Arabic language

Arabic is the language of the Qur'an (or Koran, the sacred book of Islam) and the religious language of all Muslims.

Modern Standard Arabic belongs to the Semitic language family. Semitic languages have a recorded history going back thousands of years—one of the most extensive continuous archives of documents belonging to any human language group. While the origins of the Semitic language family are currently in dispute among scholars, there is agreement that they flourished in the Mediterranean Basin area, especially in the Tigris-Euphrates river basin and in the coastal areas of the Levant.

Aside from Arabic, the Semitic language family includes Hebrew, Aramaic, Maltese, Amharic, Tigrinya, Tigre, Gurage, Geez, Syrica, Akkadian, Phonoecian, Punic, Ugaritic, Nabatean, Amorite and Moabite. While a majority of these are now considered “dead” languages, either entirely obsolete or used only in religious practice, Arabic has flourished. The reason for this is inextricably linked with the rise of Islam and, more specifically, Islam’s holy book, the Qur’an.

There are three distinct forms of Arabic: classical or Qur’anical Arabic, formal or Modern Standard Arabic, and spoken or colloquial Arabic. Classical Arabic is the form of Arabic found in the Qur’an. It is used neither in conversation, nor in non-religious writing. As such, Classical Arabic is primarily learned for reading and reciting Islamic religious texts.

Formal or Modern Standard Arabic is used in written texts. It is uniform throughout the Arab world and is understood by all Arabs. In contrast to Indo-European languages, which have evolved and changed over time, Modern Standard Arabic differs little from its form in the Qur’an. This is due mainly to the Muslim belief that the language of the Qur’an cannot be surpassed. According to Islam, the Qur’an has preserved Arabic in its purest form and as such it remains an important, cohesive influence on the language to the present day. The main differences between Classical and Modern Standard Arabic are structural and allow more flexibility and adaptability in the language’s use.

In order to understand the relationship between Modern Standard Arabic and spoken Arabic, it is important to understand the concept of “diglossia.” As defined by the term’s founder, Charles Ferguson, diglossia (literally meaning “two tongues”) conveys a situation where, in addition to the primary dialects of a language, there is a highly codified form that is the vehicle of a large and respected body of literature. In addition to Arabic, an example of diglossia can be found in the co-existence of written Latin with the spoken Romance languages of French, Italian, and Spanish. While Modern Standard Arabic is the definitive form of written Arabic, there are many spoken Arabic dialects. Modern Standard Arabic provides a universal form of the language that can be understood by all and is commonly used in radio and TV news broadcasts, films, plays, poetry, and conversation between Arabic-speaking people of different dialects. This is what is taught to DLI students.

Colloquial Arabic includes numerous spoken dialects and differs throughout the Arab world.

There are more than 30 different forms of spoken or colloquial Arabic, most of which are strongly influenced by standard Arabic. A few of these dialects include Egyptian (spoken by approximately 65 million people and perhaps the most widely understood due to the popularity of Egyptian made films and TV shows), Algerian (22 million people), Moroccan/Maghrebi (19 million people), Sudanese (19 million people), North Levantine (19 million people), Mesopotamian (14 million people), and Najdi (10 million people). The result of such a diverse group of dialects is that sometimes, an Arab from one region will not understand certain words spoken by an Arab from another region.

Sound System of Arabic

The sound system of Arabic is very different from that of English and the other languages of Europe. There are three short and three long vowels (/a/, /i/, /u/ and /a/, /i/, /u/). The long vowels are written out. The short vowels are written as diacritical marks, if they are written at all.

Arabic shows the fullest development of typical Semitic word structure. An Arabic word is composed of two parts: (1) the root, which generally consists of three consonants and provides the basic lexical meaning of the word, and (2) the pattern, which consists of vowels and gives grammatical meaning to the word. Thus, the root /k-t-b/ combined with the pattern /-i-a-/ gives kitab “book,” whereas the same root combined with the pattern /-a-i-/ gives katib “one who writes” or “writer.” The language also makes use of prefixes and suffixes, which act as subject markers, pronouns, prepositions, and the definite article (a and the).

Verbs in Arabic are regular in conjugation. There are three tenses: past, present and future tense. The past tense is formed by the addition of suffixes (letters at the end of the word). The present tense is formed by the addition of prefixes and sometimes contains suffixes (letters at the end of the word) indicating number and gender. The future tense is exactly like the present tense save for the addition of a certain word or certain prefix. In addition to the two tenses, there are imperative forms, an active participle, a passive participle, and a verbal noun. Verbs are inflected for three persons, three numbers (singular, dual, plural), and two genders.

There are three cases (nominative, genitive, and accusative) in the declensional system of Classical Arabic nouns. Pronouns occur both as suffixes and as independent words.
 

The ِArabic Alphabet/Writing System