Arabic

Arabic is a Central Semitic language from the Afroasiatic language family spoken by many people in the Arab world. It is one of the official languages of the United Nations and the main language for over 380 million people. Arabic is also very important for Muslims, as it is the language of their holy book.

During the Middle Ages, Arabic was a key language for science, math, and learning. Many words in European languages, like Spanish and Malta's Maltese, have roots in Arabic. Even today, Arabic continues to influence many languages around the world.

Arabic uses a special writing system called the Arabic alphabet, which is written from right to left. It is studied in schools and used in many places, from governments to the internet. Whether you hear it in songs, news, or everyday conversations, Arabic is a language with a rich history and wide reach.

Classification

Further information: Classification of Arabic languages

Arabic is often called a Central Semitic language. Some experts still debate how best to group the Semitic languages. Between the time of Proto-Semitic and the rise of Central Semitic languages, changes happened mainly in grammar. Key changes found in Arabic include:

• Turning an old verb form into a past tense.
• Changing another verb form into a present tense.
• Dropping some older verb forms and creating new ones with endings.
• Developing a way to show passive verbs within the language.

Classical Arabic, modern Arabic dialects, and some old inscriptions share special features not found in other Central Semitic languages. These shared traits suggest they all came from a common older language called Proto-Arabic. Some features of this older language can be guessed with good confidence.

However, many modern Arabic dialects are closer to other Semitic languages and have traits not found in Classical Arabic. This means these everyday forms of Arabic did not come directly from Classical Arabic. Instead, Classical Arabic is like a sibling language, not a direct parent.

History

Old Arabic

Main article: Old Arabic

Many different Semitic languages were spoken in Arabia long ago. People called those living in southern Syria, Mesopotamia, and the Arabian Peninsula “Arabs.” In the southwest, many Central Semitic languages were spoken, some of which were part of the Ancient South Arabian family. In the north, in places like northern Hejaz, languages like Dadanitic and Taymanitic were important for writing.

In eastern Arabia, a language called Hasaitic was written in a special script. In the northwest, languages like Thamudic B, Thamudic D, Safaitic, and Hismaic were used. Scholars think Safaitic and Hismaic might be early forms of Arabic.

“Old Arabic,” a group of related dialects that came before today’s Arabic, began around the Iron Age. One old writing thought to be Old Arabic was found in Qaryat al-Faw in southern Saudi Arabia, but it did not show all the special changes that make up Arabic. The oldest known piece of writing in an early form of Arabic is three lines of poetry found in En Avdat, Israel, dating to about 125 CE. Another important writing is the Namara inscription, a grave marker for a king from Lakhmid, dating to 328 CE and found in Syria. From the 4th to the 6th centuries, the Nabataean script changed into the Arabic script we see from early Islamic times. The oldest surviving paper document in Arabic is from 643 CE and uses dots to make the modern 28-letter Arabic alphabet. The language of this paper and of the Qur’an is called “Quranic Arabic,” which is different from “Classical Arabic.”

Classical Arabic

Main article: Classical Arabic

Before Islam, a special form of Arabic developed in Hejaz. This form kept living even after Classical Arabic became standardized in the 2nd and 3rd centuries of the Hijra, especially in religious Jewish texts. This form is sometimes called Middle Arabic.

In the late 6th century AD, a common poetic form of Arabic developed based on Bedouin dialects from Najd. During the first century of Islam, most poets and writers spoke Arabic as their first language. Their writings, though recorded much later, show some features not in the standard Classical Arabic.

Standardization

Abu al-Aswad al-Du'ali (about 603–689) helped make Arabic grammar, called an-naḥw, more organized. He also created a system of small marks, called nuqaṭu‿l-i'jām, to show the sounds of letters, and another system, called at-tashkīl, to show how words were said. Al-Khalil ibn Ahmad al-Farahidi (718–786) made the first Arabic dictionary, Kitāb al-'Ayn. Al-Jahiz (776–868) suggested big changes to Arabic grammar, but these changes didn’t happen for two hundred years. The rules for Arabic reached their final form by the end of the 8th century. The most complete early book about Arabic, al-Kitāb by Sībawayhi, used poems, the Qur’an, and talks with Bedouin people to explain the language.

