Arabic Language, the language of written communication and of most formal, oral
communication for speakers of Arabic dialects from Morocco to Iraq. Among Muslims,
Arabic is considered sacred since it is the language through which the Quran is
believed to have been revealed. With the rise of Islam as a dominant religion
after AD 622, Arabic became the most widespread of the living Semitic languages.
Classified as South Central Semitic, Arabic is related to Hebrew, spoken in Israel,
and Amharic, spoken in Ethiopia, as well as to the ancient Semitic languages.
The earliest written inscriptions in Arabic are found in the Arabian Peninsula
and date from the early 4th century AD. Today, Arabic is a unifying bond among
Arabs, and it is the liturgical language of Muslims in Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan,
Pakistan, Indonesia, parts of Sub-Saharan Africa, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan,
Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan.
Spoken Arabic
The term Arabic refers to the standard form of the language used in all writing
and heard on television and radio as well as in mosques. The diverse colloquial
dialects of Arabic are interrelated but vary considerably among speakers from
different parts of the Middle East. These dialects differ from standard Arabic
and from one another in pronunciation, vocabulary, and grammar and are usually
labeled according to major geographic areas, such as North African, Egyptian,
and Gulf. Within these broad classifications, the daily speech of urban, rural,
and nomadic speakers is distinctively different. Illiterate speakers from widely
separated parts of the Arab world may not understand one another, although each
is speaking a version of Arabic.The sound system of Arabic has 28 consonants, including all the Semitic guttural
sounds produced far back in the mouth and throat. Each of the three vowels in
standard Arabic occurs in a long and short form, creating the long and short syllables
so important to the meter of Arabic poetry. Although the dialects retain the long
vowels, they have lost many of the short-vowel contrasts.
Arabic Grammar
All Arabic word formation is based on an abstraction, namely, the root, usually
consisting of three consonants. These root sounds join with various vowel patterns
to form simple nouns and verbs to which affixes can be attached for more complicated
derivations. For example, the borrowed term bank is considered to have the consonantal
root b-n-k; film is formed from f-l-m (See also SEMITIC LANGUAGES). Arabic has
a very regular system of conjugating verbs and altering their stems to indicate
variations on the basic meaning. This system is so regular that dictionaries of
Arabic can refer to verbs by a number system (I-X). From the root k-s-r, the form
I verb is kasar, "he broke"; form II is kassar, "he smashed to bits"; and form
VII is inkasar, "it was broken up." Nouns and adjectives are less regular in formation,
and have many different plural patterns. The so-called broken plurals are formed
by altering the internal syllable shape of the singular noun. For example, for
the borrowed words bank and film, the plurals are, respectively, bunuk for banks
and aflam for films.
Normal sentence word order in standard Arabic is verb-subject-object. In poetry
and in some prose styles, this word order can be altered; when that happens, subject
and object can be distinguished by their case endings, that is, by suffixes that
indicate the grammatical function of nouns. These suffixes are only spelled out
fully in school textbooks and in the Quran to ensure an absolutely correct reading.
In all other Arabic texts, these case endings (usually short vowels) are omitted,
as are all internal short-vowel markings. The Arabic script does not include letters
for these vowels; instead, they are small marks set above and below the consonantal
script.
Arabic Script
The Arabic script, which is derived from that of Aramaic, is written from right
to left. It is based on 18 distinct shapes that vary according to their connection
to preceding or following letters. Using a combination of dots above and below
8 of these shapes, the full complement of 28 consonants and the 3 long vowels
can be fully spelled out. The Arabic alphabet has been adopted by non-Semitic
languages such as Modern Persian, or Farsi, Urdu, Malay, and some West African
languages such as Hausa, for example. The use of verses from the Quran in Arabic
script for decoration has led to the development over 1400 years of many different
calligraphic styles. Calligraphy is a high art form in the Arab world.
The long history of Arabic includes periods of high development in literature.
The Arabic of medieval writing is termed Classical Arabic. Modern standard Arabic
is a descendant of Classical Arabic; frequently, however, the stylistic influence
of French and English is evident. In the 20th century, in particular, much scientific,
medical, and technical vocabulary has been borrowed from French and English.
Arabic language
Arabic belongs to the Semitic branch of AFROASIATIC LANGUAGES and is the national
language of about 250 million inhabitants of North Africa, the Arabian Peninsula,
Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, and Iraq. Outside these areas, it is spoken by Arabs living
in Israel, and in some parts of sub-Saharan Africa, North and South America, and
Soviet Central Asia. Since it is the language of the QURAN some limited knowledge
of it exists throughout the Muslim world.
All Arabs have as their mother tongue some local variety of Arabic. These vernaculars
differ markedly so that, for example, Moroccan Arabic is virtually unintelligible
in Iraq. The local vernacular is used in everyday commerce, but rarely written.
Contrasting to the local vernaculars is standard, or formal, Arabic, which is
used for writing and formal speech. Because it must be learned at school, large
sectors of the Arab public do not command it sufficiently to use it themselves,
although radio and other media are gradually spreading its comprehension. Standard
Arabic has remained remarkably stable. In grammar and basic vocabulary the Arabic
literature produced from the 8th century to the present is strikingly homogeneous;
the works of the medieval writers differ from modern standard Arabic hardly more
than Shakespeare's language differs from modern English.
Standard literary Arabic is capable of expressing the finest shades of meaning.
The vernaculars in their present form cannot perform the same task. If they were
adapted, such a development would fatally split the unity of the Arab world. Today
tensions exist between the standard language and the vernaculars, particularly
in imaginative literature. In drama the demand for realism favors the vernacular,
and many poets are tending toward their mother tongue. In the novel and short
story, the trend is toward having the characters speak in the vernacular while
the author uses formal language. Some of the most celebrated living novelists
and poets, however, write exclusively in the standard language.
