Arabic language

Arabic (العربية al-'arabiyyah, or less formally 'arabi) is the largest member of the Semitic branch of the Afro-Asiatic language family (classification: South Central Semitic) and is closely related to Hebrew and Aramaic. It is spoken throughout the Arab world and is widely studied and known throughout the Islamic world. Arabic has been a literary language since at least the 6th century and is the liturgical language of Islam.

Related Topics:
Semitic - Afro-Asiatic - Hebrew - Aramaic - Arab world - Islamic world - Literary language - 6th century - Liturgical language - Islam

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The term "Arabic" may refer either to literary Arabic, which no Arab speaks as a mother tongue, or Modern_Standard_Arabic or to the many spoken varieties of Arabic commonly called "colloquial Arabic." Arabs consider literary Arabic as the standard language and tend to view everything else as mere dialects. Literary Arabic, al-luġatu-l-ʿarabīyatu-l-fuṣḥā (Literally: the most eloquent Arabic language—اللغة العربية الفصحى) refers both to the language of present-day media across North Africa and the Middle East and to the more archaic language of the Qur'an. (The expression media here includes most television and radio, and all written matter, including all books, newspapers, magazines, documents of every kind, and reading primers for small children.) "Colloquial" or "dialectal" Arabic refers to the many national or regional dialects/languages derived from Classical Arabic, spoken daily across North Africa and the Middle East, which constitute the everyday spoken language. These sometimes differ enough to be mutually incomprehensible. These dialects are not typically written, although a certain amount of literature (particularly plays and poetry) exists in many of them. They are often used to varying degrees in informal spoken media, such as soap operas and chat shows.

Related Topics:
Literary Arabic - Modern_Standard_Arabic - Spoken varieties of Arabic - North Africa - Middle East - Qur'an - Soap opera - Chat show

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Diglossia: The sociolinguistic situation of Arabic in modern times provides a prime example of the linguistic phenomenon of diglossia - the normal use of two separate varieties of the same language, usually in different social situations. In the case of Arabic, educated Arabs of whatever nationality can be assumed to speak both their local dialect and their school-taught literary Arabic (to an equal or lesser degree). This diglossic situation facilitates code switching in which a speaker switches back and forth unaware between the two varieties of the language, sometimes even within the same sentence. In instances in which Arabs of different nationalities engage in conversation only to find their dialects mutually unintelligible (e.g. a Moroccan speaking with a Lebanese), both should be able to code switch into Literary Arabic for the sake of communication.

Related Topics:
Diglossia - Code switching

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Since the written Arabic of today differs substantially from the written Arabic of the Qur'anic era, it has become customary in western scholarship and among non-Arab scholars of Arabic to refer to the language of the Qur'an as Classical Arabic and the modern language of the media and of formal speeches as Modern Standard Arabic. Arabs, on the other hand, often use the term Fuṣḥa to refer to both forms, thus placing greater emphasis on the similarities between the two.

Related Topics:
Qur'an - Classical Arabic - Modern Standard Arabic

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It is sometimes difficult to translate Islamic concepts, and concepts specific to Arab culture, without using the original Arabic terminology. The Qur'an is expressed in Arabic and traditionally Muslims deem it impossible to translate in a way that would adequately reflect its exact meaning—indeed, until recently, some schools of thought maintained that it should not be translated at all. A list of Islamic terms in Arabic covers those terms which are too specific to translate in one phrase. While Arabic is strongly associated with Islam (and is the language of salah), it is also spoken by Arab Christians, Oriental (Sephardic) Jews, and smaller sects such as Iraqi Mandaeans; and, of course, the vast majority of the world's Muslims do not actually speak it; they only know some fixed phrases of Arabic, such as those used in Islamic prayer.

Related Topics:
Islam - Qur'an - Muslim - List of Islamic terms in Arabic - Salah - Christian - Sephardic - Jew - Mandaean - Muslims

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Quite a few English words are ultimately derived from Arabic, often through other European languages, especially Spanish, among them every-day vocabulary like sugar ('sukkar'), cotton ('qutn') or magazine ('maxaazin'). More recognizable are words like algorithm, algebra, alchemy, alcohol, azimuth, nadir, and zenith (see List of English words of Arabic origin). The Maltese language spoken on the Mediterranean island of Malta is the only surviving European language to derive primarily from Arabic (a North African dialect), though it contains a large number of Italian and English borrowings.

Related Topics:
Spanish - Sugar - Cotton - Magazine - Algorithm - Algebra - Alchemy - Alcohol - Azimuth - Nadir - Zenith - List of English words of Arabic origin - Maltese language - Malta - Italian

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