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87-416: Several written grammars of Classical Arabic were published with the exegesis of Arabic grammar being at times based on the existing texts and the works of previous texts, in addition to various early sources considered to be of most venerated genesis of Arabic. The primary focus of such works was to facilitate different linguistic aspects. Modern Standard Arabic is its direct descendant used today throughout

174-699: A printing press in Egypt in 1798; it briefly disappeared after the French departure in 1801, but Muhammad Ali Pasha , who also sent students to Italy, France and England to study military and applied sciences in 1809, reintroduced it a few years later in Boulaq , Cairo . (Previously, Arabic-language presses had been introduced locally in Lebanon in 1610, and in Aleppo , Syria in 1702 ). The first Arabic printed newspaper

261-439: A second language (if they spoke the colloquial dialects as their first language) or as a third language (if they spoke another language as their first language and a regional variety of colloquial Arabic as their second language). Nonetheless, the pronunciation of Classical Arabic was likely influenced by the vernaculars to different degrees (much like Modern Standard Arabic ). The differences in pronunciation and vocabulary in

348-651: A "pure Arabic origin", especially those in the Qur'an. Thus, exegetes, theologians, and grammarians who entertained the idea of the presence of "impurities" (for example, naturalized loanwords) in the Qur'an were severely criticized and their proposed etymologies denounced in most cases. Nonetheless, the belief in the racial and ethnic supremacy of the Arabs and the belief in the linguistic supremacy of Arabic did not seem to be necessary entailments of each other. Poems and sayings attributed to Arabic-speaking personages who lived before

435-521: A European language serves as the official, prestige language, and local languages are used in everyday life outside formal situations. For example, Wolof is the everyday lingua franca in Senegal , French being spoken only in very formal situations, and English is spoken in formal situations in Nigeria , but native languages like Hausa , Igbo , and Yoruba are spoken in ordinary conversation. However,

522-461: A European language that serves as an official language can also act as a lingua franca , being spoken in informal situations between speakers of two or more different languages to facilitate communication. Diglossia can exist between two dialects of a European language as well. For example, in Côte d'Ivoire , Standard French is the prestige language used in business, politics, etc. while Ivorian French

609-679: A classical author, whether taken from other languages (e. g. فيلم film ) or coined from existing lexical resources (e. g. هاتف hātif   "caller" > "telephone"). Structural influence from foreign languages or from the vernaculars has also affected Modern Standard Arabic: for example, MSA texts sometimes use the format "A, B, C and D" when listing things, whereas Classical Arabic prefers "A and B and C and D", and subject-initial sentences may be more common in MSA than in Classical Arabic. For these reasons, Modern Standard Arabic

696-748: A colloquial tone. While there are differences between Modern Standard Arabic and Classical Arabic, Arabic speakers tend to find these differences unimportant, and generally refer to both by the same name: Fuṣḥā Arabic or al-ʻArabīyah al-Fuṣḥā ( العربية الفصحى ), meaning "the most eloquent Arabic". When the distinction is made, they do refer to MSA as Fuṣḥā al-ʻAṣr ( فصحى العصر ), meaning "Contemporary Fuṣḥā" or "Modern Fuṣḥā", and to CA as Fuṣḥā at-Turāth ( فصحى التراث ), meaning "Hereditary Fuṣḥā" or "Historical Fuṣḥā". MSA tends to use simplified sentence structures and drop more complicated ones commonly used in Classical Arabic. Some examples include reliance on verb sentences (sentences that begin with

783-492: A country as their first language and colloquial Arabic dialects as their second language. Modern Standard Arabic is also spoken by people of Arab descent outside the Arab world when people of Arab descent speaking different dialects communicate to each other. As there is a prestige or standard dialect of vernacular Arabic, speakers of standard colloquial dialects code-switch between these particular dialects and MSA. Classical Arabic

870-430: A prime example of the linguistic phenomenon of diglossia  – the use of two distinct varieties of the same language, usually in different social contexts. This diglossic situation facilitates code-switching in which a speaker switches back and forth between the two dialects of the language, sometimes even within the same sentence. People speak MSA as a third language if they speak other languages native to

957-656: A total of 273,989,700 second language speakers in the world. They add: "In most Arab countries, only the well-educated have adequate proficiency in Modern Standard Arabic." People who are literate in Modern Standard Arabic are primarily found in countries of the Arab League . It is compulsory in schools of most of the Arab League to learn Modern Standard Arabic. People who are literate in the language are usually more so passively , as they mostly use

