Arabic is the sixth- most spoken language in the world, with over 200 million speakers. The exact statistics vary, but most listings have Arabic after Mandarin Chinese, English, Spanish, Bengali, and Hindi/Urdu. It remains the largest Semitic language alive in the modern world, and shares its roots with both Aramaic and Hebrew. The spoken dialects of Arabic have differentiated themselves quite substantially over the centuries, so that speakers of say, Moroccan Arabic, may actually find much of Egyptian Arabic to be a mystery. In fact, the difference between some dialects of Arabic may be as great as the differences between Spanish and Portuguese. Thankfully, the official language of every Arab nation is actually the same: classical, or literary Arabic. This is considered by most Arabs to be the only “authentic” Arabic, and is also referred to as FusHa, or Modern Standard Arabic (MSA). This is the Arabic of the Qur’an, and is used in literature, the news media, diplomacy, and of course, religious dialogue.
Arabic is the official language of more than 20 countries throughout the Middle East and North Africa. Aside from classical Arabic, there are five main branches of dialects. Egyptian Arabic is the most common dialect, as the population of Egypt is now pushing 80 million. It is also the most commonly understood dialect among all Arabic speakers, due to the immense popularity of the Egyptian media and film industry in the Middle East. The other four dialects are Iraqi (spoken only in Iraq), Gulf (spoken in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, and throughout the Arabian Peninsula), Levantine (spoken in Lebanon, Palestine, Syria and Jordan), and Maghrebi (spoken in Morocco, Tunisia, and throughout northern Africa).
By utilizing standardized Arabic (MSA), speakers from all over the Arab world (as well as Indonesia, Malaysia, etc.) are able to communicate with one another quite well. Often in daily life, MSA is woven together with the local dialect. This “mixing” can be seen in quite a variety of contexts, from common greetings to cartoons. Ultimately, the roots of classical Arabic are inextricably intertwined with the Qur’an, which among other things is seen by Muslims as the quintessential language textbook, and from which all grammatical and structural rules are gleaned. In fact, the Arabic of the Qur’an is so important to Islam that many Muslims feel a translation of the holy book cannot possibly convey the original meaning of the text.
While the influence of the Arabic language on Islam cannot be overstated, the majority of Muslims worldwide are not fluent in spoken Arabic. For example, many Muslims come to the Middle East from lands like Somalia, Indonesia and Malaysia, where Arabic is not the official language, in order to study the classical Arabic of the Qu’ran. So while these students may be able to share common greetings with native Arabs (like “Salaamu 9alekum”), it is possible for them to complete their studies and return to their countries unable to speak Arabic fluently.
Arabic is a very difficult language for Westerners to learn to speak, with the variety of glottals and pharyngeals, which are produced from deep within the throat. For this reason, Arabic is considered a very difficult language for a Westerner to speak, much less master.
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