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SOUTH AFRICA AND THE ARABIC

i am a student at marshall middle school and want to now what language african language and arabic speek together. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 97.106.34.250 (talk) 02:10, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Confirmation of Arabic Symbol/Words for Peace and Love

I have found a symbol (which looks like a dove) that says it refers to the Arabic for Peace and Love: Please can you confirm that this is right: http://images.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=http://humboldt.edu/clubs/images/uploads/peace_and_love.jpg&imgrefurl=http://humboldt.edu/clubs/club_sites/arabic_peace_and_culture/&usg=__HaWcl53NGk2vJOU-agehzjgGwXw=&h=355&w=400&sz=99&hl=en&start=1&itbs=1&tbnid=IvcusiiRSKttfM:&tbnh=110&tbnw=124&prev=/images%3Fq%3Darabic%2Bpeace%2Band%2Blove%26hl%3Den%26safe%3Doff%26gbv%3D2%26tbs%3Disch:1 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.33.189.204 (talk) 17:04, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

you should ask these kind of questions in the Reference Desk. This page is reserved for discussion relating to the improvement of this article. Anyways, regarding your question, it is indeed a beautiful stylized writing of Peace & Love in which the end of these two words are extended to form a pigeon's shape (I suspect that the curve at the top of the pigeon's head is an "and"). Eklipse (talk) 20:37, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

Q

I didn't see this covered in the article: Why are the words "Quran", "Iraq", and "Qatar" (and possibly others) written with a "q" for the "k" sound ? Standard English would suggest a "c" or maybe a "k" in those instances -- unless, as I suspect, there is a subtle nuance in the original Arabic that is slightly different from an actual "k" sound ? Thanks.76.113.104.88 (talk) 04:13, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

Qaddafi is another frequent example. More than a nuance, it is indeed a separate letter (see Arabic alphabet). It’s covered here under consonants but only by being listed in the table. See Uvular consonant (which is linked in the column heading above q). I tend to agree, for English speakers the difference in articulation between "k" and "q" could use some explanation, as there’s a significant distinction in Arabic and many other languages. MJ (t • c) 02:24, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

Nabati redirect

If I'm interested to find out about Nabati poetry (Gulfi vernacular?) why am I redirected here? 84.36.142.92 (talk) 09:46, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Iberian peninsule muslim rule

I changed "Arab rule" to "muslim rule" since in despite of being true that in first centuries the ruling class in the muslim zones of the Iberian peninsule were in fact of Arab origin, in later times this was not true -rulers come from berberic north Africa or they were Iberians themselves. It is more accurate to write "muslim rule" also since the majority of population continued to speak a romance language (Mozarabic, now extinct but the last of the members of such continuum: Aragonese), not Arab, which was the administrative, scientific and elite-cultural language but not the common language of population, or at least not in the first centuries (mozarabic was healthy in 1300). Also, borrowed words to northern romance languages (current Portuguese, Spanish, Catalan...) maybe entered sometimes from Arabic itself, but sometimes throught Mozarabic (for instance, algodón in Spanish retains the arabic article, but cotó in Catalan does not, and so on).91.117.9.231 (talk) 19:19, 20 June 2010 (UTC)

Implication

The article implied that all Semitic languages are written from right to left. See Babylonian and Ethiopic. ESA was written in both directions, alternately. Maltese is Semitic also. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.132.158.113 (talk) 14:23, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

Protect?

The amount of vandalism (and not even funny fandalism, but plain old vandal stupidity) that this page is subject to on a daily basis is really starting to get ridiculous. Protect, anyone?? Szfski (talk) 12:47, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

I'd agree. --Taivo (talk) 13:29, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Just Orange and Black?

In the list of Arabic words/phrases, I only saw 2 color names on the list. I know this is not because Arabic speaking groups do not have names for these colors, but rather besause someone was unable --- for whatever reason --- to list any of the other colors. شكرا (Thank You) SuzieSingB (talk) 16:05, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

ام أنا أنا بنت —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.51.185.0 (talk) 13:10, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

The ALFB NewWay Romanization

Who wants to get back the column with this transliteration system? I think it's quite acceptable. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.220.33.64 (talk) 21:49, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

Classical Arabic vs Modern Standard Arabic ?!

First, I'd like to thank all wiki-members for this nice article. The differntiation between classical arabic and what's called standard arabic sounds very strange and incomprehensible to any arabic native-speaker. In fact, arabic has undergone no change in terms of grammar and lexicon, since the north-western dialect of modhar مضر -Quranic Arabic- had become the standard language. All that happened was the intoduction of some new words or loan words related to modern technology and that doesn't make a difference in any language, does it? All educated arabic-speakers can understand with perfect ease a piece of literatature written in the 8th or 9th centures for example as though it were written nowadays, in addition to Quran of course. .................................. modern authors attempt (with varying degrees of success) to follow the syntactic and grammatical norms laid down by Classical grammarians .................................. this is a very misleading comment. Grammatical and syntactic norms are thoroughly and fully respected in any form of writing; a text that may contain a few errors is generally considered unworthy of reading and the writer pointed at as uneducated. As for history, precisely pre-Islamic era, two varieties of arabic existed; northern arabic and southern arabic ie Yemen's arabic known as the language of himyar لسان حمير . The two varieties differed much in terms of grammar and lexicon; amr ibn el alaa عمرو بن العلاء,for instance, one of early prominent arabic gammarians pointed out that ... the arabic of himyar is not our arabic.The southern variety died out shorty after the spread of Islam. The northern variety contained slight differences in usage, some grammatical rules and even in pronunciation ..some tribes,for instance, replaced pronoun /ki/ كِ / -used to address females- with /shi/ some added /s/ to it, some did not inflect the dual, a usage used in Quran in one ayat. /ذو / 'whose' for the majority of tribes meant /who - which/ in tayii's -طيئ- dialect, /السكين/ assikin 'knife' in koraych's dialect was unknown to other tribes who used /المدية/ el mudia and so on.

Dialects and descendants. ....................... Colloquial Arabic" is a collective term for the spoken varieties of Arabic used throughout the Arab world, which, as mentioned, differ radically from the literary language. ....................... 'radically' sounds radical here. modern dialects do differ from standard arabic, but they are not that different. Any variety of dialectal arabic can be harly distinguished from standard arabic when written. Sentence structure, lexicon, verb conjugation - with some slight differences- remain unaltered. the main difference consists of the loss of inflection - which is shown through signs not letters in writing- and varying pronunciations. That's why all dialects are mutually intelligible online. Arabic and its modern dialects should by no means be compared to Latin and romance languages ... they're two very different cases. ... another factor of the differentiation of the dialects is the use of classical arabic synonyms for the same meaning, some dialects for example use /بيت / beyt for 'home' other dialects use 'دار ' dar , some maghribine dialects use /نوء/ naw ie rain while other dialects use /مطر/ matar ... this may be confusing to uneducated speakers who are not accustomed to other varieties. .... —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sayih (talk • contribs) 23:30, 2 December 2007 (UTC)


  • That is exaggerating. Modern Arabic languages, as they have to be named, are very different from Classical Arabic, mainly in grammar.

Example in Arabic: هذا الرجل the same sentence in Egyptian: الراجل ده CAN'T YOU SEE THE DIFFERENCE! or you like to ignore facts? (an example for languages descended from Arabic, is as the languages that were descended from Latin in Europe & all are recognized as languages :)) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.36.132.57 (talk) 20:40, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your comments. Look up Versteegh's book (in the references) for the very significant differences between dialects and standard. 'Any variety of dialectal arabic can be harly distinguished from standard arabic when written' Bahi, huni bash niktiblik 7aja bit-tunsi. Hardly distinguishable from MSA? Also, there are signficant difference between classical and MSA in e.g. agreement, negation (using ma as a sentence negator: I never see that in a newspaper, where you'll find laysa, lam, la). But it is true, this artcile does need better sourcing... Drmaik 04:36, 3 December 2007 (UTC)
 Thank you for your comment. Let me take what I understood of your sentence

baghi nekteb lek haja bittounsi باغي نكتب لك حاجة بالتونسي the only difference between this phrase and Standard Arabic is the onjugation of the verb. in standard arabic it's أكتب aktub.. in magribine dialects it's the plural form that's used baghi is the gerund from the verb بغى which means want or like among other meanings, the use of the gerund in this way is recognized in literary style. the use of ma ما for negation is very common in literary style modern and old, as well as in dialectal arabic ... eg ما فهمت شي ma f'hamt shi 

and it's grammatically correct ....

