Arabic in the World
A brief overview of the Arabic language and how it functions in its native regions
This is a map of the countries where Arabic is spoken and is the official language, or one of the main official languages. The map has been provided by the Arab League, a coalition of 22 nations where Arabic either is the main language spoken, or one of the major languages spoken. Whenever the Arab League convenes, members of necessity communicate in Modern Standard Arabic.
The 22 Official Members of the Arab League:
• Jordan
• Palestine
• Syria
• Lebanon
• Morocco
• Mauritania
• Algeria
• Tunisia
• Libya
• Sudan
• Somalia
• Egypt
• Saudi Arabia
• Yemen
• Oman
• Qatar
• Bahrain
• Kuwait
• Comoros Islands
• Iraq
• Djibouti
• United Arab Emirates
Geographically, modern Arabic varieties are classified into 5 groups:
Maghrebi [Moroccan, Algerian, Tunisian, and Libyan]
*Egyptic -- the most common, being spoken by over 60 million Egyptians
Mesopotamian
Levantine
Peninsular
*After Modern Standard Arabic, Egyptian is the most widely studied.
Overall, Arabic is classified into 3 distinct forms:
Classical Arabic -- pre-Islamic poetry and prose & the Holy Qur’an
Modern Standard Arabic -- the official and literary language, the medium of print: newspapers, books, magazines, journalism (news broadcasts), also diplomatic and formal speeches
Dialectal (Colloquial) Arabic in which the basics of the language are fundamentally the same, yet Arabic dialects are not mutually intelligible because each Arab country has its own dialect.
There are 22 recognized dialects of Arabic, under 2 big divisions:
Mashriqi and Maghrebi (which have to do with dividing geographically the Arab world into Eastern and Western).
Most of the dialect names correspond directly with the name of the country in which it is spoken, with some exceptions which pertain to specific regions, either within a country, such as Najdi Arabic, spoken in the Saudi Arabian region of the Najd; or pertaining to a larger region which overlaps several countries, such as Hassaniya Arabic which is a variety of Moroccan Arabic spoken by Mauritanian Arab-Berbers as well as the Sahrawi people and dates from the Beni Hassan Bedouin tribes who dominated this region during the 15th to 17th centuries.
Hassaniya Arabic is spoken today in Algeria, Morocco, the Western Sahara, Mauritania, Mali, Senegal, and Niger. And there is also Mesopotamian Arabic, also known as South Mesopotamian and Iraqi Arabic -- these are varieties native to the basin of Iraq as well as in Syria, Iran, southeastern Turkey, and in Iraqi diaspora communities. In addition, there are some little known versions of Arabic worth noting: Chadian Arabic (spoken in Chad), Juba Arabic (spoken by South Sudanese people), Cypriot Maronite Arabic (spoken by the Maronite [Christian] community in Cyprus, Khorasani Arabic (also called Central Asian Arabic spoken in the Iranian province of Khorasan), and of course, Gulf Arabic (spoken by a majority of the inhabitants of the entire Gulf region).
A Brief History of Arabic Language
Arabic is categorized as a member of the Semitic language group within the large Afro-Asiatic language family consisting of 300 languages, including a number of languages in the Middle East and North Africa regions. Arabic emerged as a prestigious world language during the 7th century CE during the early period of Islam.
The century of Islam diffusion that followed the death of the Prophet Muhammad [d. 632 CE] brought both Islam as a religion and Arabic language to the attention of a world that knew next to nothing of developments and events in the interior of the Arabian Peninsula. (Versteegh, 1997)
During the second half of the seventh century, the world witnessed the foundation of the Islamic Arab Empire which by the beginning of the eighth century, stretched from Spain to Persia. This pervasive dominance contributed to the spread of Arabic as a sacred language, as it is the language of the Holy Qur’an. (Holes, 2004)
Historically, Arabs have been known as traders and migrants, thus affording international contact between them and non-Arabic speakers in the region, i.e. in Iraq, Nile Delta of Egypt, Syria and Palestine, whose contact established a strong base of familiarity with Arabic in these areas. The spread of Islam into different parts of the world had far-reaching consequences for the development of Classical Arabic. Thanks to the spread of Islam, Arabic turned from being unique to the Arabian Peninsula to becoming a dominant language of the Middle East and North Africa. (Comrie, 2008)
In terms of ancient and pre-Islamic times, only some Arabic rock and stone inscriptions and graffiti have been found in the Syrian desert, dating back to the fourth century. During this period, Arab tribes living in the Arabian Peninsula and in neighboring regions had a thriving oral poetic tradition. (Ryding, 2005) Consequently, the literary treasure of oral poetry was not recorded and documented in any systematic manner until the eighth century--the period of the emergence of Islam and the revelation of the Holy Qur’an.
As far as the writing system of Arabic before Islam is concerned, it has undergone progressive changes over the centuries. Originally it was an adaptation of Syriac and Nabataean scripts, both of which were derived from Aramaic. (Abu-Absi, 1986) And it is noted that although this script was known to the Arabs in Pre-Islamic times, it acquired its sanctified status only after it was put into the service of Islam. At the beginning of the Islamic period, Arabic had 2 main sources, the Qur’an and Pre-Islamic poetry (Versteegh, 1997); and these 2 sources are considered the pillars of Arabic standardization and codification, and played a fundamental role in the development of written Arabic -- today, Modern Standard Arabic.
Sources
Versteegh, K., Versteegh, C. H. M. (1997). The Arabic Language. United Kingdom: Columbia University Press.