Arabic
A Semitic language consisting of numerous dialects that is the principal language of Arabia, Jordan, Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Egypt, and parts of northern Africa
Arabic (الْعَرَبيّة al-ʿarabiyyah (informally: عَرَبيْ ʿarabī)), in terms of the number of speakers, is the largest living member of the Semitic language family. In ISO 639-3, modern Arabic is classified as a macrolanguage with 27 sub-languages. These varieties are spoken throughout the Arab world, and Standard Arabic is widely studied and used throughout the Islamic world.

Modern Standard Arabic derives from Classical Arabic, the only surviving member of the Old North Arabian dialect group, attested in Pre-Islamic Arabic inscriptions dating back to the 4th century. Classical Arabic has also been a literary language and the liturgical language of Islam since its inception in the 7th century.

Arabic has lent many words to other languages of the Islamic world. During the Middle Ages, Arabic was a major vehicle of culture in Europe, especially in science, mathematics and philosophy. As a result, many European languages have also borrowed numerous words from it. Arabic influence is seen in Mediterranean languages, particularly Spanish, Portuguese, and Sicilian, due to both the proximity of European and Arab civilization and 700 years of Berber and Arab rule in the Iberian peninsula (see Al-Andalus).

Arabic has also borrowed words from many languages, including Greek, Persian and Sanskrit in early centuries, and contemporary European languages in modern times.

Literary and Modern Standard Arabic

Main article: Literary Arabic

The term "Arabic" may refer to either literary/classical Arabic ([al-]Fuṣḥā الفصحى) or the many localized spoken varieties of Arabic commonly called "colloquial Arabic". Arabs consider literary Arabic as the standard language and tend to view everything else as dialects. The only variety, through its descent from Siculo-Arabic, to have acquired official language status is Maltese, spoken in (predominately Catholic) Malta and written with the Latin alphabet.

Literary Arabic (اللغة العربية الفصحى translit: al-luġatu l-ʿarabiyyatu l-fuṣḥā "the classical Arabic language"), refers both to the language of present-day media across North Africa and the Middle East, the language of the Qur'an, as well as practically all written matter.

"Colloquial" or "dialectal" Arabic refers to the many national or regional varieties originally derived from Classical Arabic, which constitutes the everyday spoken language. Colloquial Arabic has many different regional variants. These sometimes differ enough to be mutually incomprehensible. The dialects are typically unwritten. They are often used to limited degree in informal spoken media, such as soap operas and talk shows.[citation needed]

Historically, Classical Arabic (especially from the pre-Islamic to the Abbasid period, including Qur'anic Arabic) can be distinguished from Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) as used today. Classical Arabic is considered normative; modern authors attempt to follow the syntactic and grammatical norms laid down by Classical grammarians (such as Sibawayh), and use the vocabulary defined in Classical dictionaries (such as the Lisān al-Arab).

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. In the case of Arabic, educated Arabs of any nationality can be assumed to speak both their local dialect and their school-taught literary Arabic. When speaking with someone from the same country, many speakers switch back and forth between the two varieties of the language (code switching), sometimes even within the same sentence. When educated Arabs of different nationalities engage in conversation (for example, a Moroccan or Saudi speaking with a Lebanese), both switch into Literary Arabic for the sake of communication.

Like other languages, literary Arabic continues to evolve.[citation needed] Many modern terms have entered into common usage; in some cases taken from other languages (for example, فيلم film) or coined from existing lexical resources (for example, هاتف hātif "telephone" = "caller"). Structural influence from foreign languages or from the colloquial varieties has also affected Modern Standard Arabic. For example, MSA texts sometimes use the format "A, B, C, and D" when listing things, whereas Classical Arabic prefers "A and B and C and D," and subject-initial sentences may be more common in MSA than in Classical Arabic[citation needed]. For these reasons, Modern Standard Arabic is generally treated separately in non-Arab sources.

Arabic is the language of the Qur'an. Traditionally, Muslims believe translation of the Qur'an detracts from its exact meaning. Some schools of thought maintain that it should not be translated at all. Arabic is often associated with Islam, but it is also spoken by Arab Christians, Arab Druze, Mizrahi Jews and Iraqi Mandaeans.

Most of the world's Muslims do not speak Arabic as their native language but can read the script and recite the words of religious texts. Some muslim speakers of Arabic consider their language to be "the language chosen by God to speak to mankind."

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