Mesopotamian Arabic

Iraq's traditional urban dialects historically divided into two types: gilit-dialects (those that say gilit for 'I said') used by the Muslim majority and most rural populations, and qeltu-dialects (those that say qeltu) used historically by Iraqi Christian, Jewish, and some northern Muslim communities. The qeltu varieties preserve more conservative features. Migration and demographic change in the 20th and 21st centuries have weakened this split in many cities.

Iraq, where it's the everyday spoken language across most of the country. Substantial Mesopotamian Arabic communities also exist in southwestern Iran (especially Khuzestan), eastern Syria (Deir ez-Zor and the Euphrates valley), southeastern Turkey (Mardin and surroundings, with conservative qeltu dialects), and Kuwait (with overlap into Gulf Arabic). Diaspora populations in the United States, Europe, and Australia have grown significantly through 21st-century migration.

Aramaic substrate (the dominant language of Mesopotamia before Arabic arrived in the 7th century), Persian (long Iranian political and cultural influence), Turkish (centuries of Ottoman administration), and Akkadian (very ancient substrate). The result is layers of loanwords and grammatical patterns that distinguish Iraqi Arabic from Levantine, Egyptian, Gulf, and other varieties to its west, north, and south.

Iraqi Arabic is intelligible to speakers of other Arabic varieties with some adjustment — generally more transparent than Maghrebi but less universally understood than Egyptian. The unique vocabulary layers and prosody mark Iraqi Arabic as immediately recognizable, and most Arabic speakers outside Iraq can follow Iraqi conversation only after some media exposure.

When written informally — in social media, scripted dialogue, or song lyrics — Iraqi Arabic uses the same Arabic abjad as MSA, with spelling conventions that aren't fully standardized. Most published writing in Iraq uses MSA, with Iraqi colloquial appearing in scripted dialogue, popular song lyrics, and online communication.