Spread

Arabic spread as Islam spread. After early Muslim conquests, Arabic picked up words from Middle Persian and Turkish. During the early Abbasid period, many ideas from Classical Greek entered Arabic through translations done at Baghdad’s House of Wisdom.

By the 8th century, knowing Classical Arabic was very important for anyone wanting to rise to a higher class in the Islamic world, whether they were Muslim or not. For example, Maimonides, a Jewish philosopher from Andalusi, wrote his works in Judeo-Arabic—Arabic written in Hebrew script.

Development

Ibn Jinni of Mosul wrote a lot in the 10th century about how Arabic words and sounds worked. Ibn Mada' of Cordoba (1116–1196) finally made the big changes to Arabic grammar that Al-Jahiz had suggested 200 years earlier.

Ibn Manzur made Lisān al-ʿArab (لسان العرب, “Tongue of Arabs”) in 1290. This became a very important dictionary of Arabic.

Neo-Arabic

Charles Ferguson thought that today’s Arabic dialects all came from one common form that appeared during the Islamic conquests. But some scholars think there were at least two different types of Arabic before the conquests: Northern and Central. Today’s dialects came from the mix of languages after the conquests. Some think everyday Arabic came from a simpler form used when Arabs met new people.

In the 11th and 12th centuries in al-Andalus, new kinds of poetry called zajal and muwashah developed in the local Arabic spoken in Cordoba and the Maghreb.

Nahda

The Nahda was a cultural and writing revival in the 19th century. Writers tried to mix Arabic and European ways of writing. They wanted to make Arabic easier for more people to understand.

Because of the industrial revolution and Europe’s power over other countries, new printing presses changed how Arabic books were made and read. Rifa'a al-Tahtawi started a school called Madrasat al-Alsun in 1836 and led efforts to translate new ideas into Arabic, adding words for things like “automobile” (sayyārah) and “steamship” (bākhirah).

To help Arabic keep up with new ideas, groups were set up in cities like Damascus (1919), Cairo (1932), Baghdad (1948), Rabat (1960), Amman (1977), Khartum (1993), and Tunis (1993). These groups worked to create new Arabic words for science and to make sure all Arabic speakers used the same words. This helped make Arabic a world language. From the 1950s, many countries made policies to use Arabic more in schools and government, especially after gaining independence.

Classical, Modern Standard and spoken Arabic

Further information: Classical Arabic, Modern Standard Arabic, and Varieties of Arabic

See also: List of Arabic dictionaries

Arabic usually means Standard Arabic. Western experts split this into Classical Arabic and Modern Standard Arabic. It can also mean any of several regional dialects, which may not all be easy to understand from each other.

Classical Arabic is the language found in the Quran, used from ancient times up through history. Modern Standard Arabic follows many of Classical Arabic's rules but has dropped some older parts and added new words for modern ideas.

Modern Standard Arabic is used in most books, news, and by educated speakers. It is taught in schools but differs from everyday speech, which includes many dialects. These dialects are learned at home and can be hard for speakers of different regions to understand each other.

Some differences between Classical and Modern Standard Arabic include simpler grammar rules and a more straightforward number system. Modern Standard Arabic uses many old words but also borrows or creates new ones for new concepts.

Colloquial Arabic refers to the everyday spoken language with many regional versions. These versions are usually not written but appear in TV shows and ads.

Hassaniya Arabic, Maltese, and Cypriot Arabic are special cases that have official recognition in some places.

Status and usage

Arabic shows a special language pattern called diglossia, where people use two forms of the same language in different situations. Educated Arabic speakers usually know both the standard form they learn in school and their local dialect, which can vary a lot from region to region. When people from different areas talk, they often switch between their dialect and the standard form, even in the same sentence.

Some believe Arabic is one language, while others think its many dialects are separate languages. This is a big topic for politicians and linguists. Arabic is also learned by many people around the world, especially Muslims, because the Quran is written in Arabic. There are schools, books, radio programs, and websites that help people learn Arabic.

Vocabulary

The study of Arabic words has a long history. Early experts tried to explain words in the Quran and identify words from non-Arabic languages. They collected examples from poetry and the speech of Bedouin people, who were thought to speak the purest Arabic.

