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Are there any modern Arabic books or writers that make extensive use of a Levantine dialect (such as Jordanian Ammiyah)? I'm thinking if there are, they would be fictional works, such as novels which portray the characters speaking in dialect as opposed to Modern Standard Arabic (MSA), as one would typically read in the newspaper/speak at a job interview. I'm not interested in material that is exclusively online, such as blogs, tweets, or other forms of social media.

I have been unable to find any studies that have analyzed the extent to which dialectical Arabic is written in popular Arabic literature across the Arab world in general, and this might thus be a question that only someone acquainted with modern Arabic literature would be able to address based on their own personal experience. Despite the fact that MSA--which is spoken in governments, in the news media, and in professional settings--can be understood by more or less everybody in the Arabic-speaking world from Morocco to Qatar, it is never spoken natively, and in fact is only categorized as a "second language" (even for all Arabic speakers) that is learnt in school (see under "language use": https://www.ethnologue.com/language/arb).

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    All language, written or otherwise, is in a dialect. Is there a particular colloquial dialect you're interested in? Something contemporary, or historical (Twain wrote in a colloquial dialect of the late 1800s, for example)? – Flimzy Jan 09 '18 at 08:20
  • Welcome to Language Learning Stack Exchange. Please be aware that this is a site for questions about learning or teaching languages. As it currently stands, it is not clear how your question is relevant to this site. – Tsundoku Jan 09 '18 at 12:15
  • @Flimzy I doubt there are such historical equivalents, because as you go back in time, the line between spoken and written Arabic slowly converges (originally it was an oral culture). I was more looking to find examples of any contemporary author who writes in any contemporary dialect--be they in the Maghreb or the Levant. – Abdullah Hussain Jan 09 '18 at 16:46
  • @ChristopheStrobbe Thanks Chris. If it wasn't clear, I'm interested in reading such books to improve my overall fluency in the language--fluency being mobility across the spectrum of forms and variations that make up a language. – Abdullah Hussain Jan 09 '18 at 16:48
  • @AbdullahHussain: Arabic has been written for centuries. Historical colloquial speech could apply to anything more than, say, 20 years old (in some narrow contexts, colloquial speech can change even faster). – Flimzy Jan 10 '18 at 07:46
  • If you are interested in a specific dialect, please specify that dialect. You may then rephrase your question as, e.g. "Books / works of literature written in [dialect X]", i.e. as a resource request. That would make the question more on topic for this site. – Tsundoku Jan 10 '18 at 13:41
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    @Abdullah Hussein, great question. I wish that Arabic section on SE took off https://area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/105382/arabic-language Add your vote there. As for myself, I have not seen books written in "ammiya". – Vitaly Jan 10 '18 at 16:06

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