Varieties of Arabic
There are many varieties of Arabic (also called dialects of Arabic or vernacular languages) in existence. Arabic is a Semitic language within the Afroasiatic family that originated on the Arabian Peninsula. It is classified as a macrolanguage comprising 30 modern varieties, including its standard form. The largest divisions occur between the spoken languages of different regions. Some varieties of Arabic in North Africa, for example, are not easily comprehensible to an Arabic speaker from the Levant or the Persian Gulf. Within these broad regions further and considerable geographic distinctions exist, within countries, across country borders, even between cities and villages.
Hejazi Arabic phonology
Hejazi has eight vowel phonemes: three short , , and five long , , , and , with length as a distinctive feature, and two diphthongs and . Unlike other Arabic dialects, Hejazi did not develop allophones for the vowels and in the vicinity of emphatic consonants, and they are always pronounced as an open front or open central depending on the speaker, and retains most of the long and short vowels of Classical Arabic with no vowel reduction, though in a few number of foreign words the long is optionally pronounced .