I'll quote a pre-islamic verse for example .. وما أنا إلا من غزية إن غوت ..غويت وإن ترشد غزية أرشدِ it's also used in Qur'an quite frequently. it's not commonly used in journalistic style as it is felt to convey more personal connotation. well, one must be well versed in grammar and literary tradition to judge such things. Let's suppose this is true, I don't quite often see 'thou knowst' in British or American newspapers though it was used in Shakespeare's works written in modern English. ... I looked at the majority of articles concerning the matter quite some time ago, they contain a good number of errors owing mostly to the lack of adequate knowledge of classical/standard arabic. I'll look again and try to make comments there, thanks again. Any variety of dialectal arabic can be harly distinguished from standard arabic when written .... the quote by the way isn't mine; a conference about arabic dialects was held in algiers last summer. Linguists from all over the Arab World participated and that was their final statement. I'll see if I can get some documents or stuff.--Sayih 16:14, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

OK, well, the first word was bahi = 'good', in this case, 'well'. The fact that you didn't understand other bits might go against the 'hardly distinguishable' argument. huni = here, besh is the future marker. Haja is not normally used to mean 'something' in MSA, rather 'need', though a reading as 'thing' is possible: we'd expect shay' here in MSA (which generally means 'nothing' in Tunisian). niktiblik I wrote as one word as that is what it is in Tunisian, both in terms of word stress ('niktib vs. nik'tiblik' and negation maniktibliksh.)
In any case, it's not the results of discussions like these that end up in the articles, but syntheses of published work. You'll also find Clive Holes' Modern Arabic a good place to follow up related issues: it should be cited in the article (and I don't have time to do that right now). The fact may well be that Arabic speakers don't immediately think 'oh that's in dialect' when something is written in it, but the stark differences are there. Drmaik (talk) 07:43, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

I didn't say dialect and SA don't differ at all, but the difference is not that radical as pointed to in the article. Transliteration in latin script can be confusing, bahi is an adjective is standard arabic meaning beautiful, huni is huna here pronounced with imala an acceptable form of pronunciation even in pre-islamic era. how to write lik doesn't matter much. Notwithstanding the clumsiness of style, all words present in your sentence are present in SA form and meaning , except for bash. Stating references as you said, isn't it strange that these articles don't refer to native-speaker scholars but to Westerners; for all other languages it's their native speakers who decide what is what, for arabic it must be the other way. Excuse me pal, but we know our language more than an orientalist who spent tens of years studying what he couldn't possibly understand very well.

Besides, the core of my comment is about the absurd differentiation between classical Arabic and MSA,with the article contradicting itself clearly about that and stating false things.Can you state your references about that as this 'fact' is ignored by all native speakers.--Sayih (talk) 10:51, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Sayih concerning the differences between "Modern Arabic" and "Standard Arabic" (attention: I used quoting because such thing does not exist). How can we talk about these two varieties and we do not even have the equivalent of these terms in Arabic (academic terms not old(Qadim) and new(Jadid) ). To be honest the first time I heard about them was from an orientalist book (I guess I was ignorant of my own language and all the Medieval books I read before were written in another form; this is absurd). I believe that we should rely more on native sources more than orientalist's ones (as we do in other languages). See Edward Saïd's book about orientalism and bias.
Let's talk about the differences that all the people use as arguments. The only difference I see is the less use of a set of words (considered out-timed) and the introduction of new ones (normal language evolution). Most of the lost words are referring to special terms used in old culture and environment (may be we should call them the Bedouin terms vs. the city ones). The syntax, the grammar, the roots are the same, any child who is able to read can understand old texts and novels (of course not poesy or philosophical texts).
Another very important thing (which is not even an argument; a huge error), most orientalists and authors here do not differentiate between 3elm Al-Balagha and 3elm-Allogha (may be I can translate them to "Language perfection or Art discipline" and the "Language discipline"). In fact, they consider the Al-Balagha (not knowing may be that it exists) as the classical form of Arabic and the normal language as the Modern. This is another misunderstanding of the Arabic language and its associated Arts or Disciplines.
As for the dialects, I admit that there are differences but surely they are not like the ones between French and Spanish for instance (totally incomparable). Another point for Sayih, it is really difficult to assume that dialects can have a written form (they do not represent a whole linguistic identity without Arabic). Finally, I am starting a research on the influence of the Pan-Arab media and communications on the dissolve of the dialects ( in Tunisia for example many new imported words are gaining places such as Kifak (how are you) instead of Shnowa A7walak, another term Tayeb (good or fine) instead of Bahi). I think that all Arab dialects will fuse in the coming years (may be long time but it is coming), especially with new generations. Bestofmed (talk) 00:41, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Bestofmed makes good points here. I remember one beginning language textbook that made some fundamental grammatical errors. Some of these orientalists think they are beyond reproach, and they are completely baffled that native speakers have no respect for them. There are scholarly books in Arabic - maybe they should be translated so that the orientalists can read them. By the way, in Tūnsi, it's actually "šniyya Hwālik" - 'aHwāl' is the plural of 'Hāl', so it's grammatically compatible with 'hiya' and not 'huwa.' Cbdorsett (talk) 04:57, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
Language politics. While Arabs with a political view of their language make interesting claims, objective analysis is another matter. There are clearly differences between the Classical language and what is referred to by scholars as Modern Standard. The article adequately cites some. As for the differences between dialects, they are most clearly on the order of French to Spanish to Latin. Typically Machreqi Arabs can't bloody well understand Maghrebine dialects. In any event so long as the article is not deformed by nationalist / political a priori ideas about the langauge, have fun making claims and dreaming of dialect unification. (collounsbury (talk) 10:20, 17 January 2008 (UTC))
Making claims and dreaming?? please learn some Wikipedia conducts before using such expressions. Apparently it is clear who is the non-objective here; turning discussion into personal views and emotions. Please answer the claims instead of commenting as a great scholar. We are here to make an agreement, to exchange ideas. Bestofmed (talk) 20:37, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
Making claims and dreaming is precisely accurate. Comments above are filled with personal assertions and hand waving based on Arab nationalist sentiment, not data, linguistic studies nor objective analysis. Ach ghangoulek, bghiti chi haja hulm, ma keinch chi taouhide l-lougha, ouldi. If one wishes to change the article, one has to rather than insulting "orientalists" (apparently scholars one doesn't like), bring linguistic science to the table. Or whinge on. (collounsbury (talk) 22:30, 17 January 2008 (UTC))
It seems that you find it hard to believe that there are indeed Arab scholars of Arabic and that Arabs actually study their own language more than non-Arabs. What Bestofmed was trying to say is that Arab scholars do no agree with this division. Grammar is identical, what applies in the so called 'classical' applies in 'msa' and vise versa. vocabulary may have expanded a little in the last 100 or 150 years, but I'm sure that English vocabulary did so too; I mean, try saying Electricity in the year 1800, would anyone know what you are talking about? does that mean that Jane Austin spoke a different language? or does that mean that the word 'lantern' to Jane Austin meant something different?
His claims are not biased or 'nationalist', he is basing what he says on Arab scholars who find no difference with the exception of a few new terms that refer to things that did not exist 1500 years ago. The words that are now rarely used did not change their meaning at all. What you are calling 'clear' differences is not clear at all to Arabs. Unless you speak Arabic better than Arabs, I'd say they know what they are talking about.
By the way, if you make a full search in the whole Arab world among scholars, references, poets, writers and even lay-people; you will not find a single reference to such a difference. If you truely believe they are all fooling themselves or that this is propaganda then allow me to say that your mindset is, at the least, biased. --Maha Odeh (talk) 12:43, 14 February 2008 (UTC)
Boring whinging my dear. I studied Arabic under almost exclusively Arab professors, who had more or less the same analysis - as non-"arab nationalist" professionals. Making the Arab versus Western scholar claim is pure and utter rubbish. Grammar is not identical, nor syntax (as the arty nicely summarizes), although indeed, yes, similar, etc. But whatever, piss and moan as you like - the arty however will require proper citations. Emotional and particular provincial reactions are understandable, but in the end not relevant. (collounsbury (talk) 00:41, 15 February 2008 (UTC))

If I may just but in here. I think there is a little bit of emotion in this discussion and although I enjoy the exchange I respectfully suggest you are arguing at cross purposes. There seems to be two arguments here:

1) Is there a difference between "classical" arabic and "modern standard arabic"? Here I would tend to agree with Maha and Bestofmed; the distinction is minimal or at least to my ears (I am a non-native Arabic speaker having lived in the Arab world for twenty five years) the closest parallel would be the distinction between early modern English and contemporary written English. No native Arabic writer that I am aware of uses the distinction. Both are referred to as Al-lugha Al-fusha (eloquent language - sorry I can't "do" dots under the h).

2) Is there a difference between the classical or written register and the spoken language varieties? Here I think Collounsbury has a point, although that was not the title of the discussion. Having said that, and recognising the importance of neologisms in all current varieties of Arabic there can be little doubt that, upon analysis, even those varieties of Arabic reputed to be "furthest" (this is another discussion: i.e. was "fusha" ever spoken and do the current varieties descend from it or from other varieties of spoken Arabic contemporary with the 7th century poetic language) from the written language, such as the Darija referenced by Collounsbury turn out to be not so far!

