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Arabic |
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| Language Notes |
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| Geographical Distribution |
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Arabic is either an official language or is spoken by a significant portion of the population in the following countries: Saudi Arabia, Yemen, United Arab Emirates, Oman, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Iraq, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt, Sudan, Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, Chad, Comoros, Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Mauritania, Somalia, Turkey, Western Sahara, Afghanistan, Cyprus, Iran, Israel, Kenya, Mali, Niger, Palestinian West Bank & Gaza, Tajikistan, Tanzania, and Uzbekistan. |
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| No. of Speakers |
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Over 200 million. |
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| Origin |
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The Arabic script evolved from the Nabataean Aramaic script. It has been used since the 4th century AD, but the earliest document, an inscription in Arabic, Syriac and Greek, dates from 512 AD. The Aramaic language has fewer consonants than Arabic, so during the 7th century, new Arabic letters were created by the addition of dots to existing letters in order to avoid ambiguities. Further diacritics indicating short vowels were introduced, but are only generally used to ensure the Qur'an was read aloud without mistakes. It is a Semitic language closely related to Hebrew. Its use was originally confined to the Arabia Peninsula but Islamic conquests introduced it to all the Middle Eastern and North African countries.
Each Arabic-speaking country or region also has its own variety of colloquial spoken Arabic. These colloquial varieties of Arabic appear in written form in some poetry, cartoons and comics, plays and personal letters. There are also translations of the bible into most varieties of colloquial Arabic. |
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| Dialects / Variations |
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Classical Arabic is the language of the Qur'an and classical literature, and has remained unchanged since 7th Century. It differs from Modern Literary Arabic mainly in style and vocabulary. All Muslims are expected to read the Qur'an in the original language. Classical Arabic also differs from country to country.
Modern Literary Arabic is a development of classical Arabic and is widely used by publishers, politicians and religious authorities. It is the universal language of the Arabic-speaking world, which is understood by all Arabic speakers. It is the language of the vast majority of written material and of formal TV shows and lectures.
An analogy may be drawn with the English language where the Biblical or Shakespearean English is compared with modern English. Literary Arabic is richer and has more complicated grammar than colloquial Arabic. It follows that it is easier to switch from Literary Arabic to the colloquial version but it is extremely hard to do the opposite. Egyptian dialect is quite influential because of its cultural predominance but is despised in some areas. |
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| Alphabet / Script |
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Arabic is written on horizontal line from right to left. The Arabic alphabet contains 28 letters, mostly consonant. Some additional letters are used in Arabic when writing names of places or foreign words containing sounds which do not occur in Standard Arabic, such as /p/ or /g/. The long vowels /a:/, /i:/ and /u:/ are represented by the letters 'alif, yaa and waaw respectively. The long vowels are also indicated by marks above or below the consonants. The same script is used in Persian, Pashto, Urdu and Sindhi. |
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| Interesting Facts |
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Arabic has incredible expressive capabilities and has been of critical importance to many of the events in recent and distant history. If all variants of Arabic are counted together as a single language, it is one of the top 10 languages in numbers of speakers in the world, and its area of geographic coverage is very extensive, covering large areas of Africa, Asia and of course the Middle East.
The most important thing to understand about Arabic is that it is not one language, but several. These include Classical Arabic, Modern Literary Arabic (a derivative of Classical Arabic), and the many colloquial languages spoken in the different Arabic countries. |
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| The Cambridge Arabic Course - The Countries And Dialects Covered: |
The Cambridge Arabic course teaches Modern Literary Arabic. It is the formal Arabic that is written and spoken throughout the contemporary Arab world. Also known as Fus'ha, it is used in various forms by approximately 200 million people in the Arab world and other parts of the world. In the Arab world, Modern Literary Arabic is the language of the news media, intellectual life, and literature - from the historian Ibn Khaldun, to the Nobel Prize winning author Nagib Mahfuz. It is the form of Arabic universally taught in schools of the Arab world. In addition, Modern Literary Arabic is the lingua franca used and respected by educated Muslims throughout the entire world.
Modern Literary Arabic is essentially a streamlined, modernized form of Classical Arabic – the latter being the language of the Qur’an and classical literature. It is used in education, for official purposes, and for written communication within the Arabic-speaking international community.
Because of its grammatically complex contents, students studying the Cambridge Arabic Course will be able to pick up other Arabic dialects. It is not possible to become a good speaker of Arabic without learning the fundamentals of Modern Literary Arabic.
Modern Literary Arabic is either widely used or is the official language in the following countries: |
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| ● Syria |
● Iraq |
● Qatar |
| ● Lebanon |
● Sudan |
● Yemen |
| ● Jordan |
● Kuwait |
● South Yemen |
| ● Palestine |
● Bahrain |
● Oman |
| ● Hijaz |
● Saudi Arabia |
● Somali |
| ● Egypt |
● United Arab Emirates |
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It is also the primary means of written communication, as acceptance of the language grows in the following countries (which are largely subject to either French or Italian influences):
- Morocco
- Algeria
- Tunisia
- Libya
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| Learn Arabic at Cambridge Institute : |
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Arabic Lessons
The Basic Arabic Course offers lessons specially designed for beginners and for those who intend to brush up their language skills. The course covers simple dialogue (with the aid of English translation), basic grammar, vocabulary and expressions. You will also learn about formal introductions and addressing people. In each lesson, illustrations of the Arab culture and customs will be presented, offering you a glimpse of their distinct lifestyle and diverse experiences. This will allow you to have a better “feel” of the language as it is used in its native context. After completing the basic level, you have the option of progressing to our Intermediate Arabic Course. |
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