One important early book is Kitāb al-'Ayn, which lists many Arabic word roots. Another famous book, Lisān al-ʿArab, lists even more roots. These books focused on keeping the language pure and correct.

In the 1800s, scholars from other countries started making dictionaries to help people learn Arabic. More recently, groups have worked on big projects to record how Arabic words have changed over time.

Arabic has also shared words with many other languages. Words from Aramaic and Persian entered Arabic long ago. Today, many languages use Arabic words, especially in religious and scientific terms. English has many words from Arabic, like algebra and coffee. Arabic words have spread to many parts of the world, especially where Islam is practiced.

Spoken varieties

Main article: Varieties of Arabic

Colloquial Arabic refers to the many different ways people speak Arabic every day in the Arab world. These spoken forms are very different from the formal literary language. The biggest differences are between the dialects spoken inside and outside the Arabian peninsula. Outside the peninsula, most dialects share common features that are not found in the formal language. This has led some experts to think that a special common dialect spread after the Arab conquest, influencing all the new areas.

Within these non-peninsula dialects, the biggest difference is between the North African dialects, especially Moroccan Arabic, and others. Moroccan Arabic can be hard for Arabic speakers east of Libya to understand, although the opposite is often easier thanks to popular Egyptian films and media.

One reason dialects differ is the influence of older languages spoken in those areas, which added new words and sometimes changed sounds or word order. Another big factor is how different dialects kept or changed forms from the classical language. For example, words meaning "there is" sound very different in Iraqi, Levantine, and North African dialects, even though they all come from the same classical roots.

See also: Egyptian Arabic phonology, Hejazi Arabic phonology, Levantine Arabic phonology, and Tunisian Arabic phonology

Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) is the common formal version of Arabic used in writing, news, and official speeches across all Arabic-speaking regions. It has 28 consonant sounds and 6 vowel sounds, with some special "emphatic" consonants that differ from their normal counterparts. Some of these sounds have merged or changed in everyday dialects, while new sounds have come from borrowing words from other languages.

Grammar

Arabic grammar shares many features with other Semitic languages. One big difference between Standard Arabic and everyday spoken varieties is that spoken Arabic often loses some special word endings and changes the order of words in sentences.

Literary Arabic

Main article: Modern Standard Arabic

Arabic has a special way of building words from a basic root of letters. For example, the root k-t-b means "write." By adding patterns to this root, you can make many words. The word for "I wrote" is katabtu. Other verbs like "I read" (qaraʼtu) or "I ate" (akaltu) follow similar patterns.

From just the root k-t-b, you can make many words such as:

• katabtu – "I wrote"
• kattabtu – "I had (something) written"
• kātabtu – "I corresponded (with someone)"
• 'aktabtu – "I dictated"
• iktatabtu – "I subscribed"
• takātabnā – "we corresponded with each other"
• And many more forms like 'aktubu (I write), 'ukattibu (I have something written), and kutiba (it was written).

Nouns and adjectives

Nouns in Literary Arabic have special endings to show their role in a sentence, whether they are one, two, or many, and whether they are masculine or feminine. Adjectives match nouns in these ways too.

Verbs

Verbs in Arabic change to show who is doing the action, whether it’s done or still happening, and other details. They have different forms for past and future actions.

Derivation

Arabic often creates new words by applying patterns to root letters, rather than just adding endings like in English.

Varieties of Arabic

Spoken dialects of Arabic have simplified some grammar rules compared to Literary Arabic. They often lose some special endings and rarely use certain verb forms, but they have created new ways to show different meanings.

Writing system

The Arabic alphabet comes from an older writing style called Aramaic, going through a form called Nabatean. It looks a bit like other writing styles such as Coptic or Cyrillic compared to the Greek script. In the past, there were differences between the versions used in North Africa and the Middle East. For example, the letter faʼ had a dot below it, and qaf had a dot above it in North Africa. The order of the letters was also slightly different when used as numbers.