If we take his example: "Ach ghangoulek, bghiti chi haja hulm, ma keinch chi taouhide l-lougha, ouldi" and rearrange the presentation it is possible to an analysis which shows common roots with nearly all extant varieties.

Ach or Ash (Ai shai'? = what thing?) common to just about every variety of spoken Arabic and easily linked to the literary version.

ghangoulek or ghadi ngoul lek = (will I say?) ghadi is a gerund of a root cogniscant with ghadda' (tomorrow) and the idea of the future, divergant from the standard sure - but no spoken variety uses "sa" or "saf" - most use an Aramaic derived future marker "ha" - "ha goul lek" (many varieties of bedouin Bilad ash-Shams). The difference between ngoul and 'goul is the Alexandrine plural found in other bedouin dialects even East of the Nile. Finally "lek" = to you is also easily understandable in just about any imaginable dialect.

Bghiti is a peculiar feature of Maghrebi varieties but once one connects with the "classical" verb 'inbigha' or the Gulf usage "baghi" gerund of the unusual (in classical) baghaa and realises that it is in the preterite form (also peculiar to Maghrebi dialects) a little bit of effort makes the connection.

I could go on with ma kein chi (there is nothing) - fairly widespread negative form in spoken - double negative ma//chi or ma//shi and with some thought not so different from the Baghdadi "ma kou" or the peninsular ma fi sh. In fact the Maghrebi version is more conservative than either; using a gerund of kaana (to be).

I find wryly amusing that you used the idafa for towhid al-logha rather the connective dial (dho li in the old form of the classical) - another example of where Maghribi is more conservative than Mashreq varieties etc.

All I am saying "ouldi" is that you seem to be getting het up about this whereas there is no real reason to and that perhaps there is an argument from both points of view. BTW I am aware that my transliterations are not perfect - I can't do them with this keyboard so apologies for that and ma' salema or, in Hassaniya, - wada'na koum moulana! Wildbe (talk) 13:03, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

I am not fluent in Arabic but I'd like to comment that we should distinguish between Modern Standard Arabic - MSA (language of the media) and modern Arabic dialects (Egyptian, Maghribi, etc.). The former, although modernized has mostly the same grammar rules as the Classical Arabic (CA). By modernisation, I mean new words, which have to do with modern life - newly created, borrowed from other languages or spoken dialects. --Atitarev (talk) 23:24, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

I think the original point made was very valid and was misconstrued (hopefully not intentionally). I would like to attempt to clarify the issue a little bit. There is no argument about the vast difference between the various Arabic dialects, however, to consider them as different as the various Romance languages is surely wrong. Each dialect is quite similar to at least one other dialect, the changes are geographically coherent for the most part, and all neighbouring countries find neighbouring dialects intelligible, and even others. I am speaking from a background of Saudi, Egyptian, Yemeni, and Maghribi dialects.

The real point however, is what is this thing they call MSA? To all the believers in this term who refuse to listen, I will start by asking you to produce one sentence in MSA which is grammatically deviant from Classical Arabic. It is an impossibility. Let me reiterate: أتحداكم أن تأتوا بجملة واحدة فصيحة على نمط ما يسمى اللغة العربية الحديثة (لا يوجد لهذا المصطلح نذير باللغة العربية) لا يوافق اللغة العربية العتيقة The issue is, the only place you will see "Modern Standard Arabic" is in the works on non-Arab writers, and as far as I can tell, the German Orientalists have no share in it either. And I will give you a good-faith explanation for that. There is no language that has remained gramatically intact for as long as the Arabic language. Archaic Greek gave way eventually to a number of dialects, High German to Frisian to Old English to Modern English, and so on. The Romance languages replaced Latin entirely, as did Hindi and Urdu Sanskrit. However, Arabic, once developing from the older Semitic languages, remained gramatically stable. That is due to linguistic as well as historical reasons. The grammar of Arabic is noted by some to be almost picture-perfect, the Nahu and Sarf are so empowering, a speaker of the language can command a vocabulary far beyond most other languages, from the very nature of the 3 syllable root structure, and the lack of arbitrariness in verbal vocabulary which develops from those roots. Not only that, never did a language have such a body of scholars who served it's grammar, the Greeks falling behind just as its scholarship came into being (otherwise Greek is the most comparable language). From Ali ibn Abi Talib, to Ibn Ajrum, to Saibaweh, to al-Fayroozabaadi... men who were of Persian and other descent gave their lives to the study of the Arabic language as a contribution to Islam (such as the latter two). Thus the morphology, semantics, syntax, etymology, and linguistic features undefined in English such as al-'Aroodh, al-Qaafiyah, al-Balaaghah, I'jaaz al-Qur'aan and others were refined, studied and instructed, with a vigor that kept this grammar and the core of the language alive throughout all modern changes and developments. That is why the Arabic we speak formally IS the same Arabic spoken more than 1500 years ago, though unquestionably less rich, and with new vocabulary and semantical features etc. But the changes are all within the bounds of the original linguistic structure. It may make more sense to the Orientalist to whom small differences often seem like the language has completely changed to understand that the developments in two thousand years in the syntactical features of Arabic are LESS than what occurred in the English language in just 200 years. I could communicate with Abu Bakr as-Siddiq, Radi Allahu 'Anhu, much better than the average college grad could with King James, though there are a thousand years between them. That is the point. Rsg70007 (talk) 20:43, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

Arabic and Islam

Ive added a little bit to this section, which was necessary to address the view that Arabic is not only the liturgical language, but that its claimed to be God's favorite language for human communication. Seems rather silly to think of a language as preferred by God, as Arabic existed long before Islam, has changed over the centuries, and has diverged into distinct dialects (one would infer that language considered perfect would not need to change at all.) This addresses the basic issue from a critical standpoint, but I'm thinking there needs to be more of an insider's explanation into why Arabic is considered to be divine. -Zahd (talk) 06:11, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

I came across the statement you are referring to and removed it noting that "statements attributed to the Qadiani/Ahmadiyyat sect cannot be attribute to Muslims." The website referenced is clear in it being a Qadiani website, http://www.alislam.org/introduction/index.html. Thus the statements should be added under a title such as Arabic and Qadianis, etc. As far as Arabic considered divine, there is a reference to scholarship regarding narrations that attest to such as being largely baseless and weak. Thank You Rsg70007 (talk) 20:53, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

Name transcription

I've transcribed the name of the language according to Wikipedia:IPA for Arabic. If anyone has a problem with it, please discuss it here first before changing it. - AlexanderKaras (talk) 10:08, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

Arabic language day

World Day of the Arabic language is the day the world celebrates all 30 July of each year in Arabic World Day of the Arabic language.

The above sentence from the lede is gibberish, the article it links to is junk, and even if it's correct, this kind of trivia doesn't belong in the lede. Before I nuke it, can anyone find a source that this thing actually exists? Other than copies of Wikipedia, I can't find any reference to this. The closest I found is that Arabic Language Day at the UN (as far as I know meaningful only within the organisation) is on 18 December. On the other hand, my Arabic is still pre-rudimentary, so I can't search for Arabic sources. HenryFlower 08:16, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

Gone. HenryFlower 16:36, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

Untitled

For users needing assistance with Arabic script, please add requests at Wikipedia:WikiProject Arab world/Requests for Arabic script. hallo! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.95.156.87 (talk) 14:49, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

Long Vowels Maintain the Stress

Some people think that long vowel ī in the word al-ʾinǧilīziyyah (الإنجليزيّة) absolutely looses its stress and the stress is only on -iyyah. I don't think so. Arabic world can contain more than one syllable: one is the main with high tone and one or two additional with low tone on long syllables. These are classical rules. Who can say something new about it? 62.220.33.64 (talk) 18:10, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

Khaliji Arabic

My edit was undone, around 33 million people live in the GCC!! 4 millions only speak Khaliji Arabic? What do the rest 29 millions speak? Japanese?!?!! Rewayah (talk) 04:22, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

NORTH AFRICAN (ALGERIA, MOROCCO,,,,) ARE BERBERS NOT ARAB,, AND WE SPEEK THE DARIDJA AND NOT ARABIC LANGUAGE,, WE ARE NOT ARAB,, WE ARE AMAZIGH BERBER NOT ARAB,, AND WE DONT SPEEK ARAB, WE SPEAK DARIJA —Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.92.17.23 (talk) 02:49, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

Hello. Link to a collection of links to online Arabic courses was removed; What is wrong with the site lelaon.com because I do not think it conflicts with Wikipedia:External links; I'm interested in language learning and found it always difficult to find good language resources. That's why I've created lelaon.com and collect some language learning resources links on it. The site also allows anyone to give plus or minus point to a course and comment their own impression of it. I personally tested many of the sites for example Arabacademy and they were please with the review I provided on their site. I admit that the site might have some commercial content, but it has none so far.

Plenty of wikipedia language pages link to strange or partial language courses (e.g. Chinese language links to Google Book preview which is a preview and it ends in the middle of the lesson to start in the middle of the next one. Lelaon.com does not ban any language course it just only did not capture many courses yet, but it will improve.

