→ . Change of nisba suffix > . Certain lexical items, e.g., 'bring' < 'come with'; 'see'; 'what' (or similar) < 'which thing'; (relative pronoun). Merger of and . Dialect groups Egyptian Arabic is spoken by 67 million people in Egypt. It is one of the most understood varieties of Arabic, due in large part to the widespread distribution of Egyptian films and television shows throughout the Arabic-speaking world Levantine Arabic is spoken by about 44 million people in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Palestine, Israel, and Turkey. Lebanese Arabic is a variety of Levantine Arabic spoken primarily in Lebanon. Jordanian Arabic is a continuum of mutually intelligible varieties of Levantine Arabic spoken by the population of the Kingdom of Jordan. Palestinian Arabic is a name of several dialects of the subgroup of Levantine Arabic spoken by the Palestinians in Palestine, by Arab citizens of Israel and in most Palestinian populations around the world. Samaritan Arabic, spoken by only several hundred in the Nablus region Cypriot Maronite Arabic, spoken in Cyprus by around 9,800 people (2013 UNSD) Maghrebi Arabic, also called "Darija" spoken by about 70 million people in Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and Libya. It also forms the basis of Maltese via the extinct Sicilian Arabic dialect. Maghrebi Arabic is very hard to understand for Arabic speakers from the Mashriq or Mesopotamia, the most comprehensible being Libyan Arabic and the most difficult Moroccan Arabic. The others such as Algerian Arabic can be considered in between the two in terms of difficulty. Libyan Arabic spoken in Libya and neighboring countries. Tunisian Arabic spoken in Tunisia and North-eastern Algeria Algerian Arabic spoken in Algeria Judeo-Algerian Arabic was spoken by Jews in Algeria until 1962 Moroccan Arabic spoken in Morocco Hassaniya Arabic (3 million speakers), spoken in Mauritania, Western Sahara, some parts of the Azawad in northern Mali, southern Morocco and south-western Algeria. Andalusian Arabic, spoken in Spain until the 16th century. Siculo-Arabic (Sicilian Arabic), was spoken in Sicily and Malta between the end of the 9th century and the end of the 12th century and eventually evolved into the Maltese language. Maltese, spoken on the island of Malta, is the only fully separate standardized language to have originated from an Arabic dialect (the extinct Siculo-Arabic dialect), with independent literary norms. Maltese has evolved independently of Modern Standard Arabic and its varieties into a standardized language over the past 800 years in a gradual process