Arabic is a Central Semitic language whose classical form, fixed by the text of the Quran in the seventh century, remains the liturgical and literary standard across the Arab world, while everyday spoken Arabic exists as a continuum of regional vernaculars, from Moroccan to Gulf Arabic, that differ from one another by roughly as much as separate Romance languages do. Modern Standard Arabic, the form used in formal writing, broadcasting and education across the Arab world, is a direct descendant of Classical Arabic rather than of any one spoken vernacular. It is written right to left in the Arabic script, an abjad in which short vowels are normally left unwritten.
Facts
ISO 639-3 CodeEthnologue and ISO 639-3 treat Arabic as a macrolanguage, ara, covering some thirty distinct individual language codes for its regional spoken varieties; whether these varieties are properly separate languages or dialects of one Arabic language is a live and partly political classification question, not a settled linguistic one. Speaker CountFigure is for first-language speakers of Arabic's varieties combined, per Ethnologue's macrolanguage total; several hundred million more use Modern Standard Arabic as a learned second register. Attested From (Year)Circa; the earliest attestation of continuous Arabic text in an ancestor of the modern Arabic script, three lines of poetry found at En Avdat, Israel. RegionThe Arab world; official in 24 states and territories including Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria and Yemen 2 Connections
Ancestor Of
Gulf Arabic (Khaleeji) is a variety of Arabic spoken in Eastern Arabia.
Source Wikipedia: Gulf Arabic
Iraqi Arabic (Mesopotamian Arabic) is one of the varieties of Arabic spoken in the Mesopotamian basin.
Source Wikipedia: Mesopotamian Arabic
Maghrebi Arabic is a vernacular Arabic dialect continuum spoken across the Maghreb.
Source Wikipedia: Maghrebi Arabic
Associated With
This source names Arabic directly: "Sanskrit and Urdu from Persian and Arabic, and in script, Devanagari against the Perso-Arabic alphabet; whether Hindi and Urdu are one spoken language with two literary standards or two languages is..."
Source The Cambridge Encyclopedia of LanguageDavid Crystal (editor)
This source names Arabic directly: "between Bantu-speaking communities and Arabic-speaking traders, absorbing a substantial layer of Arabic vocabulary in the process."
Source The Cambridge Encyclopedia of LanguageDavid Crystal (editor)
In Family
Written In
Source Omniglot: The Online Encyclopedia of Writing Systems and Languages
Sources
1. Ethnologue: Languages of the World
2. Wikipedia: Arabic
The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language
David Crystal (editor), Cambridge University Press, 2010
Glottolog
Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary AnthropologyIn Family: Afro-AsiaticView the Source Omniglot: The Online Encyclopedia of Writing Systems and Languages
Wikipedia: Gulf Arabic
Wikimedia FoundationAncestor Of: Gulf Arabic, Lead sectionQuote, Ancestor Of: Gulf Arabic, Lead section
Gulf Arabic or Khaleeji ... is a variety of Arabic spoken in Eastern Arabia.
Wikipedia: Maghrebi Arabic
Wikimedia FoundationAncestor Of: Maghrebi Arabic, Lead sectionQuote, Ancestor Of: Maghrebi Arabic, Lead section
is a vernacular Arabic dialect continuum spoken in the Maghreb.
Wikipedia: Mesopotamian Arabic
Wikimedia FoundationAncestor Of: Iraqi Arabic, Lead sectionQuote, Ancestor Of: Iraqi Arabic, Lead section
are the varieties of Arabic spoken in the Mesopotamian basin of Iraq.
Reader Challenges (0)
No disputes yet. Spotted an error or a better source? Open the first one.
Sign in to dispute this or suggest a correction.