Thanks (Ikaaros (talk) 15:50, 18 March 2011 (UTC))

Hello Ikaaros. I do not doubt your good will, but the fact is that all those other strange links you mention should be removed. Regarding your link, it should also be removed. First of all, there is a conflict of interests, since you are promoting a site that you yourself created. Secondly, it is a site that promotes other comercial sites. And you have been propagating your site not only in this article, but also in Russian language, Portuguese language and French language. Please read Links normally to be avoided and understand why your link is not suitable. Thank you. The Ogre (talk) 17:16, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

Zwierzanski?

The two books by Michael Zwierzanski mentioned in the "Studying Arabic" section, Arabic: A Nebulous Nature and A Quintessential Handbook in the Study of Arabic Whimsy, don't appear to exist -- not on Amazon, not on ABE, and googling either title just brings up copies of the paragraph here. There does appear to be someone named Michael Zwierzanski who is involved in Arabic studies, but he doesn't appear to be at Brown and he doesn't appear to have written any books. Anyone have any insight into this? I never edit Wikipedia, just happened to notice and thought I'd say something. 09:13, 24 February 2011 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.170.189.139 (talk)

Went ahead and deleted this material. 05:25, 25 February 2011 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.170.189.139 (talk)
Nice job. This looks like the work of a long time persistent vandal. Looking through Richardbooth's other edits revealed more vandalism like this. SQGibbon (talk) 06:10, 25 February 2011 (UTC)
Unverified claim. 1. he have never been warned for vandalizing anything, 2. it seems he is a pretty passive editor, doing a little valid cleaning and linking here and there, sometimes doing a few stupid edits. Not a vandal. Rursus dixit. (mbork3!) 14:37, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

Dealing with an Arabic reference

To anyone reading this who can read Arabic: I have a source I think might tell me a little history about the establishment of the Royal Hospital in Baghdad, for an article about the Garden of Ridván, Baghdad, which has been nominated for DYK. I've tried Google Translate and the PDF copies over all wrong (boxes, etc), so that won't work. Can anyone who can read the PDF tell me if it mentions dates or other major details for the establishment of the Royal Hospital and further hospitals on the site, and, if so, what are they? Many thanks. --dragfyre_ʞןɐʇc 02:43, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

I'm not sure if the content is still needed, but are you referring to a hospital within the mid-1800s. I've seen some names, but it's hard to make an exact match. Let me know what you know about it, to dig-in more details. Thanks. ~ AdvertAdam talk 10:01, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

This article on the Arabic language has so many mistakes it should not be on wiki? one example, 50 million people speak Egyptian Arabic? 80 million people live in Egypt, what do the remainder speak,what about sudan? 250 million people speak Arabic, 300 million people live in the Arab world with minorities speaking several other languages along with Arabic. Someone should fix this. It is really awful to have such incorrect information. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.88.184.226 (talk) 15:25, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

The figure of 50,000,000 is quoted from Ethnologue, and is for first-language speakers. The figure may be too low due to population growth; but keep in mind many Egyptians speak Sa'idi Arabic, and some do not speak Arabic as a first language. Information in this article follows what the sources say. It is a fact that many Arabic (colloquial) varieties are mutually unintelligible, and this is again what the sources say. Arabs like to claim the opposite, but there are political concerns that are getting in the way here, and/or confusion between native (colloquial) varieties and Fusḥa. Your statement about "5th grade education" seems to indicate that you are thinking of Fusḥa. Mutual intelligibility of native languages has nothing to do with education; the fact that educated Arabic speakers from different regions can converse with each other does not mean that their native languages are mutually intelligible, but simply that both of them can speak a lingua franca -- i.e. some sort of Modern Standard Arabic. Similarly, educated Chinese people from Shanghai and Guangzhou can communicate with each other when they meet, because they have both been taught Standard Chinese in school -- but that hardly means that they could understand each other if each spoke their own pure native tongue (Shanghainese and Cantonese). Benwing (talk) 01:11, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

Official status

I've put back the official status in the infobox. While it is a very good idea to add this information on the Modern Standard Arabic article, it is also crucial that it stays on this article. Arabic, in one of its many forms, is the official language of several countries and readers will expect to see its official status on this article. The fact that the vernaculars don't have an official status doesn't undermine the fact that Arabic has some official status in many countries. It is somewhat similar to French in that it is regulated by different organizations, and that the vernacular versions (which can vary greatly across the world to the point of unintelligibility) have no official status. However, the French language as a whole, retains nonetheless an official status in many countries. — Abjiklam (talk • stalk) 00:05, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

I've also put back the regulating organizations because, by definition, vernaculars are not regulated. Therefore it must be implied that what is regulated is the standard form of Arabic. — Abjiklam (talk • stalk) 00:10, 9 September 2011 (UTC)
Actually, it's a good point, but only to a spoken language in real world. Standard French, at least, is a truly spoken language somewhere on earth (to an extremely great extent). The standardized form for Arabic is Literary Arabic which is also named Modern Standard Arabic. No one was born speaking Literary Arabic. Everyone in the so called Arab world must learn Literary Arabic in order to understand it, making it functioning as a second language. All the spoken dialects are the real spoken languages. No people on earth natively speak Literary Arabic which is the only official language. --Mahmudmasri (talk) 15:49, 9 September 2011 (UTC)
I agree with Mahmudmasri. --Taivo (talk) 21:07, 9 September 2011 (UTC)
I understand your point entirely. However, I insist Arabic in one form or another still has an official status and it is misleading not to mention it in the article. — Abjiklam (talk • stalk) 21:43, 9 September 2011 (UTC)
I still have my opinion, although I may suggest a compromise. Let's at least not add the map or the regulators on Arabic language article, because the Academies of Arabic language don't regulate Arabic vernaculars, they only regular the use of Literary Arabic. We can, instead, add the following map, which demonstrates modern Arabic languages distribution: w:File:Arab World-Large.PNG (this map anyway is misleading because it ignores the fact that parts of Morocco, Algeria, Libya, Tunisia and Egypt don't at least natively speak any form of Arabic). --Mahmudmasri (talk) 06:12, 10 September 2011 (UTC)
That's a MUCH better map. --Taivo (talk) 07:41, 10 September 2011 (UTC)
The map is a very good suggestion and I agree entirely on using it! It pictures a lot better the reality of Arabic as it is spoken. Although, if someone has the geographical information, we could perhaps add a note mentioning other countries where Arabic is spoken by a minority, such as Chad. However, the regulators still have their place in this article. As I said previously, it is obvious the standard form of Arabic is the one that is being regulated. This is the case for pretty much all other languages that have official regulations. — Abjiklam (talk • stalk) 18:02, 10 September 2011 (UTC)
So the map should be changed. But I agree with Mahmudmasri that the regulators are inappropriate here. "Arabic language" is not a monolithic language, it is a language cluster, so to say that there is a "standard form" of a cluster is linguistically false. There is an artificial form that is based on the Classical language--THAT is the regulated form. In other words, all the regulatory agencies only affect Modern Standard Arabic and have nothing whatsoever to do with the vernaculars. In other countries with a standard form, we're dealing with a dialect cluster, and not anywhere from 5 to 20 languages. So the regulatory agencies belong at Modern Standard Arabic, since that's what they're regulating. --Taivo (talk) 04:12, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

"The numeral system in CA is extremely complex (rivaling that of the Russian language)..."

I have edited that statement. The words "extremely" and "rivaling" seem non-NPOV to me. Also, as a native speaker of Russian, I have no idea what the author of the line meant by the complexity of the Russian numeral system. If it has to do with being "heavily tied in with the case system", then I believe it is about as complex as one would expect from a language as fusional as Russian. VonPeterhof (talk) 00:17, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

The article is full of nonsense; "Arabic, Classical Arabic, Modern Standard"

I believe the title of article says it all. The nonsense is right from the first sentence! "Arabic (العربية al-ʿarabiyyah[note A] or عربي/عربى ʿarabī [note B]) is a name applied to the descendants of the Classical Arabic language of the 6th century AD, used most prominently in the Quran, the Islamic Holy Book".

I have seen many attempts in the archives of people trying to correct these errors, but no avail. What is Arabic now, is what is Arabic at the time of the Quran. There is no such thing as Modern Standard Arabic in the Arab world. There is Arabic properly written and spoken (Classical Arabic), which is used in writing, kid shows, tv programs, and the like, and there is what people speak during their everyday lives which is known as "Al Am'mee'ya" (the Colloquial) or "Colloquial Arabic" as it is known here. As for the so called "Modern Standard Arabic", there is no such thing in the Arabic World.

I am not sure why this nonsense is being perpetuated on Wikipedia, by I am past the point of assuming an innocent ignorance.