Today, the old North African version is mostly only used for beautiful writing, like in calligraphy, or in special schools in West Africa. Arabic is written from right to left, unlike many other languages that go left to right. There are several beautiful writing styles, such as thuluth, muhaqqaq, tawqi, rayhan, naskh (used in books and computers), and ruqʻah (used for letters).

Originally, Arabic writing had only basic shapes without extra marks. Later, small marks called nuqaṯ were added to help tell apart letters that look similar, like b, t, th, n, and y. Finally, signs called Tashkil were added for showing short vowels and other sounds.

Notes:

• The letter ⟨ج⟩ in Modern Standard Arabic can sound like /d͡ʒ/, /ʒ/, /ɟ/, or /g/ depending on where you are from.
• The Hamza ⟨ء⟩ is very important for spelling in Arabic, but it is not considered one of the main letters. It looks different depending on where it appears in a word. See Hamza to learn more.

Calligraphy

After a scholar named Khalil ibn Ahmad al Farahidi set the Arabic script around the year 786, many beautiful writing styles were created. These were used for writing the Quran, other books, and for decorating buildings.

People in Arab countries still love calligraphy today. It is considered a major art form, and calligraphers are very respected. Arabic script is often used to write verses from the Quran, sayings, or proverbs. The writing can sometimes be shaped into animals or other pictures. One famous calligrapher today is Hassan Massoudy.

Because Arabic script flows in a special way, some people worry that using computers might not always keep the beauty of the writing.

Romanization

Main article: Romanization of Arabic

There are different ways to write Arabic using the Latin alphabet (the alphabet used in English and many other languages). Some ways focus on showing exactly how words are spelled in Arabic, while others focus on showing how they sound.

For example, the letter ي can be used for a consonant sound like in "you" or a vowel sound like in "me". Some systems use special marks to show exact sounds, while others use two letters together, like sh for the "sh" sound.

Because many modern tools like computers and phones were first made for Latin letters, Arabic speakers sometimes use Latin letters to write Arabic online. They might use numbers or other symbols to stand for some Arabic letters that do not exist in Latin writing.

Numerals

In most of North Africa, people use the Western Arabic numerals (0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9). But in Egypt and countries to the east, they use Eastern Arabic numerals (٠‎ – ١‎ – ٢‎ – ٣‎ – ٤‎ – ٥‎ – ٦‎ – ٧‎ – ٨‎ – ٩‎).

When writing numbers, the smallest part is on the right, just like in left-to-right scripts. But when saying numbers out loud, they are spoken differently than in English. For example, 24 is said as "four and twenty," similar to German or Classical Hebrew. The year 1975 would be said as "a thousand and nine-hundred and five and seventy."

Arabic alphabet and nationalism

There have been times when people tried to change Arabic writing to use Latin letters instead. Right now, only Maltese uses the Latin alphabet.

Lebanon

In 1922, a newspaper in Beirut called La Syrie suggested switching to Latin letters. A French scholar named Louis Massignon brought this idea to an Arabic language group in Damascus in 1928. But most people did not like this idea. One member of the group, Sa'id Afghani, thought it was part of a plan to control Lebanon. A writer named Said Akl made his own Latin-based alphabet for Lebanese and used it in his newspaper and books.

Egypt

After colonial rule ended in Egypt, some people wanted to change the writing system to feel more Egyptian. They thought about mixing formal Arabic with everyday speech and using the Latin alphabet. Some even suggested using ancient Egyptian writing called Hieroglyphics, but that was too hard.

A writer named Salama Musa supported using Latin letters because he thought it would help Egypt work better with the West and improve science and technology. He believed Latin letters would solve problems in the Arabic writing system, like not having clear ways to write vowels or foreign words. Other Egyptian thinkers agreed with him.

But these ideas did not succeed. Many Egyptians felt a strong connection to the Arabic alphabet because of its long history and importance in their culture and religion.

Sample text

Arabic is a language that belongs to a group called the Central Semitic languages. It is mainly spoken in places known as the Arab world. There are many different kinds of Arabic, and the International Organization for Standardization has special codes for 32 of them. One important form is called Modern Standard Arabic, which comes from an older form known as Classical Arabic. Most Arabic speakers don’t see a big difference between these two; they call both “the eloquent Arabic” or just “eloquent.”