Yāfiʿī Arabic

Yāfiʿī Arabic is a group of closely related Arabic dialects spoken in the Yāfiʿ district of the Lahij governate in Yemen, in the historical territories of the sheikhdoms of Upper (al-ʿUlyā) and Lower (al-Suflā) Yāfiʿ. Unlike most neighboring dialects the varieties of Yāfiʿ belong to the so-called "k-dialect" grouping, meaning that the second person perfect suffixes retain the /-k/ found in the Sayhadic, Afrosemitic, and Modern South Arabian languages as opposed to the /-t/ found in most Arabic dialects. Before the 1990's the dialects of historical Upper and Lower Yāfiʿ had not been described and thus a number if their features that are seen as distinct from neighboring varieties had been overlooked by previous surveys.