The article labelled Arabic, should talk at what is called here as "Classical Arabic". This is the language of structure, grammar, and coherency. This is what Arabs refer to in most contexts when they say "Arabic". As for an article referring to the everyday spoken dialects of the Arabs should be called "Colloquial Arabic", or anything along those lines, but certainly not "Arabic"!

Indeed, it is a day when foreigners presume to teach us our tongue! --173.32.132.6 (talk) 18:45, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

I suggest you take a course in Arabic Linguistics in any Arab university. I'm sure you'll see a lot of discussion on the difference between فصحى التراث (Classical/Qur'anic Arabic) and فصحى العصر (Modern Standard Arabic), their difference, most of which aren't grammatical (نحو) but in rhetorics (بلاغة). Although you do get constructions in MSA along the lines of تم قراءة التقرير, which doesn't exist in CA, which prefers قُرِء التقرير. Second, it's usually Arabs doing most of the research (which you call "nonsense") on the differences between MSA and CA, and not "foreigners". --Agari (talk) 18:00, 28 October 2011 (UTC)
I was not to speak with ignorance, nor was I to lie. "Modern Standard Arabic" is a Western concept. If one is ignorant, it is fine, but to mislead with that ignorance is immoral. Here is a simple Arabic sentence without vowels, give me at least nine different meanings it can take أكل الولد الطعام. Stick to the topics you are knowledgeable with, it is basic honesty. --173.32.132.6 (talk) 23:17, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

This article is extremely misleading. Only one standard Arabic exists. To say also that Moroccan dialect is mutually unintelligible to other Arabs is ridiculous. I recently went to Morocco and understand and was understood just fine, albeit with minor difficulty because of the usage of words I was not used to. In California, you may say coke for a soft drink, in Michigan, you may say pop for a softdrink, this is a prime example. Dialectical Arabic is very rich in it use of words having many words for the same item. This is prevalent throughout the Arab world. Just because you have different methods of saying the same thing does not make it a different language. I have traveled throughout the Arab world and practically everyone, even the minorities if they are educated and speak Arabic, speak the same language. Furthermore, the argument that Arabic varies as much as Roman languages is factually incorrect. I do not know who made this argument and why it is written online but it is wholly untrue. Does this person even speak Arabic? I doubt it. One Arabic exists with many dialects. It seems to me another agenda exists pertaining to why these misstatements are being made. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mathewmendenhall (talk • contribs)

I'm sorry but you are big time wrong. It is very true that Moroccan dialect, the Algerian dialect and the Hassaniya spoken primarily in Mauritania are mutually unintelligible to other Arabs. Your personal experience is irrelevant. People educated in Classical Arabic in the Maghreb understand easily the middle-eastern dialects since the latter share a lot with the standard Arabic they have been thought, it is not true in the other sens since Maghrebi dialects are so different (in terms of vocabulary, structure) that it is almost completely unintelligible for middle-easterners. Your analogies with English are completely false, American English have the same basic words than the other English speakers, this isn't the case between the Maghreb and the middle-east, a great deal of the vocabulary is different. I can link you to a video where a middle-eastern interviewer at Al-Arabiya TV was having great difficulty to understand what a guest was saying in a classical Arabic mixed with the Hassaniya dialect, had the guest spoken in plain Hassaniya it would have been totally unintelligible. Same goes for Moroccan, Algerian dialects. Tachfin (talk) 14:30, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

Topic-Comment Structure in Arabic

99.110.86.55 (talk) 08:52, 9 December 2011 (UTC)Many of the articles on Arabic have mentioned a shift from VSO word order in Classical Arabic to SVO word order in Modern Standard Arabic and the modern Arabic dialects. However many prominent linguists specializing in Arabic strongly disagree with this assertion. Their explanation is that the apparent shift from VSO word order to SVO word order is actually the result of topic-comment structure, which is found in all varieties of Arabic, and the different types of discourses that are available and analyzed in historical texts versus modern texts and speech. For example, Dr. Kristen Brustad's "The Syntax of Spoken Arabic: A Comparative Study of Moroccan, Egyptian, Syrian and Kuwaiti Dialects", Georgetown Univ. Press, 2000, states "However, no frequency studies of modern Arabic have yet been undertaken to either support or challenge this assumption. Both VSO and SVO are common enough in all varieties of Arabic to be considered "basic;" a thorough study of word order typology in all varieties and registers of Arabic would be necessary to show if or how the basic typologies of Arabic have changed over time. Until such a study is conducted, the discussion must remain limited to indirect evidence.” Dr Brustad proceeds to present evidence that VSO remains a basic word order in the modern Arabic dialects and that fronting of nouns (subjects and objects) in all varieties of Arabic is best explained by a topic-comment structure of a topic-prominent sentence structure rather than the contrasting the subject-prominent sentence structure of the VSO word order.

Many others have also suggested similar analyses and this may even be becoming the more-accepted view among linguists specializing in Arabic. Although the topic-comment structure in all Arabic varieties is widely recognized, the articles on Arabic only mention VSO vs. SVO and increased usage subject initial sentences in MSA and dialects. It would be beneficial if someone could please add information about the topic-comment sentence structure in Arabic. (The article on Tuareg Languages mentions the option for the topic-comment sentence structure in those languages/dialects that may be a useful example that could be expanded.)


In reality, the word order in Arabic doesn't matter, it's just a recent habit in modern Arabic speakers to use VSO, it is the basic form without side-meaning so the Arabs' mediocre speakers use it all the time as a method instead of declination to distinguish between the subject and the object because of their novice skills in declination, because of that habit, some of them think that it is a syntactic rule. In some dialects we find SVO like Tunisian. The word order is a syntactic rule only in dialectical/colloquial, but in literal/formal Arabic it is for ordering words by importance, or by knowledge of the listener. 1.they speak their dialects in everyday talk but not formal Arabic (there is no grammatical case in dialects) 2.they usually neglect the case declination when speaking formal Arabic thus they don't distinguish between genitive, nominative and accusative anymore and forgot the rules of Arabic grammar studied in primary school!

for example, to say in Arabic "the boy broke the glass": kesera'lweledu'zzujeje (SVO): emphasis to the verb ie what is important is that something is broken, ezzujeje kesera'lweledu (OVS): emphasis to the object ie what is important is that it is the glass that broke and not something else, elweledu kesera'zzujeje (SVO) emphasis to the subject so that the boy did the action and not another person

to say "Zaid gave a book to Salih": aata Zaidun Salihan kiteben (VSO1O2): the listener does not know anything until he hears this phrase; kiteben aata Zaidun Salihan (O2VSO1): the listener knows that Zaid gave something to Salih but does not know what it is so we put what he doesn't know first; Salihan aata Zaidun kiteben (O1VSO2): the listener knows that Zaid gave a book to someone but do not know who

So the Arabic is unclassifiable with that word order classification --A.ouerfelli (talk) 23:37, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

Section on Classical, Modern Standard, and spoken Arabic

I noticed that someone had wrapped parentheses around the heading for the section on Classical, Modern Standard, and spoken Arabic. This had the effect of moving the entire section into the lede. I removed the parens and allowed the section to fall back down to the main article, because the lede already mentions Classical, Modern Standard, and spoken Arabic (in the first sentence, as another commenter astutely noted). I think the article flows better now. Dave (djkernen)|Talk to me|Please help! 15:10, 13 December 2011 (UTC)


The author says Arabic borrowed faruk "savior" from Aramaic which is true. It is not true that other derivatives in Arabic happenned via the process, folk etymology after borrowing. The root f.r.k is Semitic, and Arabic employs the root in many words like farq "difference", mufaraqah "coincidence", tafriq "dispersal", furqah "feeling nostalgic", fariq "team" firqah "unit" and other words. Why the autor says that all the words I listed were brought by the influence of folk etymology is quite puzzling. This mistake harms the overall integrity of the article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 176.45.20.176 (talk) 16:13, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

Sudanes arabic

According to Charles A. Ferguson,the following are some of the characteristic features of the 'koine' that underlies all of the modern dialects outside the Arabian peninsula there is some features aren't applied to Sudanese Arabic :

  • Change of a to i in many affixes
  • Conversion of separate words lī "to me", laka "to you", etc. into indirect-object clitic suffixes
  • changes in the cardinal number system, e.g., ḫamsat ʾayyām → ḫams tiyyām (it's ḫamsat ʾayyām in sundaes Arabic)

beside some of these feature are applied to modern dialects inside the Arabian peninsula like:

  • emphatic ṭ in the numbers 13-19
  • and there is some lexical items like ʾēš (in Yamen)

also I don't know about ɮ sound in Arabic. I am Sudanese born in Saudi Arabia. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Abudreas (talk • contribs) 16:44, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

QRpedia

QRpedia is a WikimediaUK project which uses QR codes to deliver Wikipedia articles to users, in their preferred language. We need a version of the article about it, in Arabic. Can anyone oblige, please? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 21:24, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

hajib ?= hijab

Hajib says "hajib" does not mean the same as "hijab", but http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/hajib and http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/hijab say they mean the same thing. See also http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Talk:hajib --Espoo (talk) 21:54, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