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1044-417: A verb) instead of noun phrases and semi-sentences, as well as avoiding phrasal adjectives and accommodating feminine forms of ranks and job titles. Because MSA speech occurs in fields with novel concepts, including technical literature and scientific domains, the need for terms that did not exist in the time of CA has led to coining new terms. Arabic Language Academies had attempted to fulfill this role during

1131-788: A wedding ceremony between two young urban Baoulé people with poor knowledge of the Baoulé language (spoken in Côte d'Ivoire) would require the presence of elder family members as interpreters to conduct the ceremony in that language. Local languages, if used as prestige languages, are also used in writing materials in a more formal type of vocabulary. There are also European languages in Africa, particularly North Africa , without official status that are used as prestige language: for example, in Morocco , while Modern Standard Arabic and recently Tamazight are

1218-471: Is an important concept in the field of sociolinguistics . At the social level, each of the two dialects has certain spheres of social interaction assigned to it and in the assigned spheres it is the only socially acceptable dialect (with minor exceptions). At the grammatical level, differences may involve pronunciation, inflection , and/or syntax (sentence structure). Differences can range from minor (although conspicuous) to extreme. In many cases of diglossia,

1305-504: Is becoming increasingly simpler, using less strict rules compared to CA, notably the inflection is omitted, making it closer to spoken varieties of Arabic. It depends on the speaker's knowledge and attitude to the grammar of Classical Arabic, as well as the region and the intended audience. Pronunciation of native words, loanwords, and foreign names in MSA is loose. Names can be pronounced or even spelled differently in different regions and by different speakers. Pronunciation also depends on

1392-624: Is code switching and overlap in all diglossic societies, even German-speaking Switzerland. Examples where the High/Low dichotomy is justified in terms of social prestige include Italian dialects and languages as (L) and Standard Italian as (H) in Italy and German dialects and Standard German in Germany . In Italy and Germany, those speakers who still speak non-standard dialects typically use those dialects in informal situations, especially in

1479-485: Is considered normative; a few contemporary authors attempt (with varying degrees of success) to follow the syntactic and grammatical norms laid down by classical grammarians (such as Sibawayh ) and to use the vocabulary defined in classical dictionaries (such as the Lisan al-Arab , Arabic : لِسَان الْعَرَب ). However, the exigencies of modernity have led to the adoption of numerous terms which would have been mysterious to

1566-582: Is despite the number of academies regulating Arabic). It can be thought of as being in a continuum between CA (the regulated language described in grammar books) and the spoken vernaculars while leaning much more to CA in its written form than its spoken form. Regional variations exist due to influence from the spoken vernaculars . TV hosts who read prepared MSA scripts, for example in Al Jazeera , are ordered to give up national or ethnic pronunciations by changing their pronunciation of certain phonemes (e.g.

1653-415: Is generally not spoken as a first language , similar to Contemporary Latin . It is a pluricentric standard language taught throughout the Arab world in formal education , differing significantly from many vernacular varieties of Arabic that are commonly spoken as mother tongues in the area; these are only partially mutually intelligible with both MSA and with each other depending on their proximity in

1740-401: Is generally treated separately in non-Arab sources. Speakers of Modern Standard Arabic do not always observe the intricate rules of Classical Arabic grammar. Modern Standard Arabic principally differs from Classical Arabic in three areas: lexicon, stylistics, and certain innovations on the periphery that are not strictly regulated by the classical authorities. On the whole, Modern Standard Arabic

1827-435: Is in a similar situation with Portuguese. Most Asian countries instead have re-established a local prestige language (such as Hindi or Indonesian) and have at least partially phased out the colonial language, commonly English or Russian but also Dutch, French, and Portuguese in a few places, except for international, business, scientific, or interethnic communication; the colonial languages have also usually left many loanwards in

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1914-466: Is learned largely by formal education and is used for most written and formal spoken purposes but is not used by any sector of the community for ordinary conversation. Here, diglossia is seen as a kind of bilingualism in a society in which one of the languages has high prestige (henceforth referred to as "H"), and another of the languages has low prestige ("L"). In Ferguson's definition, the high and low variants are always closely related. Ferguson gives

