Definitions

Classical Arabic

Classical Arabic, also known as Qur’anic Arabic and is normally called al-Fuṣ-ḥā(الفصحى‎‎) by arabs, meaning ‘the clearly spoken one’ or the ‘language of eloquence’. It has been preserved intact without change for approximately 1430 years due to the fact that the holy book of the muslims the Quran was revealed to the Prophet Muhammed (peace be upon him) in the language of his tribe (Quraysh) and muslims consider it the biggest of sins to change even a letter in that book.

Because the Qur’an is written in Classical Arabic, the language is considered by most Muslims to be sacred. It is the only language in which Muslims recite their prayers, regardless of what language they use in everyday life.

Modern  Standard Arabic

Standard Arabic (اللغة العربية الفصحى al-luġatu l-ʿarabīyatu l-fuṣḥā “the most eloquent Arabic language”) or Literary Arabic is the standard and literary variety of Arabic used in writing and in formal speech. It is part of the Arabic macrolanguage.

Most western scholars distinguish two common (al-)fuṣ-ḥā (الفصحى) varieties: the Classical Arabic (CA) (اللغة العربية التراثية) of the Qur’an and early Islamic (7th to 9th centuries) literature, and Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) (اللغة العربية المعيارية الحديثة), the standard language in use today. The modern Standard language is based on the Classical language. Most Arabs consider the two varieties to be two registers of one language, although both registers can be described in Arabic as فصحى العصر fuṣḥā al-ʻaṣr (MSA) and فصحى التراث fuṣḥā at-turāth (CA).

Colloquial Arabic

Just like any language once people integrate it into their everyday lives variations start to pop up according to geographical location and tribal affiliation. Dialects can pop up within different regions within the same country. For example there is a distinctly different way of speaking between those living in Cairo, Egypt and those living in Upper Egypt. The strongest dialects seem to be those furthest away from the epicenter of Arabic’s place of origin (the Arabian peninsula). The dialects of Morocco, Algeria and Libya are to many of the other arab nationalities unintelligable.

It is prudent to point out that the dialects cluster somewhat according to region:

• Shami (Levant Area: Palestine, Lebanon, Jordan, Syria)
• Khaleeji (Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Oman, UAE, Yemen)
• Maghribi (Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya)
• Shamal Afrikya (Egypt and Sudan)

Notable Features

• The Arabic alphabet contains 28 letters. Some additional letters are used in Arabic when writing placenames or foreign words containing sounds which do not occur in Standard Arabic, such as /p/ or /g/.
• Words are written in horizontal lines from right to left, numerals are written from left to right
• Most letters change form depending on whether they appear at the beginning, middle or end of a word, or on their own. (see below)
• Letters that can be joined are always joined in both hand-written and printed Arabic. The only exceptions to this rule are crossword puzzles and signs in which the script is written vertically.
• The long vowels /a:/, /i:/ and /u:/ are represented by the letters ‘alif, yā’ and wāw respectively.
• Vowel diacritics, which are used to mark short vowels, and other special symbols appear only in the Qur’an. They are also used, though with less consistency, in other religious texts, in classical poetry, in books for children and foreign learners, and occasionally in complex texts to avoid ambiguity. Sometimes the diacritics are used for decorative purposes in book titles, letterheads, nameplates, etc.