Interwiki help

Could anyone help with fixing the interwiki links for 15th Division (Syria) to Arabic wikipedia? Cheers Buckshot06 (talk) 22:31, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

arabic langueage

Ahhhh Arabic language when you look at it it makes you think what a wondrous mind seeking language it makes you stop think and wonder how their lives were and how they ate. The rise of the Arabic to the status of a major world language is inextricably intertwined with the rise if Islam as a major religion. Before the appearance of Islam,Arabic was a minor member of the southern branch of the Semitic language family,used by a small number of largely nomadic tribes in the Arabian peninsula,with an extremely poor documented textual history.Within a hundred years after the death (in 632 C.E. -1)of Muhammad ,the protect entrusted by god to deliver the Islamic message,Arabic had become the official language of a world empire whose boundaries stretched from the Oxus River in Central Asia to the Atlantic Ocean,and had even moved northward into the Iberian Peninsula of Europe.You see people think their all bad in all cause they sent out death threats and the were bombing but their not they outrageous history their extreme culture to their famous work of art if people would take time to do the research like i did you would be amazed at what you would find out its like all of them are a hidden dream floating in a box out at see were no one man or women would ever find it. It's a dream that wants to believe not hate by hating the Arabian people for what they did is WRONG i mean you see people doing commercials to speeches and telling you not to bully well when you don't forgive them and say the'll always keep bieng like that then your wrong cause how how do you know if they change huh how do you know. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.227.195.112 (talk) 12:02, 29 August 2012 (UTC)

Arabic and Islam

I think it is best the statement about Arabic not being the language of paradise be removed as the website used is a very controversial one; at the very least, it is not considered an authority. Perhaps remove until a further clarifying reference can be found.ServantofAllah93 (talk) 01:04, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

Maltese

May be Maltese should be included as a variety of Arabic. OIt is closer to Standard Arabic than many Arabic varieties such as those in Yemen and Oman and in North and West AfricaPolycopy (talk) 00:09, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

Middle East Quarterly article

This is a 1995 Middle East Quarterly article on Arabic and "radical Islam"

At the time the publication was not peer reviewed WhisperToMe (talk) 03:40, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

Language

It's not a language. It's many languages. They aren't mutually intelligible, and nobody considers it all one language anymore. Shikku27316 (talk) 19:24, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

Greek cypriot? what the hell.

arabic has no influence on greek cypriot what so ever. greek cypriot is a kinde of greek slang. if ever turkish cypriot has influences of arabic. get it right. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.22.120.89 (talk • contribs) 12:51, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

422 million

"If Arabic is considered a single language, it perhaps is spoken by as many as 422 million speakers in the Arab world". That's wrong and that's propaganda, 422 million is the total population of all countries with Arab as official or official among other languages. It has to be compared with French-speaking countries (443 million total population but far from all of them master French) and Spanish-speaking (468 million). — Preceding unsigned comment added by Loup Solitaire 81 (talk • contribs) 12:23, 7 March 2014 (UTC)

Pronunciation of "jim"

The article states that the letter "jim" has several "standard pronunciations". I don't disagree with this, but it is safe to say that [dʒ] is considered the "most standard" of them. This means that speakers from anywhere in the Arab world may use either their respective dialectal sound or [dʒ] when speaking standard Arabic. So an Egyptian would pronounce the word jamîl as [gamiːl] or [dʒamiːl], but never [ʒamiːl]. And a Lebanese would pronounce [ʒamiːl] or [dʒamiːl], but never [gamiːl]. This means that [dʒ] is the only supraregionally accepted pronunciation of the letter. I think this should be clarified. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.206.162.155 (talk) 19:26, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

Actual numbers for Afroasiatic speakers

Berber Branch

14 million Atlas languages 5 million Kabyle language 1.5 million Riffian language 1.4 million Shawiya language 1.2 million Tuareg languages 180,000 Nafusi language 30,000 Siwi language 12,000 Ghadamès language 10,000 Ghomara language 5,600 Sokna language 3,000 Awjila language 2,100 Zenaga language

Total = 23,342,700

Chadic Branch

55 million Hausa language 400,000 Ngas language 300,000 Kamwe language 300,000 Mwaghavul language 250,000 Bade language 230,000 Massa language 230,000 Musey language 200,000 Goemai language 200,000 Gera language 150,000 Azumeina language 150,000 Karekare language 130,000 Tangale language 120,000 Ron language 110,000 Kofyar language 100,000 Bole language 25,000 Tumak language 81,000 Nancere language 80,000 Ngizim language 78,000 Warji language 60,000 Dangaléat language 60,000 Ngamo language 50,000 Kera language 50,000 Ngeté-Herdé language 50,000 Saya language 50,000 Boghom language 35,000 Mubi language 35,000 Peve language 34,000 Gabri language 30,000 Tobanga language 30,000 Miya language 27,000 Gwandara language 26,000 Lele language (Chad) 26,000 Fyer language 25,700 Masmaje language 25,000 Galambu language 25,000 Pero language 22,000 Montol language 22,000 Polci language 20,700 Zari language 20,000 Kimré language 20,000 Mesme language 20,000 Migaama language 20,000 Kanakuru language 18,000 Kabalai language 17,000 Kwang language 17,000 Jorto language 17,000 Pyapun language 16,000 Kulere language 15,000 Guruntum language 14,000 Bidiyo language 14,000 Giiwo language 14,000 Yiwom language 12,000 Mokilko language 12,000 Mburku language 11,000 Kushi language 11,000 Ɗuwai language 10,400 Birgit language 10,000 Kajakse language 10,000 Maaka language 10,000 Kwaami language 10,000 Tal language 9,000 Geruma language 8,800 Dass language 8,500 Toram language 8,000 Pa'a language 7,400 Somrai language 7,200 Diri language 7,000 Mogum language 6,500 Ndam language 6,000 Deno language 6,000 Miship language 6,000 Geji language 5,000 Mire language 5,000 Piya language 5,000 Cakfem-Mushere language 3,800 Siri language 3,100 Kir-Balar language 3,000 Koenoem language 3,000 Kutto language 3,000 Tambas language 3,000 Sha language 2,500 Kholok language 2,500 Gadang language 2,200 Zirenkel language 2,000 Sarua language 2,000 Ciwogai language 2,000 Kariya language 2,000 Zumbun language 1,500 Jonkor language 1,300 Jelkung language 1,100 Ubi language 1,000 Kujargé language 1,000 Tala language 1,000 Mundat language 1,000 Jimi language (Nigeria) 250 Miltu language 100 Boor language 40 Buso language 3 Mabire language

Total = 59,263,943

Cushitic Branch

17 million Somali language 4.5 million Eastern Oromo language 3.9 million Southern Oromo language 3 million Sidamo language 1.9 million Maay language 1.4 million Afar language 1.2 million Beja language 980,000 Gedeo language 890,000 Kambaata language 490,000 Awngi language 460,000 Iraqw language 280,000 Alaba-K’abeena language 250,000 Hadiyya language 240,000 Konso language 220,000 Saho language 210,000 Xamtanga language 91,000 Bilen language 70,000 Burji language 69,000 Gawwada language 66,000 Orma language 65,000 Dirasha language 60,000 Daasanach language 60,000 Rendille language 59,000 Libido language 58,000 Garre language 23,000 Tunni language 23,000 Dabarre language 22,000 Jiiddu language 18,000 Tsamai language 18,000 Bussa language 13,000 Waata language 8,000 Aweer language 7,200 Arbore language 5,500 Baiso language 1,700 Qimant language 1,500 Dobase language 400 Dahalo language 12 Ongota language 8 El Molo language

Total = 37,659,320

Egyptian Branch

? Coptic Language

Total = ?

Omotic Branch

2 million Gamo-Gofa-Dawro language 1.6 million Wolaytta language 830,000 Kafa language 350,000 Bench language 240,000 Aari language 160,000 Koore language 95,000 Maale language 93,000 Basketo language 92,000 Yem language 80,000 Shakacho language 74,000 Hamer language 56,000 Gayil language 39,000 Sheko language 38,000 Shinasha language 37,000 Oyda language 34,000 Dizin language 30,900 Dorze language 20,000 Melo language 19,000 Zayse-Zergulla language 13,000 Chara language 7,200 Nayi language 5,000 Bambassi language 3,000 Hozo language 3,000 Seze language 3,000 Ganza language 2,800 Kachama-Ganjule language 570 Dime language 500 Anfillo language

Total = 5,925,970

Semitic Branch

357-397 million Arabic language 25 million Amharic language 25 million Oromo language 7 million Hebrew language 7 million Tigrinya language 1 million Tigre language 940,000 Silt'e language 550,000 Aramaic language 440,000 Sebat Bet Gurage language 280,000 Inor language 260,000 Soddo language 200,000 Mesqan language 120,000 Mehri language 120,000 Harari language 90,000 Muher language 64,000 Soqotri language 44,000 Argobba language 25,000 Shehri language 4,900 Zay language 3,000 Dahalik language 600 Harsusi language 200 Bathari language 100 Hobyót language

Total = 425-465 million

Absolute Total = 551-591 million speakers 166.147.72.157 (talk) 18:17, 26 May 2014 (UTC)

Muslim speakers?

