Calligrapher, Ramallah, West Bank
Name used by its speakers (Endonym): Al-ʿarabiyyah / اَلْعَرَبِيَّةُ
Native speakers (estimated, all varieties): 411 million
Total speakers, including second-language (estimated, all varieties): 481 million
Where it’s spoken: Arabic is the fifth most widely spoken language in the world, an official language in 24 countries, one the six official languages of the United Nations, and the liturgical language of Islam. While Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) functions as the lingua franca of the Arab world, Arabic is more accurately characterized as a cluster of languages—including Classical or Quranic Arabic as well as 30 (or more) regional dialects spoken across North Africa, the Middle East, and the Arab diaspora.
Dome interior, Hagia Sophia, Istanbul
Modern Standard Arabic is used widely in education, media, commerce and technology—but in day-to-day speech, most conversations employ one or more of the many colloquial dialects of Arabic, or a mixture of these and MSA, depending on the backgrounds of the speakers involved. The four versions of Arabic with the most speakers include: Egyptian Arabic (67 million), widely understood due to popularity of Egyptian music, film and TV; Maghrebi (70 million), spoken in Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and Libya; Levantine (44 million) spoken in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Palestine and Israel; and Mesopotamian (41 million) spoken in Iraq and parts of Syria and Iran. Other varieties of Arabic include Sudanese, Yemeni, and Gulf Arabic; in all more than 30 have been recognized.
Bilingual sign (“Quf/Stop”) – Tunisia
In Israel, where a fifth of the population speaks Arabic as a native language, it has a semi-official status and is commonly seen (alongside Hebrew) on road signs, official documents and food labels. Arabic is legally recognized but spoken by only small minorities in Iran, Cyprus, Senegal, and Niger. In South Africa, Arabic shares minority status with a host of other immigrant languages (such as Hindi, Tamil, German and Portuguese). