 1974 in the midst of a growing U. S. interest in the Arabian Peninsula the Foreign Service Institute undertook to fill a significant gap in language learning materials: there was no convenient manual for speakers of English who wished to learn the Hijazi dialect of Saudi Arabia. Spoken natively by about two million people and understood and used by at least three million more it is the most widely understood dialect on the Arabian Peninsula There are three major groups of dialects in Saudi Arabia--Hijazi spoken on the western coast in Jidda Taif and the holy cities of Mecca and Medina; Najdi spoken in and around Riyadh in the north central part of the country; and Shargi spoken in the oil-rich eastern region. While the Najdi dialect enjoys prestige by virtue of its conservatism and relative closeness to Classical Arabic and the fact that it is the dialect of the royal family the Hijazi dialect is used throughout the country for government and commercial purposes and has become the most widely-understood dialect in the Arabian Peninsula. The Hijazi dialect is not "pure" Saudi Arabic and reflects recent borrowings from other dialects especially Egyptian Jordanian and Palestinian; for this reason sometimes one word or expression was selected from several which may be heard and sometimes alternative expressions are introduced since two or even three forms may be in frequent use. Since there is no "standard" Hijazi dialect this book reflects the dialect as spoken in Jidda. Whenever forced to choose between language usage in the other Hijazi cities and that of Jidda the Jidda usage was given preference. A few of the most common words from Najdi and from other cities are introduced for recognition and identified as such. There has also been a preference for "modern" words and structures despite the fact that this sometimes means rejecting an older more "Saudi" usage. This dialect has been designated "urban" Hijazi to distinguish it from Bedouin dialects also native to the Hijaz region.