ARABIC A Semitic language of West Asia and North Africa that originated in the Arabian peninsula in the early first millennium AD. It is the mother tongue of c.150 m people in Algeria, Bahrain, Chad, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Mali, Mauritania, Morocco, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, the United Arab Emirates, and Yemen, as well as communities elsewhere in Asia and Africa, and immigrant communities in Europe (especially France) and the Americas. Because of its role as the scriptural language of Islam, it has cultural significance and linguistic influence in Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Iran, Malaysia, Nigeria, Pakistan, the Philippines, Somalia, Turkey, various Central Asian republics and other countries where there are Muslim communities. Arabic has influenced such languages of southern Europe as Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish. It was formerly a language of Europe, being spoken for some 400 years in the Iberian peninsula, and is still represented by its offshoot Maltese, which has been strongly influenced by both Italian and English.

Classical and colloquial Arabic

The Arabic language is generally described as having two forms: classical Arabic and colloquial Arabic. The classical or literary language includes and is based on the Arabic of the Qurān (Recitation), the text of the teachings of the Prophet Muhammad in the 7c. The colloquial form consists of many vatieties that may or may not be mutually intelligible and fall into several groups: those of Arabia, Egypt, the Maghreb (North Africa west of Egypt), Iraq, and Syria. Classical usage is uniform throughout the Arab world, and all colloquial varieties have been influenced by it. Classical Arabic has immense prestige and liturgical significance wherever Muslims live, but, just as there are Muslims who do not speak Arabic, so there are speakers of Arabic who are not Muslim.

Speech and script

(1) Arabic has a series of velarized consonants, pronounced with constriction of the PHARYNX and raising of the tongue, and a group of uvular and pharyngeal fricatives that give the language a characteristic throaty sound. (2) The GLOTTAL STOP is a consonantal phoneme, represented in Arabic script by the letter alif and in ROMAN transliteration by the lenis symbol (or the apostrophe'): ana I, saal he asked. The sign hamza also represents a glottal stop and is transliterated in the same way. In the TRANSLITERATION of the letter ain, a voiced pharyngeal fricative, the asper symbol ʾ(or the turned comma ʿ) is used, as in āmiyya colloquial, sharīa Islamic law. (3) There are three short and three long vowels, transliterated as a, i, u, ā, ī, ū. (4) Words start with a consonant followed by a vowel. Clusters of more than two consonants do not occur. (5) Arabic script, which probably developed in the 4c, is the next most widely used writing system after the Roman alphabet. It has been adapted as a medium for such non-Semitic languages as Malay, Persian, SPANISH, SWAHILI, Turkish, and URDU. It has 28 letters, all representing consonants, and runs from right to left. (6) A set of diacritics, developed in the 8c, can be used for short vowels and some otherwise unmarked grammatical endings.

Grammar and word-formation

Arabic syntax and word-formation centre on a system of tri-consonantal roots that provide the basic lexical content of words: for example, the root k–t–b underlies words relating to writing and books, and s–l–m underlies words relating to submission, resignation, peace, and religion. Such roots are developed in patterns of vowels and affixes: words formed from k–t–b include the nouns kitāb (book) and kātib (one who writes, a clerk or scribe); words formed from s–l–m include aslama (he submitted), islām (submission to the will of God), muslim (one who so submits), and salām (peace, safety, security).

Arabic in English

Contacts between Arabic and English date from the Crusades (11–13c). BORROWINGS, though often individually significant, have never been numerous: for example, in the 14c admiral, alchemy, alkali, bedouin, nadir, syrup; 16c alcohol, algebra, magazine, monsoon, sheikh, sultan; 17c albatross, alcove, assassin, ghoul, harem, jinn, mullah, sofa, zenith; 19c alfalfa, jihad/jehad, majlis, safari, yashmak; 20c ayatollah, intifada, mujahedin. Arabic words in English tend to relate to Islam (ayatollah, mullah), Arab society and culture past or present (alcove, bedouin, sultan), and learning (alchemy, alkali), including mathematics and astronomy (algebra, nadir, zenith). Many have come into English through a third language: admiral through French, albatross through Portuguese and Spanish, safari through Swahili, ayatollah through Persian. One set of loanwords incorporates the Arabic definite article al, and includes albatross, alchemy, alchol, alcove, alembic, alfalfa, algebra, alhambra, alkali, almanac.

