Investigating and documenting phonetic and phonological development in specific geographical areas of Saudi Arabia may lead to intensive research into the mechanisms of accent variation and change. It is believed that such research has lately been prompted in various areas of the world. The purpose of this study was to investigate a set of phonetic and phonological evolutions observed in North-East Saudi Arabia (NESA) and their linguistic effect and influence extended around the Arabian Peninsula north borders. This research was also concerned with variations identified not only at segmental, but also at supra-segmental level. The geographical and sociological factors of sound changes have been emphasized and identified. The area referred to as North East Saudi Arabia (NESA) includes Al-Jouf region (Sakaka and surrounding regions). This choice of location assisted in narrowing down the study of NESA accents and in comparing the data collected. The focus of this research was on four developed major linguistic phenomena. The study has interpreted and originated these phenomena emphasizing their possible relationship with the Classical Standard Arabic (SA) and Semitic languages. A semi-structured interview format based on a deep review of related literature was developed to collect data from a random sample of Sakakan people (tribal). Mix Methodology employing the descriptive and the historical approaches, to analyze and interpret these linguistic phenomena and to trace their origins and relationship with the SA and Semitic languages. Findings indicated that the relationship between the investigated phenomena and the SA was strong in certain cases and weak in others.
Keywords: Dialect, Standard Arabic; sound; Phenomena