2001-477: Is not homogeneous; there are authors who write in a style very close to the classical models and others who try to create new stylistic patterns. Add to this regional differences in vocabulary depending upon the influence of the local Arabic varieties and the influences of foreign languages, such as French in Africa and Lebanon or English in Egypt, Jordan, and other countries. As MSA is a revised and simplified form of Classical Arabic, MSA in terms of lexicon omitted

2088-584: Is now recognized as a standard language in Haiti; Swiss German dialects are hardly low-prestige languages in Switzerland (see Chambers, Sociolinguistic Theory); and after the end of the Greek military regime in 1974, Dimotiki was made into Greece's sole standard language in 1976, and nowadays, Katharevousa is (with a few exceptions) no longer used. Harold Schiffman wrote about Swiss German in 2010, "It seems to be

2175-550: Is spoken in informal situations, and Spanish is also spoken in informal situations. In Asia, the Philippines is the biggest example of such colonial exoglossia, with English since the Spanish-American War of 1898, Spanish before then (with a historic presence in place names, personal names, and loanwords in the local languages) and local Austronesian Philippine languages used for everyday situations; Timor-Leste

2262-632: Is the daily language in the street, on the markets, and in informal situations in general; in Mozambique , European Portuguese is used in formal situations, while Mozambican Portuguese is the spoken language in informal situations; and British English is used in formal situations in Nigeria, while Nigerian English is the spoken language in informal situations. In the countryside, local African dialects prevail. However, in traditional events, local languages can be used as prestige dialects: for example,

2349-631: Is the only form of Arabic taught in schools at all stages. Additionally, some members of religious minorities recite prayers in it, as it is considered the literary language . Translated versions of the Bible which are used in Arabic-speaking countries are mostly written in MSA, aside from Classical Arabic. Muslims recite prayers in it; revised editions of numerous literary texts from Umayyad and Abbasid times are also written in MSA. The sociolinguistic situation of Arabic in modern times provides

2436-561: Is the original mother tongue is almost always of low prestige . Its spheres of use involve informal, interpersonal communication : conversation in the home, among friends, in marketplaces. In some diglossias, this vernacular dialect is virtually unwritten. Those who try to use it in literature may be severely criticized or even persecuted. The other dialect is held in high esteem and is devoted to written communication and formal spoken communication, such as university instruction, primary education, sermons, and speeches by government officials. It

2523-941: Is used alongside the standard registers of Hindi (H) and Urdu (H); Hochdeutsch (H) is used alongside German dialects (L); the Arab world , where Modern Standard Arabic (H) is used alongside other varieties of Arabic (L); and China, where Standard Chinese (H) is used as the official, literary standard and local varieties of Chinese (L) are used in everyday communication). Other examples include literary Katharevousa (H) versus spoken Demotic Greek (L); literary Tamil (H) versus colloquial spoken Tamil (L); Indonesian , with its bahasa baku (H) and bahasa gaul (L) forms; Standard American English (H) versus African-American Vernacular English or Hawaiian Pidgin (L); and literary (H) versus spoken (L) Welsh . The Greek word διγλωσσία ( diglossía ), from δί- ( dí- , "two") and γλώσσα ( glóssa , "language"), meant bilingualism ; it

2610-421: Is usually not possible to acquire proficiency in the formal, "high" dialect without formal study of it. Thus in those diglossic societies which are also characterized by extreme inequality of social classes , most people are not proficient in speaking the high dialect, and if the high dialect is grammatically different enough, as in the case of Arabic diglossia, these uneducated classes cannot understand most of

2697-486: Is where two dialects or languages are used (in fairly strict compartmentalization) by a single language community . In addition to the community's everyday or vernacular language variety (labeled "L" or "low" variety), a second, highly codified lect (labeled "H" or "high") is used in certain situations such as literature , formal education , or other specific settings, but not used normally for ordinary conversation. The H variety may have no native speakers within

Classical Arabic - Misplaced Pages Continue

2784-414: The Arab world in writing and in formal speaking, for example prepared speeches, some radio and television broadcasts and non-entertainment content. The lexis and stylistics of Modern Standard Arabic are different from Classical Arabic, and Modern Standard Arabic uses a subset of the syntactic structures available in Classical Arabic, but the morphology and syntax have remained basically unchanged. In

