Arabic
Arabic (اَلْعَرَبِيَّةُ, al-ʿarabiyyah [al ʕaraˈbijːa] ⓘ or عَرَبِيّ, ʿarabīy [ˈʕarabiː] ⓘ or [ʕaraˈbij]) is a Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in the Arab world.[14] The ISO assigns language codes to 32 varieties of Arabic, including its standard form of Literary Arabic, known as Modern Standard Arabic,[15] which is derived from Classical Arabic. This distinction exists primarily among Western linguists; Arabic speakers themselves generally do not distinguish between Modern Standard Arabic and Classical Arabic, but rather refer to both as al-ʿarabiyyatu l-fuṣḥā (اَلعَرَبِيَّةُ ٱلْفُصْحَىٰ[16] "the eloquent Arabic") or simply al-fuṣḥā (اَلْفُصْحَىٰ).
This article is about the general language (macrolanguage). For specific varieties of Arabic and other uses, see Arabic (disambiguation).Arabic
Arab world and surrounding regions
Arabs and several other peoples of the Middle East and North Africa
380 million native speakers of all varieties (2024)[1]
330 million L2 users of Modern Standard Arabic (2023)[2]
Signed Arabic (different national forms)
- Algeria
- Bahrain
- Chad
- Comoros
- Djibouti
- Egypt
- Eritrea[4]
- Iraq
- Jordan
- Kuwait
- Lebanon
- Libya
- Mauritania
- Morocco
- Oman
- Palestine
- Qatar
- Saudi Arabia
- Somalia
- Sudan
- Syria
- Tunisia
- United Arab Emirates
- Yemen
- Zanzibar (Tanzania)
- Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (partially recognized state)
- Somaliland (unrecognized state)
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- Algeria: Supreme Council of the Arabic language in Algeria
- Egypt: Academy of the Arabic Language in Cairo
- Israel: Academy of the Arabic Language in Israel
- Iraq: Iraqi Academy of Sciences
- Jordan: Jordan Academy of Arabic
- Libya: Academy of the Arabic Language in Jamahiriya
- Morocco: Academy of the Arabic Language in Rabat
- Saudi Arabia: Academy of the Arabic Language in Riyadh
- Somalia: Academy of the Arabic Language in Mogadishu
- Sudan: Academy of the Arabic Language in Khartoum
- Syria: Arab Academy of Damascus (the oldest)
- Tunisia: Beit Al-Hikma Foundation
ara – inclusive code
Individual codes:arq – Algerian Arabicxaa – Andalusi Arabicabv – Bahrani Arabicavl – Bedawi Arabicshu – Chadian Arabicacy – Cypriot Arabicadf – Dhofari Arabicarz – Egyptian Arabicacm – Gelet Iraqi Arabicafb – Gulf Arabicayh – Hadhrami Arabicmey – Hassaniya Arabicacw – Hejazi Arabicapc – Levantine Arabicayl – Libyan Arabicary – Moroccan Arabicars – Najdi Arabicacx – Omani Arabicayp – Qeltu Iraqi Arabicaao – Saharan Arabicaec – Saʽidi Arabicayn – Sanʽani Arabicssh – Shihhi Arabicsqr – Siculo-Arabicarb – Standard Arabicapd – Sudanese Arabicacq – Taʽizzi-Adeni Arabicabh – Tajiki Arabicaeb – Tunisian Arabicauz – Uzbeki Arabic
12-AAC
Arabic is the third most widespread official language after English and French,[17] one of six official languages of the United Nations,[18] and is the liturgical language of Islam.[19] Arabic is widely taught in schools and universities around the world and is used to varying degrees in workplaces, governments and the media.[20] During the Middle Ages, Arabic was a major vehicle of culture, especially in science, mathematics and philosophy. As a result, many European languages have also borrowed many words from it. Arabic influence, mainly in vocabulary, is seen in European languages—mainly Spanish and to a lesser extent Portuguese, Catalan, and Sicilian—owing to both the proximity of European and the long-lasting Arabic cultural and linguistic presence, mainly in Southern Iberia, during the Al-Andalus era. The Maltese language is a Semitic language developed from a dialect of Arabic and written in the Latin alphabet.[21] The Balkan languages, including Greek and Bulgarian, have acquired many words of Arabic origin, especially through direct contact with Ottoman Turkish.
Arabic has influenced many other languages around the globe throughout its history, especially languages of Muslim cultures and countries that were conquered by Muslims. Some of the most influenced languages are Persian, Turkish, Hindustani (Hindi and Urdu),[22] Kashmiri, Kurdish, Bosnian, Kazakh, Bengali, Malay (Indonesian and Malaysian), Maldivian, Pashto, Punjabi, Albanian, Armenian, Azerbaijani, Sicilian, Spanish, Greek, Bulgarian, Tagalog, Sindhi, Odia[23] Hebrew and Hausa and some languages in parts of Africa, such as Somali and Swahili. Conversely, Arabic has borrowed words from other languages, including Aramaic as well as Hebrew, Latin, Greek, Persian and to a lesser extent Turkish, English, French, and other Semitic languages.
Arabic is spoken by as many as 380 million speakers, both native and non-native, in the Arab world,[1] making it the fifth most spoken language in the world,[24] and the fourth most used language on the internet in terms of users.[25][26] It also serves as the liturgical language of more than 1.9 billion Muslims.[27] In 2011, Bloomberg Businessweek ranked Arabic the fourth most useful language for business, after English, Standard Mandarin Chinese, and French.[28] Arabic is written with the Arabic alphabet, which is an abjad script and is written from right to left, although the spoken varieties are sometimes written in ASCII Latin from left to right with no standardized orthography.
