Mesopotamian Arabic has two major varieties: Gelet Mesopotamian Arabic and Qeltu Mesopotamian Arabic. Their names derive from the form of the word for "I said" in each variety.[5] Gelet Arabic is a Bedouin variety spoken by Muslims (both sedentary and non-sedentary) in central and southern Iraq and by nomads in the rest of Iraq. Qeltu Arabic is an urban dialect spoken by Non-Muslims of central and southern Iraq (including Baghdad) and by the sedentary population (both Muslims and Non-Muslims) of the rest of the country.[6] Non-Muslims include Christians, Yazidis, and Jews, until most Iraqi Jews left Iraq in the 1940s–1950s.[7][8] Geographically, the gelet–qeltu classification roughly corresponds to respectively Upper Mesopotamia and Lower Mesopotamia.[9] The isogloss is between the rivers Tigris and Euphrates, around Fallujah and Samarra.[9]
During the Siege of Baghdad (1258), the Mongols killed all Muslims.[10] However, sedentary Christians and Jews were spared and northern Iraq was untouched.[10] In southern Iraq, sedentary Muslims were gradually replaced by Bedouins from the countryside.[10] This explains the current dialect distribution: in the south, everyone speaks Bedouin varieties close to Gulf Arabic (continuation of the Bedouin dialects of the Arabian Peninsula),[10][11] with the exception of urban Non-Muslims who continue to speak pre-1258 qeltu dialects while in the north the original qeltu dialect is still spoken by all, Muslims and Non-Muslims alike.[10]
Baghdadi Arabic is Iraq's de facto national vernacular, as about half of population speaks it as a mother tongue, and most other Iraqis understand it. It is spreading to northern cities as well.[13] Other Arabic speakers cannot easily understand Moslawi and Baghdadi.[13]
^Holes, Clive, ed. (2018). Arabic Historical Dialectology: Linguistic and Sociolinguistic Approaches. Oxford University Press. p. 337. ISBN978-0-19-870137-8. OCLC1059441655.