2871-1006: The Arabic dialect continuum . Many linguists consider MSA to be distinct from Classical Arabic (CA; اللغة العربية الفصحى التراثية al-Lughah al-ʻArabīyah al-Fuṣḥā at-Turāthīyah ) – the written language prior to the mid-19th century – although there is no agreed moment at which CA turned into MSA. There are also no agreed set of linguistic criteria which distinguish CA from MSA; however, MSA differs most markedly in that it either synthesizes words from Arabic roots (such as سيارة car or باخرة steamship ) or adapts words from foreign languages (such as ورشة workshop or إنترنت Internet ) to describe industrial and post-industrial life. Native speakers of Arabic generally do not distinguish between "Modern Standard Arabic" and "Classical Arabic" as separate languages; they refer to both as Fuṣḥā Arabic or al-ʻArabīyah al-Fuṣḥā ( العربية الفصحى ), meaning "the most eloquent Arabic". They consider

2958-510: The Aramaic script , which have been adopted to write Arabic, though some, such as Jean Starcky , have postulated that it instead derives direct from the Syriac script since, unlike Aramaic, the scripts of Arabic and Syriac are both cursive. Indigenous speculations concerning the history of the script sometimes ascribe the origins of the script, and oftentimes the language itself also, to one of

3045-464: The Horn of Africa , and thus the region eventually developed into a widespread state of diglossia . Consequently the classical language, as well as the Arabic script , became the subject of much mythicization and was eventually associated with religious, ethnic, and racial conflicts, such as the rise of many groups traditionally categorized under the broad label of al-Shu'ibiyya (roughly meaning "those of

3132-438: The public speeches that they might hear on television and radio. The high prestige dialect (or language) tends to be the more formalised, and its forms and vocabulary often 'filter down' into the vernacular though often in a changed form. In many diglossic areas, there is controversy and polarization of opinions of native speakers regarding the relationship between the two dialects and their respective statuses . In cases that

3219-420: The "high" dialect is objectively not intelligible to those exposed only to the vernacular , some people insist that the two dialects are nevertheless a common language. The pioneering scholar of diglossia, Charles A. Ferguson , observed that native speakers proficient in the high prestige dialect will commonly try to avoid using the vernacular dialect with foreigners and may even deny its existence even though

3306-499: The (H) language, and was still used for this purpose until the fourth century AD, more than sixteen centuries after it had ceased to exist in everyday speech. Another historical example is Latin, Classical Latin being the (H) and Vulgar Latin the (L); the latter, which is almost completely unattested in text, is the tongue from which the Romance languages descended. The (L) variants are not just simplifications or "corruptions" of

3393-528: The (H) variant exoglossia and the (L) variant endoglossia . In some cases (especially with creole languages ), the nature of the connection between (H) and (L) is not one of diglossia but a continuum ; for example, Jamaican Creole as (L) and Standard English as (H) in Jamaica. Similar is the case in the Scottish Lowlands , with Scots as (L) and Scottish English as (H). (H) is usually

3480-495: The (H) variants. In phonology, for example, (L) dialects are as likely to have phonemes absent from the (H) as vice versa. Some Swiss German dialects have three phonemes, /e/ , /ɛ/ and /æ/ , in the phonetic space where Standard German has only two phonemes, /ɛ(ː)/ ( Berlin 'Berlin', Bären 'bears') and /eː/ ( Beeren 'berries'). Jamaican Creole has fewer vowel phonemes than standard English, but it has additional palatal /kʲ/ and /ɡʲ/ phonemes. Especially in endoglossia

3567-514: The (L) form may also be called " basilect ", the (H) form " acrolect ", and an intermediate form " mesolect ". Ferguson's classic examples include Standard German/Swiss German, Standard Arabic / Arabic vernaculars , French / Creole in Haiti , and Katharevousa / Dimotiki in Greece , though the "low prestige" nature of most of these examples has changed since Ferguson's article was published. Creole

Classical Arabic - Misplaced Pages Continue

3654-471: The /a/ allomorph: Modern Standard Arabic Modern Standard Arabic ( MSA ) or Modern Written Arabic ( MWA ) is the variety of standardized , literary Arabic that developed in the Arab world in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and in some usages also the variety of spoken Arabic that approximates this written standard. MSA is the language used in literature , academia , print and mass media , law and legislation , though it