Arabic usually refers to Standard Arabic, which Western linguists divide into Classical Arabic and Modern Standard Arabic.[64] It could also refer to any of a variety of regional vernacular Arabic dialects, which are not necessarily mutually intelligible.
Classical Arabic is the language found in the Quran, used from the period of Pre-Islamic Arabia to that of the Abbasid Caliphate. Classical Arabic is prescriptive, according to the syntactic and grammatical norms laid down by classical grammarians (such as Sibawayh) and the vocabulary defined in classical dictionaries (such as the Lisān al-ʻArab).
Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) largely follows the grammatical standards of Classical Arabic and uses much of the same vocabulary. However, it has discarded some grammatical constructions and vocabulary that no longer have any counterpart in the spoken varieties and has adopted certain new constructions and vocabulary from the spoken varieties. Much of the new vocabulary is used to denote concepts that have arisen in the industrial and post-industrial era, especially in modern times.[65]
Due to its grounding in Classical Arabic, Modern Standard Arabic is removed over a millennium from everyday speech, which is construed as a multitude of dialects of this language. These dialects and Modern Standard Arabic are described by some scholars as not mutually comprehensible. The former are usually acquired in families, while the latter is taught in formal education settings. However, there have been studies reporting some degree of comprehension of stories told in the standard variety among preschool-aged children.[66]
The relation between Modern Standard Arabic and these dialects is sometimes compared to that of Classical Latin and Vulgar Latin vernaculars (which became Romance languages) in medieval and early modern Europe.[64]
MSA is the variety used in most current, printed Arabic publications, spoken by some of the Arabic media across North Africa and the Middle East, and understood by most educated Arabic speakers. "Literary Arabic" and "Standard Arabic" (فُصْحَى fuṣḥá) are less strictly defined terms that may refer to Modern Standard Arabic or Classical Arabic.
Some of the differences between Classical Arabic (CA) and Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) are as follows:
MSA uses much Classical vocabulary (e.g., dhahaba 'to go') that is not present in the spoken varieties, but deletes Classical words that sound obsolete in MSA. In addition, MSA has borrowed or coined many terms for concepts that did not exist in Quranic times, and MSA continues to evolve.[67] Some words have been borrowed from other languages—notice that transliteration mainly indicates spelling and not real pronunciation (e.g., فِلْم film 'film' or ديمقراطية dīmuqrāṭiyyah 'democracy').
The current preference is to avoid direct borrowings, preferring to either use loan translations (e.g., فرع farʻ 'branch', also used for the branch of a company or organization; جناح janāḥ 'wing', is also used for the wing of an airplane, building, air force, etc.), or to coin new words using forms within existing roots (استماتة istimātah 'apoptosis', using the root موت m/w/t 'death' put into the Xth form, or جامعة jāmiʻah 'university', based on جمع jamaʻa 'to gather, unite'; جمهورية jumhūriyyah 'republic', based on جمهور jumhūr 'multitude'). An earlier tendency was to redefine an older word although this has fallen into disuse (e.g., هاتف hātif 'telephone' < 'invisible caller (in Sufism)'; جريدة jarīdah 'newspaper' < 'palm-leaf stalk').
Colloquial or dialectal Arabic refers to the many national or regional varieties which constitute the everyday spoken language. Colloquial Arabic has many regional variants; geographically distant varieties usually differ enough to be mutually unintelligible, and some linguists consider them distinct languages.[68] However, research indicates a high degree of mutual intelligibility between closely related Arabic variants for native speakers listening to words, sentences, and texts; and between more distantly related dialects in interactional situations.[69]
The varieties are typically unwritten. They are often used in informal spoken media, such as soap operas and talk shows,[71] as well as occasionally in certain forms of written media such as poetry and printed advertising.
Hassaniya Arabic, Maltese, and Cypriot Arabic are only varieties of modern Arabic to have acquired official recognition.[72] Hassaniya is official in Mali[73] and recognized as a minority language in Morocco,[74] while the Senegalese government adopted the Latin script to write it.[12] Maltese is official in (predominantly Catholic) Malta and written with the Latin script. Linguists agree that it is a variety of spoken Arabic, descended from Siculo-Arabic, though it has experienced extensive changes as a result of sustained and intensive contact with Italo-Romance varieties, and more recently also with English. Due to "a mix of social, cultural, historical, political, and indeed linguistic factors", many Maltese people today consider their language Semitic but not a type of Arabic.[75] Cypriot Arabic is recognized as a minority language in Cyprus.[76]
Status and usage
Diglossia
The sociolinguistic situation of Arabic in modern times provides a prime example of the linguistic phenomenon of diglossia, which is the normal use of two separate varieties of the same language, usually in different social situations. Tawleed is the process of giving a new shade of meaning to an old classical word. For example, al-hatif lexicographically means the one whose sound is heard but whose person remains unseen. Now the term al-hatif is used for a telephone. Therefore, the process of tawleed can express the needs of modern civilization in a manner that would appear to be originally Arabic.[77]
In the case of Arabic, educated Arabs of any nationality can be assumed to speak both their school-taught Standard Arabic as well as their native dialects, which depending on the region may be mutually unintelligible.[78][79][80][81][82] Some of these dialects can be considered to constitute separate languages which may have "sub-dialects" of their own.[83] When educated Arabs of different dialects engage in conversation (for example, a Moroccan speaking with a Lebanese), many speakers code-switch back and forth between the dialectal and standard varieties of the language, sometimes even within the same sentence.