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Arabic Variant Identification Aid (AVIA)

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Overview

This invention’s entire package is called the Arabic Variant Identification Aid (AVIA). It consists of a manual of 7 colloquial Arabic dialects that describes their key linguistic features and highlights the ways in which they differ from each other, as well as from Modern Standard Arabic.

The AVIA is a reference source that is designed to help professionals working in Arabic to identify the dialects of spoken Arabic. At present it covers seven Arabic Dialects spoken in the following cities: al-Ain (United Arab Emirates), Baghdad (Iraq), Jidda (Hijaz,Saudi Arabia), Jerusalem (Palestinian Arabic), Kuwait City, al-Doha (Qatar) and Sana (Yemen). Each of these urban dialects can be used as a proxy for the types of Arabic spoken in the region or country (indicated in brackets) in which it is found.

The AVIA is divided into two major parts for convenience:
1) Quick Reference Resources, which contain comparative information on the most distinct aspects of the dialects (such as consonants and high frequency words)
2) Deep Reference Resources, which contain in depth information on all aspects of the 7 dialects.

Accompanying the linguistic description, the AVIA provides both a phonetic transcription for all Arabic texts and an equivalent transcription that uses Arabic script. Additionally, a great many of the linguistic examples provided are linked to illustrative sound cuts that were collected from authentic speech samples of the relevant dialects. The AVIA supports an HTML version as well which has additional features, such as the Arabic Dialect Map and Reference Charts.

For additional information, please contact the Office of Technology Commercialization, University of Maryland College Park, via e-mail at [email protected] or phone at 301-405-3947.

Contact Info

UM Ventures
0134 Lee Building
7809 Regents Drive
College Park, MD 20742
Email: [email protected]
Phone: (301) 405-3947 | Fax: (301) 314-9502