3741-563: The 3rd or 4th century AD in the Greek alphabet in a dialect showing affinities to that of the Safaitic inscriptions shows that short final high vowels had been lost in at least some dialects of Old Arabic at that time, obliterating the distinction between nominative and genitive case in the singular, leaving the accusative the only marked case: Classical Arabic however, shows a far more archaic system, essentially identical with that of Proto-Arabic : The definite article spread areally among

3828-542: The Arab world little distinction is made between Classical Arabic and Modern Standard Arabic and both are normally called al-fuṣḥā ( الفصحى ) in Arabic, meaning 'the most eloquent'. The earliest forms of Arabic are known as Old Arabic and survive in inscriptions in Ancient North Arabian scripts as well as fragments of pre-Islamic poetry preserved in the classical literature. It is hypothesized that by

3915-616: The Arabic language against linguistic corruption. It was the lingua franca across the Middle East and North Africa during classic times and in Al-Andalus before classic times. Napoleon 's campaign in Egypt and Syria (1798–1801) is generally considered to be the starting point of the modern period of the Arabic language, when the intensity of contacts between the Western world and Arabic culture increased. Napoleon introduced

4002-621: The Central Semitic languages and it would seem that Proto-Arabic lacked any overt marking of definiteness. Besides dialects with no definite article, the Safaitic inscriptions exhibit about four different article forms, ordered by frequency: h- , ʾ- , ʾl- , and hn- . The Old Arabic of the Nabataean inscriptions exhibits almost exclusively the form ʾl- . Unlike the Classical Arabic article, the Old Arabic ʾl almost never exhibits

4089-508: The English equivalent diglossia in 1959 in the title of an article. His conceptualization of diglossia describes a society with more than one prevalent language or the high variety, which pertains to the language used in literature, newspapers, and other social institutions. The article has been cited over 4,000 times. The term is particularly embraced among sociolinguists and a number of these proposed different interpretations or varieties of

4176-462: The Greek State", scholars brought to life "Katharevousa" or "purist" language. Katharevousa did not constitute the natural development of the language of the people, the " Koine ", " Romeika ", Demotic Greek or "Dimotiki" as it is currently referred to. While Singapore has predominantly been an English speaking country, a more informal style of English has been developed and popularised within

4263-457: The Quran in its original language. Written Classical Arabic underwent fundamental changes during the early Islamic era, adding dots to distinguish similarly written letters and adding the tashkīl (diacritical markings that guide pronunciation) by scholars such as Abu al-Aswad al-Du'ali and Al-Khalil ibn Ahmad al-Farahidi to preserve the correct form and pronunciation of the Quran and to defend

4350-507: The ancient major figures in Islam, such as Adam or Ishmael , though others mention that it was introduced to Arabia from afar. In the 7th century AD the distinctive features of Old Hijazi , such as loss of final short vowels, loss of hamza , lenition of final /-at/ to /-ah/ and lack of nunation , influenced the consonantal text (or rasm ) of the Qur'an (and also many of its readings also) and

4437-537: The assimilation of the coda to the coronals; the same situation is attested in the Graeco-Arabica, but in A1 the coda assimilates to the following d , αδαυρα * ʾad-dawra الدورة 'the region'. In Classical Arabic, the definite article takes the form al- , with the coda of the article exhibiting assimilation to the following dental and denti-alveolar consonants. Note the inclusion of palatal /ɕ/ , which alone among

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4524-407: The case that Swiss German was once consensually agreed to be in a diglossic hierarchy with Standard German, but that this consensus is now breaking." Code-switching is also commonplace, especially in the Arabic world; according to Andrew Freeman, this is "different from Ferguson's description of diglossia which states that the two forms are in complementary distribution." To a certain extent, there

4611-420: The category whereby, while the living language of the area evolves and changes as time passes by, there is an artificial retrospection to and imitation of earlier (more ancient) linguistic forms preserved in writing and considered to be scholarly and classic. One of the earliest recorded examples of diglossia was during the first century AD, when Hellenistic Alexandrian scholars decided that, in order to strengthen

4698-456: The city-dwellers) expressed in many medieval Arabic works, especially those on grammar, though some argue that all the spoken vernaculars probably deviated greatly from the supraregional literary norm to different degrees, while others, such as Joshua Blau , believe that "the differences between the classical and spoken language were not too far-reaching". The Arabic script is generally believed to have evolved from local cursive varieties of

