The wonderful thing about Arabic (which I, a Caucasian American, studied for several months) is that there are so many dialects and accents, that it's often difficult to give a definitive pronunciation. A very basic example is that in Levantine Arabic (Palestine, Jordan, et. al.) the definite article ("the") is pronounced "il" and in Modern Standard Arabic it's "al". Pretty huge difference for a word so basic. One would think that Modern Standard Arabic would become just that, but because so many TV newsman are Egyptian, that is a very dominant dialect as well. Also, Levantine is a contender for the crown as well because so many Arabic pop singers are from Lebanon.