Observations on Traditional Muṯallaṯ Arabic Internal Differentiation

In this paper, I show some internal variations in different areas of the Israeli Muṯallaṯ. Muṯallaṯ Arabic, first described by Jastrow (2004), is considered a unitary linguistic area within rural Muslim Palestinian Arabic. I consider here only the traditional varieties, spoken by elders over age 70. In particular, I analyse
the diverse diffusion of the loss of emphasis of */q/ and the affrication of */k/ that characterises the entire Muṯallaṯ linguistic region. Dialectal differences are also found in anaptyctic vowels, presentative forms, personal pronouns, final imāla, pausal forms, lexical items, among other features.