Arabic language
| Countries (spoken in): |
Algeria, Bahrain, Chad, Egypt, Eritrea, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, Oman, Palestinian territories, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates, Western Sahara, Yemen
|
| Official status (25 countries): |
Algeria, Bahrain, Djibouti, Egypt, Western Sahara, Israel, Jordan, Iraq, Qatar, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, United Arab Emirates, Oman, Palestinian territories, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Sudan, Tunisia, Chad, Eritrea, Mali, Senegal, Somalia and others
|
| Total speakers: |
from 260 to 323 million speakers |
Arabic language is the largest living member of the Semitic language family. Classified as Central Semitic, it is closely related to Hebrew and Aramaic and has its roots in a Proto-Semitic common ancestor.
Arabic has lent many words to other languages of the Islamic world, as Latin has contributed to most European languages. It has also borrowed from those languages, as well as Persian and Sanskrit
The main dialectal division is between the North African dialects and those of the Middle East, followed by that between sedentary dialects and the much more conservative Bedouin dialects. Speakers of some of these dialects are unable to converse with speakers of another dialect of Arabic.
Arabic alphabet
The Arabic alphabet has 28 basic letters.
Arabic is written from right to left in a cursive style. Arabic scripts have a some different calligraphy styles: Naskh, Nasta'līq, Shahmukhi, Ruq'ah, Thuluth, Kufic, Hejazi.
Most of the letters connected to the next letter. Each letter can have up to four distinct forms, based on its position.
The first known text in the Arabic alphabet is a late fourth-century inscription from Jabal Ramm.
Arabic writing system is the second widely used alphabet around the world (after latin).
Arabic online translators
|