In the article I read: "Arabic also is a liturgical language of 1.6 billion Muslim speakers." Am I right in thinking that what is meant here is: "Arabic also is a liturgical language of 1.6 billion Muslims."?Redav (talk) 21:40, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

/d/ mentioned twice

In the article I read "While the Nabatean alphabet and writing system met a great deal of the needs, it did not provide letters or symbols for /t/, /d/, /h/, /g/, /z/ and /d/, which were not represented by Aramaic script." "/d/ is mentioned twice. Is /ð/ and / or /dˤ/ and / or /ðˤ/ meant (as well)? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Redav (talk • contribs) 22:13, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

The Quran was written down in a way that reflected the pronunciation of the western dialect of Mecca. Scholars from lower Iraq eventually attempted to reclaim the Quran and have it written to reflect their accent and dialect. this phrase need to be revised — Preceding unsigned comment added by 188.141.65.50 (talk) 00:28, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

Ethnologue list

@Kwamikagami: Your justification for deleting the Ethnologue list of dialects is that they were already in the varieties of Arabic article, but by analogy, German language has the full list while the dialects are covered in German dialects. The same for Chinese language - Chinese dialects. Why should your edits be selectively opinionated? --Mahmudmasri (talk) 01:32, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

WP:OTHERSTUFF. Perhaps the others should be reduced. Since it's such a lot of info that's not covered in the article (as info boxes are supposed to), perhaps we should discuss it first.
More important is the atrocious writing, which is an embarrassment for such an important language. — kwami (talk) 01:37, 6 January 2015 (UTC)
What you referred to as "atrocious writing" isn't valid in that discussion, since the revert I referred to was about deleting the list. Still, you are opinionated when it comes to when to add the list of dialects and why not for Arabic but OK for other languages? --Mahmudmasri (talk) 01:47, 6 January 2015 (UTC)
Ibid. — kwami (talk) 20:49, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

Inaccuracies

"Many words of Arabic origin are also found in ancient languages like Latin and Greek". This assertion appears in the opening section, but is not borne out in the detailed sections that follow. It's also unsourced and blatantly untrue.

In the section "Influence of Arabic on other languages", it is asserted without source that "Arabic is also an important source of vocabulary for languages such as ... Bosnian, Catalan, English, French, German, ... Italian, ..." (my emphasis). In all of the languages listed here, Arabic is a minor source of vocabulary. Certainly not a major/important one. 88.151.31.65 (talk) 16:10, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

Pronunciation of Kaf in Palestinian Arabic

The Rural variant of Palestinian Arabic does indeed use "tʃ" instead of "k" but not in all words. The examples "ktaab" and "maktabeh", "book" and "library" respectively, in the table are pronounced with a normal Kaf, not "tʃtaab" or "matʃtabeh". Those sentences should be corrected. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.79.9.50 (talk) 23:32, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

Root and etymology

Why no section about the root or the etymology of the words ʻarabiyyah and ʻarabī? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.79.48.1 (talk) 02:02, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

See Arab (etymology) for etymology information. Perhaps information could be given in this article, but at the moment this article is way too long and disorganized... — Eru·tuon 02:43, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

Moroccan Arabic official?

In the lead, the article claims that "Moroccan Arabic was official in Morocco for some time, before the country joined the Arab League". No source is given (I put the "Citation needed" tag). It's quite hard to imagine how it could have been official - Morocco joined the Arab League in 1958, two years after achieving independence (1956), and its first Constitution was written in 1962. There is no indication at all that Moroccan Arabic was "official" during the French Protectorate either (although booklets to teach it to French-speaking people certainly existed). I've had a quick look at the documents signed during the process of achieving independence (http://mjp.univ-perp.fr/constit/ma1956.htm) and as far as I can see, no mention is made to language. So if somebody can dig out some document between 1956 and 1958 that mentions Moroccan Arabic, that would be really great, but unless somebody can, the claim should probably go. Ilyacadiz (talk) 20:13, 15 March 2015 (UTC)

Era

An IP user (104.153.42.105) changed the date format from BC–AD to BCE–CE, saying it's culturally neutral. I reverted the date change, because WP:ERA says there needs to be a discussion before date format is changed. So, IP user, please give your reasoning, and let others say if they would prefer to keep BC/AD. — Eru·tuon 03:46, 15 April 2015 (UTC)

Classification of Safaitic and Hismaic

@Taivo: @Kwamikagami: @AnonMoos:

@Zimriel: has changed several articles to state al-Jallad's (2015) view that Safaitic and Hismaic are direct precursors of Arabic as fact, point-blank. (This has been reverted in the meanwhile.) Regardless whether this conclusion is true or not (which doesn't matter anyway: recall that Wikipedia is about verifiability, not truth), it is unacceptable and recentist to take a single scholar's new proposal and treat it as gospel already. It's completely OK to mention serious new proposals – for all I care al-Jallad's argument may have merit, be 100% serious and even headed on its way to consensus –, but it goes overboard to promote them as fact before the print has even dried. (Zimriel's ridiculous accusation on my talk page that I'm a fundamentalist Muslim only because I don't fall over myself to accept every new hypothesis about the origin of the Arabic language as fact has to be one of the more blatant violations of WP:AGF I've had to endure lately, so far I'm left to wonder if Zimriel is a troll. Maybe cut down on the rhetorics and verbal aggression a bit?) --Florian Blaschke (talk) 19:42, 26 June 2015 (UTC)

We determine noteworthiness partly by the quality of publication (e.g. a peer-reviewed journal in the appropriate field) and partly by how the proposal is reviewed in subsequent publications and secondary sources. If al-Jallad has made a convincing case, we'll know soon enough. — kwami (talk) 20:16, 26 June 2015 (UTC)
All I know about these is what's in the "Ancient North Arabian" article in The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the World's Ancient Languages (ISBN 0-521-56256-2), but it seems that Safaitic has an h- prefix article (not al-) while Hismaic inscriptions contain little beyond names, so it doesn't sound promising... AnonMoos (talk) 06:35, 2 July 2015 (UTC)

Arabic Native speakers

There Are 480 million arabs worldwide including those of arab descent in Pakistan afganistan so on the total speaker population it says 340 million but it should be 420 million you must include them and include the berbers because 99% of berbers speak Arabic therefore they should be included you cant subtract them out its like subtract all English speakers cause of there ethnic orgins that's called a propagandist ideology that's vandalism.ArabAmazigh12 (talk) 19:15, 10 July 2015 (UTC)

Requested move 15 July 2015

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: Move. We have a consensus that this is both the WP:COMMONNAME for the language and that the language is the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC of the term.--Cúchullain t/c 15:22, 23 July 2015 (UTC)


Arabic language → Arabic – WP:COMMONNAME and WP:PRIMARYTOPIC. "Arabic" redirects to the language page. Shhhhwwww!! (talk) 02:04, 15 July 2015 (UTC)

The trend has change albeit quietly:
  1. Afrikaans
  2. Amharic
  3. Bislama
  4. Bokmal
  5. Dzongkha
  6. Esperanto
  7. Haitian Creole
  8. Hindi
  9. Interlingua
  10. Kannada
  11. Kinyarwanda
  12. Kirundi
  13. Latin
  14. Lingala
  15. Luganda
  16. Malayalam
  17. Northern Sami
  18. Nynorsk
  19. Old Church Slavonic
  20. Pali
  21. Pashto
  22. Sanskrit
  23. Scottish Gaelic
  24. Standard Tibetan
  25. Tagalog
  26. Twi
  27. Urdu
  28. Volapuk
Shhhhwwww!! (talk) 07:07, 15 July 2015 (UTC)
There is no ambiguity. The people are called Arabs and the adjectival is "Arabian". "Arabic" is far more unambiguous than for example Latin which is the title of a language article although it also refers to Latins and Latin people. "Arabic" is a suitable title for this article. Khestwol (talk) 12:14, 23 July 2015 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The quran

(The Quran was revealed to Muhammad in 632 CE, but it was nearly a century before it was written down, during the reign of the Caliph Uthman) Uthamn died in 656!

Quranic verses were already written down during Muhammad's lifetime as the verses were revealed on separate occasions. The Quran as a single book/manuscript was compiled during Abu Bakr. Uthman standardized the variant manuscripts into one. All this happened within 20 years of Muhammad's death. 210.19.13.194 (talk) 04:23, 12 January 2016 (UTC)

The first paragraph

1, The structure of the first sentence is: "X is the classical X language ..." There must be something wrong with defining a term using the term itself. May I suggest "The Arabic language is a classical language from ..." (or something along these lines).

