Guttural R
Many Jewish immigrants to Israel spoke a variety of Arabic in their countries of origin and pronounced the Hebrew rhotic as an alveolar tap , similar to Arabic '. Gradually, many of them began pronouncing their Hebrew rhotic as a voiced uvular fricative , a sound similar or (depending on the Arabic dialect) identical to Arabic '. However, in modern Sephardic and Mizrahi poetry and folk music an alveolar rhotic continues to be used.
Baghdad Jewish Arabic
Baghdad Jewish Arabic (and Baghdadi Christian Arabic) resemble the dialect of Northern Iraq, and more distantly that of Syria, rather than the Baghdad Arabic spoken by the Muslims. The Muslim dialect is classified as a "gilit" dialect (from their pronunciation of the Arabic word for "I said") while the others are "qeltu" dialects. Another resemblance between Baghdad Jewish Arabic and North Mesopotamian Arabic is the pronunciation of "ra" as a uvular. This peculiarity goes back centuries: in medieval Iraqi Judaeo-Arabic manuscripts the letters "ra" and "ghayn" are frequently interchanged. It is thought that the "qeltu" dialects represent the older Arabic dialect of Mesopotamia while the "gilit" dialect is of Bedouin origin. Another factor may be the northern origins of the Jewish community of Baghdad after 1258 (see below under History). Like Northern Mesopotamian and Syrian Arabic, Jewish Baghdadi Arabic shows some signs of an Aramaic substrate. Violette Shamosh records that, at the Passover Seder, she could understand some of the passages in Aramaic but none of the passages in Hebrew.