Yam (vegetable) Yam (vegetable) Yam is the common name for some plant species in the genus "Dioscorea" (family Dioscoreaceae) that form edible tubers. Yams are perennial herbaceous vines cultivated for the consumption of their starchy tubers in many temperate and tropical world regions. The tubers themselves are also called "yams", having numerous cultivars and related species. In parts of the United States and Canada, "yam" is sometimes used to refer to varieties of the unrelated sweet potato ("Ipomoea batatas"). The name, yam, appears to derive from Portuguese "inhame" or Canarian (Spain) "ñame", which derived from West African languages during trade. The main
Varieties of Arabic sedentary varieties and the rural varieties within the Arabian peninsula are even more conservative than those elsewhere. Within the sedentary varieties, the western varieties (particularly, Moroccan Arabic) are less conservative than the eastern varieties. A number of cities in the Arabic world speak a "Bedouin" variety, which acquires prestige in that context. When it comes to phonetics the Arabic dialects differ in the pronunciation of the short vowels (, and ) and a number of selected consonants, mainly , and the interdental consonants , and , in addition to the dental . Emphasis spreading is a phenomenon where is backed