2, The title of the page is “Arabic language” not just “Arabic.” Surely the term “Arabic” has a wider meaning, (e.g. Arabic Culture/Architecture/Science/etc.) rather than just a language. So why not simply define the term "Arabic language"?

3, The phrase: "Arabic is spoken in a wide arc" must be confusing to some. This is trying to say the language is spoken in a geographically contiguous linear region (which I admit is somewhat clumsy), but perhaps "geographic arc" would be a helpful refinement. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.100.23.163 (talk) 14:59, 8 July 2015 (UTC)

sir i have supper market.my shop coming terrorist group attack me.Now who help me???pleass kindly answer SHIPON234 (talk) 00:50, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

sir i have full video.pleass help me.my no :0545025494 SHIPON234 (talk) 00:52, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

Numerals

Mx Mashael told the TheGuardian: «Hmmm, what all of you don't know is that Arabic numbers also used to be read from right to left beginning from ones, tens, hundreds, and then thousands. Example: the year 1413 used to be read and spilled out in plenty of old texts as "the thirteen after four hundred and a thousand" or "thirteen and fourteen thousand". Now, it is partially influenced be others and spilled from left to right except for the ones and tens; we still say and write the ones before tens. For instance, 1658 is a thousand and six hundred and eight and fifty. Although it might sound awkward to English speakers, it sounds totally natural to Arabs.»

Even in present day, some Arabs (like some of my teachers) read numbers from right to left, which is quite normal [1] — Preceding unsigned comment added by إلياس الجزائري (talk • contribs) 14:42, 8 April 2017 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ الدكتور ابراهيم قلاتي، قصة الاعراب، الصفحة 156

Arabic influence on Classical Greek and Latin

I deleted from the main section: "Many words of Arabic origin are also found in ancient languages like Latin and Greek." Here is why. Classical Greek is typically dated as ending in 323BC, a rather abstract year I know but it's the year of the death of Alexander, and the beginning of the successor kingdoms, anyhow... So this period starts up Koine Greek which is a simplified version of Classical Greek. Classical Latin ended, again another arbitrary but used date, mid 3rd century AD during the Crisis of the Third Century. Now then the Classical Arabic started showing up in the 5th century AD. So, I'm not saying that Arabic did not influence Classical Latin, and Greek, but with a time period differential of roughly 723 years in the case of the Classical Greek, I think a citation should be used before an assertion such as that is used. Now I really don't want this to devolve in to an argument on timelines, because the basic idea stands true. If this were an article on Aramaic, which cited Koine instead of Classical Greek I'd be all for it, but as is for this assertion there needs to be a citation or a change of terminology. 85.57.175.24 (talk) 20:21, 26 April 2017 (UTC)

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Turkey

Arabic is not a recognized minority language in Turkey. Don't add it please. Beshogur (talk) 09:30, 30 May 2017 (UTC)

Paragraph two

A citation is needed after: "However, it has discarded some grammatical constructions and vocabulary that no longer have any counterpart in the spoken varieties, and has adopted certain new constructions and vocabulary from the spoken varieties. Sanakareem20 (talk) 05:18, 16 July 2017 (UTC)

The Literary Arabic section of the article over uses examples. Multiple parts of the article are missing citations. such as the second to last sentence in paragraph 2. Include more regarding the manner of articulation of sounds under the Vowels / Consonants sections. Vowels lack examples in comparison to consonants.Sanakareem20 (talk) 05:58, 16 July 2017 (UTC)

Will be using these books for a similar article. Any advice? Modern Written Arabic A Comprehensive Grammar by Elsaid Badawi, Michael Carter, and Adrain Gully. Perspectives on Arabic Linguistics edited by Stuart Davis and Usama Soltan. Applied Arabic Linguistics and Signal & Information Processing by Descout A textbook for Beginning Arabic by Brustad, Al-Batal, and Al-Tonsi. Introduction to Arabic Letters and Sounds by Brustad, Al-Batal, and Al-Tonsi.Sanakareem20 (talk) 06:09, 16 July 2017 (UTC)

Request Edit for "Arabic speakers and other languages"

From the beginning of the 9th century the House of Wisdom in Baghdad, a major intellectual center during the Islamic Golden Age, had scholars from various parts of the world with different cultural backgrounds mandated to gather and translate all of the world's classical knowledge into the Arabic language. Drawing primarily on Greek, but also Syriac, Indian and Persian texts, the scholars accumulated a great collection of world knowledge and built on it through their own discoveries. By the middle of the ninth century, the House of Wisdom had the largest selection of books in the world.<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Wisdom>

“In 10th-century Baghdad, readers of Arabic had about the same degree of access to Aristotle that readers of English do today. This was thanks to a well-funded translation movement that unfolded during the Abbasid caliphate, beginning in the second half of the eighth century.” <https://aeon.co/ideas/arabic-translators-did-far-more-than-just-preserve-greek-philosophy> — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gghosn (talk • contribs) 16:43, 18 April 2017 (UTC)

what is the plural of jummah Razabhai (talk) 19:05, 5 November 2017 (UTC)

Transliteration guidelines discussion

Comments are requested in the discussion of transliteration guidelines at Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style/Arabic#Problems_with_.22basic_transcription.22. Eperoton (talk) 01:24, 16 November 2017 (UTC)

This article is not accurate

Much of the history is written with bias of Islamic invasions into subcontinent.

No one in India speaks Arabic.

There are several Arabic speaking colonies in different parts of India Azd0815 (talk) 11:39, 18 November 2017 (UTC)

The history of Avestan and Old Persian are not accounted for.

Arabic did not "heavily influence the Indian languages." There are no citations to prove these languages it 'influenced.'

There are several lexemes in Arabic borrowed from Farsi and South Asian language, especially in eastern Arabia including Oman. Azd0815 (talk) 11:39, 18 November 2017 (UTC)

e Arabic script was borrowed from Avestan - Old Persian. Avestan and Persian influenced Arabic language.

These are ancient languages, much older than Arabic. Please Wiki do some fact finding. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.79.10.138 (talk) 12:31, 11 March 2014 (UTC) The arabic script is from المسند which is a Yemeni script that exicted before Islam, and what does "older than arabic" means? you think arabs couldn't speak till later? get your facts right. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.184.111.60 (talk) 19:34, 24 March 2014 (UTC)

Wrong and stop spreading propaganda, Arabic did not borrow from Avestan since Avestan never had a native script. Old Persian and Avestan used old semitic script.Akmal94 (talk) 09:48, 26 February 2015 (UTC)

Question: What is 'Old semitic' script? Do you mean Old South Arabian (musnad) or Proto Sinaitic scripts? Azd0815 (talk) 11:39, 18 November 2017 (UTC)

I wonder if you're even Indian? Just chill and watch a Bollywood movie, you'll soon realize many Hindi words are borrowed from Arabic indirectly via Persian. 210.19.13.194 (talk) 04:16, 12 January 2016 (UTC)

Yes, there are many Arabic loanwords in different South Asian languages. Not a surprise with a large Muslim population in South Asia. Azd0815 (talk) 11:39, 18 November 2017 (UTC)

Section on history of Arabic

Is Arabic 4th C? earliest records of mention to Arabic as a language? --Inayity (talk) 16:05, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

See Classical Arabic#History. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 23:52, 28 March 2014 (UTC)
I've now incorporated the relevant content from there into this article and tried to harmonise conflicting statements. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 01:32, 29 March 2014 (UTC)

Arabic is an ancient language early evidence shows that Arabic was mention by the sumerians around 3,800 bc they were known as the Urapi there for Is much older than 4th centuary.ArabAmazigh12 (talk) 19:02, 10 July 2015 (UTC)

this is far too early. Azd0815 (talk) 12:04, 18 November 2017 (UTC)

Proofreading necessary

Quite apart from any dispute on the reliability of the content, this page needs quite a lot of simple proofreading. I have tried to edit about a fifth of the article, but its length has put me off doing more for the moment. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Milton999 (talk • contribs) 18:05, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

There is an excellent map for the spread of Arabic over Arabia prior to the early Muslim diaspora, in greater detail than the local one published here: Behnstedt, Peter: Arabische Dialektgeographie, Brill, Leiden, 2005, page 27 map 1. Highest competency. Azd0815 (talk) 12:04, 18 November 2017 (UTC)

\

Semi-protected edit request on 10 January 2018

In the section 9.3 (dialect group) I would like to add the missing Emirate dialect which is spoken in the United Arab Emirates (with a note to the internal link to Emirate dialect) Giuliamenegollo (talk) 18:39, 10 January 2018 (UTC)

Not done: The article Emirati Arabic redirects to Gulf Arabic, which is already listed. Separating Emirati Arabic out from Gulf Arabic on this page requires that a separate Emirati Arabic article exist. Discussion of whether these dialects are separate or not should start at the Talk:Gulf Arabic page. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 18:51, 11 January 2018 (UTC)
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