| Literary Arabic اللغة العربية الفصحى |
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|---|---|---|
| Spoken in: | Arab world | |
| Total speakers: | ca. 300 million | |
| Language family: | Central Semitic Arabic languages Literary Arabic |
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| Writing system: | Arabic alphabet | |
| Official status | ||
| Official language in: | Arab world, Israel | |
| Regulated by: | modelled after the Qur'an; Academy of the Arabic Language | |
| Language codes | ||
| ISO 639-1: | ar | |
| ISO 639-2: | ara | |
| ISO 639-3: | arb | |
| Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. | ||
Literary Arabic (اللغة العربية الفصحى al-luġatu l-ʿarabiyyatu l-fuṣḥā "the Eloquent Arabic language") or Standard Arabic is the literary and standard register of Classical Arabic used in writing. It is part of the Arabic macrolanguage. Many western scholars distinguish two common fuṣḥā varieties: the Classical Arabic of the Qur'an and early Islamic (7th to 9th centuries) literature, and Modern Standard Arabic (MSA), the standard language in use today. The modern Standard language is closely based on the Classical language, and most Arabs consider the two varieties to be two registers of one and the same language.
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Classical Arabic
Classical Arabic, also known as Qur'anic Arabic, is the language used in the Qur'an as well as in numerous literary texts from Umayyad and Abbasid times (7th to 9th centuries). Classical Arabic is often believed to be the parent language of all the spoken varieties of Arabic, but recent scholarship, such as Clive Holes' (2004), questions this view, showing that other Old North Arabian dialects were extant in the 7th century and may be the origin of current spoken varieties.
Modern Standard Arabic
Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) is the literary standard across the Middle East and North Africa, and one of the official six languages of the United Nations. Most printed matter–including most books, newspapers, magazines, official documents, and reading primers for small children–is written in MSA. "Colloquial" Arabic refers to the many national or regional varieties derived from Arabic spoken daily across the region and learned as a first language. These sometimes differ enough from each other to be mutually incomprehensible. They are not typically written, although a certain amount of literature (particularly plays and poetry) exists in many of them. Literary Arabic or classical Arabic is the official language of all Arab countries and is the only form of Arabic taught in schools at all stages. The sociolinguistic situation of Arabic in modern times provides a prime example of the linguistic phenomenon of diglossia–the use of two distinct varieties of the same language, usually in different social contexts. Educated Arabic-speakers are usually able to communicate in MSA in formal situations across national boundaries — thus, MSA is a classic example of a Dachsprache. This diglossic situation facilitates code-switching in which a speaker switches back and forth between the two varieties of the language, sometimes even within the same sentence. In instances in which highly educated Arabic-speakers of different nationalities engage in conversation but find their dialects mutually unintelligible (e.g. a Moroccan speaking with a Lebanese), they are able to code switch into MSA for the sake of communication. Although closely based on Classical Arabic (especially from the pre-Islamic to the Abbasid period, including Qur'anic Arabic), literary Arabic continues to evolve. Classical Arabic is considered normative; modern authors attempt (with varying degrees of success) to follow the syntactic and grammatical norms laid down by Classical grammarians (such as Sibawayh), and to use the vocabulary defined in Classical dictionaries (such as the Lisan al-Arab.) However, the exigencies of modernity have led to the adoption of numerous terms which would have been mysterious to a Classical author, whether taken from other languages (eg فيلم film) or coined from existing lexical resources (eg هاتف hātif "telephone" < "caller"). Structural influence from foreign languages or from the vernaculars has also affected Modern Standard Arabic: for example, MSA texts sometimes use the format "X, X, X, and X" when listing things, whereas Classical Arabic prefers "X and X and X and X", and subject-initial sentences may be more common in MSA than in Classical Arabic. For these reasons, Modern Standard Arabic is generally treated separately in non-Arab sources.
Regional variants
MSA is used uniformly across the Middle East, but some regional variations exist due to influence from the spoken vernaculars. People who "speak" MSA during interviews often give away their national or ethnic origins by their pronunciation of certain phonemes (e.g. the realization of the Classical jīm ج (/dʒ/) as /g/ by Egyptians, and as /ʒ/ by Lebanese), and by mixing between vernacular and Classical words and forms. Classical/vernacular mixing in formal writing can also be found (e.g. in some Egyptian newspaper editorials).
Grammar
References
- Holes, Clive (2004) Modern Arabic: Structures, Functions, and Varieties Georgetown University Press. ISBN 1-58901-022-1
See also
- Arabic language
- Varieties of Arabic
- Arabic literature
- Dictionary of Modern Written Arabic
- Arabic English Lexicon
External links
- Learn Arabic via podcast
- Classical Arabic Blog
- Arabic Gems Learn about the intricacies and subtleties of Arabic linguistics and morphology.
- Learn Arabic WikiBook
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| Pre-Muslim conquests | Ancient North Arabian† (Safaitic†, Lihyanitic†, Thamudic†, Hasaitic†) · Classical Arabic |
| Modern Standard Variety | Literary Arabic |
| Maghrebi Arabic | Moroccan Arabic · Algerian Arabic · Tunisian Arabic · Andalusian Arabic† · Libyan Arabic · Jebli Arabic · Jijel Arabic · Saharan Arabic · Hassānīya · Maltese language · Siculo-Arabic† |
| Levantine Arabic | Lebanese Arabic · Syrian Arabic · North Syrian Arabic · Palestinian Arabic · Cypriot Maronite Arabic |
| Arabian Arabic | Gulf Arabic · Bahrani Arabic · Najdi Arabic · Hejazi Arabic · Shargi Arabic · Yemeni Arabic (Hadhrami Arabic) |
| Iraqi Arabic | Baghdad Arabic |
| Egyptian Arabic | Cairene Arabic · Sa'idi Arabic |
| Sudanese Arabic | Sudanese Arabic · Nigerian Arabic . Chadian Arabic |
| Peripheries | Khuzestani Arabic · Shirvani Arabic† · Central Asian Arabic |
| Judeo-Arabic | Judeo-Moroccan · Judeo-Yemenite · Baghdad Arabic (Jewish) |
| Creoles | Nubi language · Babalia Creole Arabic · Juba Arabic |