4785-487: The community. In cases of three dialects, the term triglossia is used. When referring to two writing systems coexisting for a single language, the term digraphia is used. The high variety may be an older stage of the same language (as in medieval Europe , where Latin (H) remained in formal use even as colloquial speech (L) diverged), an unrelated language, or a distinct yet closely related present-day dialect (as in northern India and Pakistan , where Hindustani (L)

4872-487: The concept. In his 1959 article, Charles A. Ferguson defines diglossia as follows: DIGLOSSIA is a relatively stable language situation in which, in addition to the primary dialects of the language (which may include a standard or regional standards), there is a very divergent, highly codified (often grammatically more complex) superposed variety, the vehicle of a large and respected body of written literature, either of an earlier period or in another speech community, which

4959-437: The country, assisted by its demographic whom come from many different countries. The Singaporean government has long insisted for English to be the sole language used, both in formal settings and everyday lives. However, in practice, Singlish is used predominantly in casual contexts, with speakers switching to English in formal contexts. As an aspect of study of the relationships between codes and social structure , diglossia

5046-573: The example of standardized Arabic and says that, "very often, educated Arabs will maintain they never use L at all, in spite of the fact that direct observation shows that they use it constantly in ordinary conversation" Joshua Fishman expanded the definition of diglossia to include the use of unrelated languages as high and low varieties. For example, in Alsace the Alsatian language (Elsässisch) serves as (L) and French as (H). Heinz Kloss calls

5133-444: The family. In German-speaking Switzerland , on the other hand, Swiss German dialects are to a certain extent even used in schools, and to a larger extent in churches. Ramseier calls German-speaking Switzerland's diglossia a "medial diglossia", whereas Felicity Rash prefers "functional diglossia". Paradoxically, Swiss German offers both the best example of diglossia (all speakers are native speakers of Swiss German and thus diglossic) and

5220-473: The inflectional morphology of Classical Arabic. It is often said that the Bedouin dialects of Najd were probably the most conservative (or at least resembled the elevated intertribal idiom morphologically and lexically more than the other contemporary vernaculars), a view possibly supported by the romanticization of the ‘purity’ of the language of the desert-dwellers (as opposed to the " corrupted " dialects of

5307-656: The language in everyday use in Ancient Egypt during the Middle Kingdom (2000–1650 BC). By 1350 BC, in the New Kingdom (1550–1050 BC), the Egyptian language had evolved into Late Egyptian , which itself later evolved into Demotic (700 BC – AD 400). These two later forms served as (L) languages in their respective periods. But in both cases, Middle Egyptian remained the standard written, prestigious form,

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5394-631: The language in reading and writing, not in speaking. In Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia, French is the language of higher education in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), while in the Gulf region it is English. Several reports mentioned that the use of Modern Standard Arabic is on the decline in the Arab world, especially in Gulf countries , such as the United Arab Emirates , where foreign workers make up more than 80% of

5481-437: The late 6th century AD a relatively uniform intertribal "poetic koiné ", a synthetic language distinct from the spoken vernaculars, had developed with conservative as well as innovative features, including the case endings known as ʾiʿrab . It is uncertain to what degree the spoken vernaculars corresponded to the literary style, however, as many surviving inscriptions in the region seem to indicate simplification or absence of

5568-466: The later normalized orthography of Classical Arabic as a standard literary register in the 8th century. By the 2nd century AH (9th century AD / CE ) the language had been standardized by Arabic grammarians and knowledge of Classical Arabic became a prerequisite for rising into the higher classes throughout the Islamic world, since it was the lingua franca across the Middle East , North Africa , and

5655-585: The link between the people and the glorious culture of the Greek "Golden Age" (5th c. BC), people should adopt the language of that era. The phenomenon, called " Atticism ", dominated the writings of part of the Hellenistic period , the Byzantine and Medieval era. Following the Greek War of Independence of 1821 and in order to "cover new and immediate needs" making their appearance with "the creation of

5742-502: The literary ideal to be followed, quoted, and imitated in solemn texts and speeches. Lexically, Classical Arabic may retain one or more of the dialectal forms of a given word as variants of the standardized forms, albeit often with much less currency and use. Various Arabic dialects freely borrowed words from Classical Arabic, a situation similar to the Romance languages , wherein scores of words were borrowed directly from Classical Latin . Arabic-speakers usually spoke Classical Arabic as

