Male national dress

The national dress for Omani men is a simple, ankle-length, collarless gown with long sleeves called the dishdasha. Underneath the dishdasha, a plain piece of cloth covering the body is worn from the waist down. Omani men may wear a variety of head dresses. The mussar is a square of finely woven woollen or cotton fabric, wrapped and folded into a turban. Underneath this, the kummah, an intricately embroidered cap, is sometimes worn.

Culture

Although Arabic is Oman's official language, there are native speakers of different dialects, as well as Balochi (the language of the Baloch from western-Pakistan and eastern Iran), or offshoots of Southern Arabian, a Semitic language only distantly related to Arabic, but closely related to Semitic languages in Eritrea and Ethiopia. Swahili and French are also widely spoken in the country due to the historical relations between Oman and Zanzibar the two languages have been linked historically. The dominant indigenous language is a dialect of Arabic and the country has also adopted English as a second language. Almost all signs and writings appear in both Arabic and English. A significant number also speak Hindi, due to the influx of Indian migrants during the late 1980s and the 1990s