Advice to Arab speakers - difference between accent, dialect and slang
Hello to all my Arabic speaking friends and everybody else!
I am often adviced by Arabic speakers to not learn slang or an accent and focus on Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) or classical Quranic Arabic which is fine but today I would like to briefly tell you the difference between accent, dialect and slang!!!
Arabic has many varieties and these are called dialects. A dialect is the non-standard form of a language which is used by a region or social group. It can differ from the standard form of a language by its grammar, words, pronunciation etc. That's why for example Lebanese is different from Egyptian Arabic. They are different dialects.
An accent is only related to pronunciation. 2 friends from the same country and area will have the same dialect but can have different accents. Eg. They pronounce the same words differently but use the same grammar and words (vocabulary).
Slang is usually informal words or phrases usually not written and used on the streets, amongst friends, by the youth etc.
To conclude, the Arabic language has many dialects NOT accents. Speakers of each dialect can have different accents. And every language and dialect has different slang words/phrases.
So my friends, Egyptian, Saudi, Lebanese, Sudanese, Yemeni, Syrian, etc are all different DIALECTS of Arabic.