5829-677: The local languages. In Ghana , a dialect called " Student Pidgin " was traditionally used by men in all-male secondary schools, though an ever-increasing number of female students are now also using it due to social change. Gender-based oral speech variations are found in Arabic-speaking communities. Makkan males are found to adopt more formal linguistic variants in their WhatsApp messages than their female counterparts, who tend to use more informal "locally prestigious" linguistic variants. Among Garifuna (Karif) speakers in Central America , men and women often have different words for

5916-444: The many regional dialects derived from Classical Arabic spoken daily across the region and learned as a first language , and as second language if people speak other languages native to their particular country. They are not normally written, although a certain amount of literature (particularly plays and poetry, including songs) exists in many of them. Literary Arabic (MSA) is the official language of all Arab League countries and

6003-423: The nations", as opposed to Arab tribes), who, despite the remarkable differences in their views, generally rejected the stressed and often dogmatized belief that the Arabs, as well as their language, were far superior to all other races and ethnicities, and so the term later came to be applied pejoratively to such groups by their rivals. Moreover, many Arabic grammarians strove to attribute as many words as possible to

6090-491: The obsolete words used in Classical Arabic. As diglossia is involved, various Arabic dialects freely borrow words from MSA. This situation is similar to Romance languages , wherein scores of words were borrowed directly from formal Latin (most literate Romance speakers were also literate in Latin); educated speakers of standard colloquial dialects speak in this kind of communication. Reading out loud in MSA for various reasons

6177-511: The only two official languages used in formal situations, with Moroccan Arabic and Amazigh dialects spoken in informal situations, while French and Spanish are also spoken in formal situations, making some Moroccans bilinguals or trilinguals in Modern Standard Arabic or Tamazight, French or Spanish, and Moroccan Arabic or Amazigh dialects. In Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic , the official languages are Modern Standard Arabic and Spanish, which are spoken in formal situations, while Hassaniya Arabic

6264-476: The palatal consonants exhibits assimilation, indicating that assimilation ceased to be productive before that consonant shifted from Old Arabic /ɬ/ : Proto-Central Semitic, Proto-Arabic, various forms of Old Arabic, and some modern Najdi dialects to this day have alternation in the performative vowel of the prefix conjugation, depending on the stem vowel of the verb. Early forms of Classical Arabic allowed this alternation, but later forms of Classical Arabic levelled

6351-484: The person's education, linguistic knowledge, and abilities. There may be sounds used which are missing in Classical Arabic but exist in colloquial varieties. For example, the consonants / v / , / p / , / t͡ʃ / (often realized as [ t ] + [ ʃ ] ) (which may or may not be written with special letters) and the vowels [ o ] , [ e ] (both short and long). There are no special letters in Arabic to distinguish between [e~i] and [o~u] pairs but

6438-921: The population and where English has become the lingua franca of commerce, media, and education. Content in Modern Standard Arabic is also under-represented online and in literature. According to the 2017 Arab Youth Survey done by polling firm PSB Insights , 24% of respondents (young urban Arabs aged 18 to 24) agreed with the statement: "On a daily basis, I use English more than Arabic." They were 56% in GCC countries . The New York Times reported that most Arab students of Northwestern University in Qatar and Georgetown University in Qatar did not have "professional proficiency" in Modern Standard Arabic. Diglossia In linguistics , diglossia ( / d aɪ ˈ ɡ l ɒ s i ə / dy- GLOSS -ee-ə , US also / d aɪ ˈ ɡ l ɔː s i ə / dy- GLAW -see-ə )

6525-757: The realization of the Classical jīm ج as [ ɡ ] by Egyptians), though other traits may show the speaker's region, such as the stress and the exact value of vowels and the pronunciation of other consonants. People who speak MSA also mix vernacular and Classical in pronunciation, words, and grammatical forms. Classical/vernacular mixing in formal writing can also be found (e.g., in some Egyptian newspaper editorials); others are written in Modern Standard/vernacular mixing, including entertainment news. According to Ethnologue , there are no native speakers of Modern Standard Arabic, but

6612-559: The regional Arabic varieties were in turn variously influenced by the native languages spoken in the conquered regions, such as Coptic in Egypt; Berber and Punic in the Maghreb; Himyaritic , Modern South Arabian , and Old South Arabian in Yemen; and Aramaic in the Levant. Like Modern Standard Arabic, Classical Arabic had 28 consonant phonemes: Notes: The A1 inscription dated to

