Alyah ⭐️: Toward Robust Evaluation of Emirati Dialect Capabilities in Arabic LLMs

Back to Articles Alyah ⭐️: Toward Robust Evaluation of Emirati Dialect Capabilities in Arabic LLMs Team Article Published January 27, 2026 Upvote 20 +14 Omar saif alkaabi Omar-Alkaabi Follow tiiuae Ahmed Alzubaidi amztheory Follow tiiuae Hamza Alobeidli Hamza-Alobeidli Follow tiiuae Shaikha Alsuwaidi Shaikha710 Follow tiiuae Mohammed Alyafeai Alyafeai Follow tiiuae Leen AlQadi LeenAlQadi Follow tiiuae Basma Boussaha basma-b Follow tiiuae Hakim Hacid HakimHacid Follow tiiuae 📦 Dataset on HuggingFace | 🔧 Code on GitHub Arabic is one of the most widely spoken languages in the world, with hundreds of millions of speakers across more than twenty countries. Despite this global reach, Arabic is not a monolithic language. Modern Standard Arabic coexists with a rich landscape of regional dialects that differ significantly in vocabulary, syntax, phonology, and cultural grounding. These dialects are the primary medium of daily communication, oral storytelling, poetry, and social interaction. However, most existing benchmarks for Arabic large language models focus almost exclusively on Modern Standard Arabic, leaving dialectal Arabic largely under-evaluated and under-represented. This gap is particularly problematic as large language models increasingly interact with users in informal, culturally grounded, and conversational settings. A model that performs well on formal newswire text may still fail to understand a greeting, an idiomatic expression, or a short anecdote expressed in a ...