Khuzestani Arabic

Khuzestani Arabic is a dialect of Gelet (Southern) Mesopotamian Arabic spoken by the Iranian Arabs in Khuzestan Province of Iran. Whilst being a southern Mesopotamian Arabic dialect, it has many similarities with Gulf Arabic in neighbouring Kuwait. It has subsequently had a long history of contact with the Persian language, leading to several changes. The main changes are in word order, noun–noun and noun–adjective attribution constructions, definiteness marking, complement clauses, and discourse markers and connectors.

Khuzestani Arabic is only used in informal situations. It is not taught in school, not even as an optional course, although Modern Standard Arabic is taught at a basic level for religious purposes. Almost all Khuzestani Arabic speakers are bilingual in Arabic and Persian (the official language of Iran). Khuzestani Arabic speakers are shifting to Persian; if the existing shift continues into the next generations, according to Bahrani & Gavami in Journal of the International Phonetic Association, the dialect will be nearly extinct in the near future.