The Arabic language is a Semetic
language that has 12 dialects and is spoken in 28 different countries by over
200 million people world wide. It is believed to have spread along with the
spread of Islam and through nomadic peoples. Those who read the Quran and
converted to Islam began learning it and speaking it.
Arabic is a diglossia language
which means that the written form and the spoken form are different. Modern
Standard Arabic, or MSA, is written and understood by everyone in the Arab
world but the dialects are what is spoken. MSA is mostly used in formal
settings such as government documents or public
broadcasts. It is the only form of Arabic with a grammar system that is
explicitly regulated and used as a national language. All other dialects of
Arabic simply have a sense of what is “grammatically correct” or incorrect.
Most of the Arabic dialects can be
written fairly similarly and share much of their vocabulary. On the other hand,
some dialects are so fundamentally different that they are unintelligible to
one another. For example, a native Moroccan speaker would probably not be able
to understand a Levantine speaker. That is partially because the dialects are
so different, and partially because they are less commonly spoken forms.
Egyptian, on the other hand, is much more popular in the Arab world due in no
small part to their presence in international movies and television.
Some common dialects are Arabian,
Egyptian, Lebanese, Moroccan, Iraqi, Andalusian, Palestinian,
Yemeni, and Sudanese. Arabian
Arabic contains the subdialects: Bahraini Arabic, Gulf Arabic and Hejazi
Arabic. Most dialects are separated by nation and region. However, there are
multiple ways in which to separate the dialects. Another common way is Maghrebi,
Egyptian, Levantine, Gulf, and Iraqi. Those are more loosely separated by
region, and create broader look at the different forms.
The Hindu Arabic numeral system
is another thing that is uniform across the Arab world. It began with ancient
scientists and mathematicians and eventually grew into every day use. It is a
list of ten symbols and uses all the same rules as any other base-10 number
system.
I found your piece very interesting and learned a lot about the Arabic language that we have never had a chance to really talk about in class. It is really surprising to me that the dialects can be so similar but one can not really understand one another. Great topic choice, enjoyed this. Thanks.
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