Variations in spelling

Some Arabic words have more than one spelling in English. Of these, the more traditional forms, usually because of rivalry and animosity between Christians and Muslims, have taken little account of Muslim sensibilities. Vernacular and academic orthography are therefore often sharply contrasted, the latter having strict conventions for transliterating Arabic into Roman script. Forms of the name of the Prophet include the obsolete and highly pejorative Mahound (equating him with a devil, false god, or idol), the archaic Mahomet (disliked by Muslims because ma- is a negative Arabic prefix), Mohammed and Mohamed (currently common among Muslims and others), and Muhammad (used principally by scholars). Similarly, a believer in Islam has been a Mahometan or Mohammedan (on the analogy of Christian, terms disliked by Muslims because they emphasize the Prophet and not God), Moslem (widely used), and Muslim (used especially by scholars, but increasingly in general writing). Names for Islam have included the obsolete and offensive Mahometry and Maumetry (meaning ‘false religion’) and the more recent Mahometanism and Mohammedanism, neither of which is acceptable to Muslims. The name for the Islamic scriptures has been the Alcoran (archaic: redundantly incorporating the definite article), the Koran (in general use), and the Qurān (especially among scholars). In the following excerpt, the Arabic words are transliterated using current scholarly conventions:
The Shāfiī school traces its founding to Abū ‘Abdallah Muhammad ibn Idrīs alShāfiī, a Meccan of the Quraysh, who taught in Egypt in Fusṭāṭ (now part of Cairo). He died there A.H. 204/AD 920 ( J. E. Williams, Islam, 1962).

English in Arabic

Because of increasing contacts between the Arab world and English, many words have been borrowed into both spoken and written Arabic: for example, in Egypt, where the British had a colonial presence for 72 years (1882–1954), loans span many spheres and include the colloquial, such as: general aftershave, ceramic, shampoo, spray; architectural motel, roof garden, shopping centre, supermarket; clothing cap, overall, shorts; foodstuffs grape-fruit, ice cream; sport football, half-time, match, tennis. The question of how to transfer foreign terms into the written language, especially scientific and technical terms, has long been hotly debated; innovators advocate borrowing terms where there are gaps, while purists urge the use of equivalents coined for the purpose. By and large, the Arabiciation of such words takes three forms: loan concepts that use the language's own system of roots and derivatives (aā^ea to broadcast, idā^ea broadcasting, mūī^e broadcaster); loan translations that create new Arabic forms (semiotics becoming ^eilm al-rumūz); loan adaptations that give an Arabic look to foreign borrowings (philosophy becoming al-falsafa, morpheme becoming al-murfīm).

English in the Arab world

In the late 20c, English is a significant additional language in most Arab countries. Four European languages of empire have affected the Arab world, especially in the 19–20c: English especially in Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, the United Arab Emirates, and Yemen; French especially in Algeria, Egypt, Lebanon, Morocco, Syria, and Tunisia; Spanish in Morocco; and Italian in Libya. Although the age of European colonial power passed in the 1950s/1960s, the English and French spheres of linguistic influence in particular are still clear-cut. Currently, English is extensively used for business, technical, and other purposes, especially in and around the Arabian peninsula and the Gulf, and is an increasingly important technical and educational resource in countries formerly closely associated with French.

See DIGLOSSIA, GUTTURAL, HEBREW, HINDI-URDU, LINGUISTIC TYPOLOGY, Q. Compare SANSKRIT.