6699-471: The same concepts. In Ireland, deaf men and women studied in two separate schools throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. Lack of contact between the two groups led to the development of gender-specific varieties of Irish Sign Language . Diglossia may have appeared in Arabic when Muslim-majority countries emerged in North Africa during the early history of Islam . Greek diglossia belongs to

6786-530: The second half of the 20th century with neologisms with Arab roots, but MSA typically borrows terms from other languages to coin new terminology. MSA includes two sounds not present in CA, namely / p / and / v / , which occur in loanwords. MSA is loosely uniform across the Middle East as it is based on the convention of Arabic speakers rather than being a regulated language which rules are followed (that

6873-505: The sounds o and e (short and long) exist in the colloquial varieties of Arabic and some foreign words in MSA. Modern Standard Arabic, like Classical Arabic before it, has three pairs of long and short vowels: /a/ , /i/ , and /u/ : * Footnote: although not part of Standard Arabic phonology, the vowels /eː/ and /oː/ are perceived as separate phonemes in most of modern Arabic dialects and they are used when speaking Modern Standard Arabic as part of foreign words or when speaking it with

6960-417: The standardization of the Classical idiom, which are preserved mainly in far later manuscripts, contain traces of elements in morphology and syntax that began to be regarded as chiefly poetic or characteristically regional or dialectal. Despite this, these, along with the Qur'an, were perceived as the principal foundation upon which grammatical inquiry, theorizing, and reasoning were to be based. They also formed

7047-458: The two dialects are so divergent that they are distinct languages as defined by linguists : they are not mutually intelligible . Thomas Ricento, an author on language policy and political theory believes that there is always a "socially constructed hierarchy, indexed from low to high." The hierarchy is generally imposed by leading political figures or popular media and is sometimes not the native language of that particular region. The dialect that

7134-593: The two forms to be two historical periods of one language. When the distinction is made, they do refer to MSA as Fuṣḥā al-ʻAṣr ( فصحى العصر ), meaning "Contemporary Fuṣḥā" or "Modern Fuṣḥā", and to CA as Fuṣḥā at-Turāth ( فصحى التراث ), meaning "Hereditary Fuṣḥā" or "Historical Fuṣḥā". Classical Arabic , also known as Quranic Arabic, is the language used in the Quran as well as in numerous literary texts from Umayyad and Abbasid times (7th to 9th centuries). Many Muslims study Classical Arabic in order to read

7221-639: The worst, because there is no clear-cut hierarchy. While Swiss Standard German is spoken in formal situations like in school, news broadcasts, and government speeches, Swiss Standard German is also spoken in informal situations only whenever a German Swiss is communicating with a German-speaking foreigner who it is assumed would not understand the respective dialect. Amongst themselves, the German-speaking Swiss use their respective Swiss German dialect, irrespective of social class, education or topic. In most African countries, as well as some Asian ones,

7308-407: The written language whereas (L) is the spoken language. In formal situations, (H) is used; in informal situations, (L) is used. Sometimes, (H) is used in informal situations and as spoken language when speakers of 2 different (L) languages and dialects or more communicate with each other (as a lingua franca ), but not the other way around. One of the earliest examples was that of Middle Egyptian ,

7395-445: Was established in 1828: the bilingual Turkish-Arabic Al-Waqa'i' al-Misriyya had great influence in the formation of Modern Standard Arabic. It was followed by Al-Ahram (1875) and al-Muqattam (1889). The Western–Arabic contacts and technological developments in especially the newspaper industry indirectly caused the revival of Arabic literature, or Nahda , in the late 19th and early 20th century. Another important development

7482-504: Was given its specialized meaning "two forms of the same language" by Emmanuel Rhoides in the prologue of his Parerga in 1885. The term was quickly adapted into French as diglossie by the Greek linguist and demoticist Ioannis Psycharis , with credit to Rhoides. The Arabist William Marçais used the term in 1930 to describe the linguistic situation in Arabic -speaking countries. The sociolinguist Charles A. Ferguson introduced

7569-653: Was the establishment of Arabic-only schools in reaction against the Turkification of Arabic-majority areas under Ottoman rule . Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) is the literary standard across the Middle East , North Africa and Horn of Africa , and is one of the six official languages of the United Nations . Most printed material in the Arab League —including most books, newspapers, magazines, official documents, and reading primers for small children—is written in MSA. "Colloquial" Arabic refers to

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