Modern Standard Arabic

Modern Standard Arabic is the dialect of Arabic used in almost all writing and in formal spoken contexts.

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It is derived from Classical Arabic or Koranic Arabic, the language of the Qur'an.

Related Topics:
Classical Arabic - Qur'an

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The Arabic word Fuṣḥa is used to refer to both Modern Standard Arabic and Classical Arabic collectively as "that which is not one of the spoken dialects".

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Modern Standard Arabic is used for nearly all writing with the exception of some modern poetry, stageplays, comic books and children's books that use colloquial dialects. Also, Egyptian Colloquial Arabic, the spoken language of Egypt, has gained in stature in the last 50-100 years, and texts of many sorts are written in it. Even so, the predominant amout of writing is in Modern Standard Arabic.

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Modern Standard Arabic shares most of its vocabulary, syntax and morphology with its parent language Classical Arabic, but there are noticeable differences (much less than what one might expect given the 1500-year time difference, but keep in mind that Modern Standard Arabic has been an artificially-regulated language throughout its years of existence, and hence has not evolved the way a naturally-spoken language would.

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Modern Standard Arabic shows the following differences with Classical Arabic:

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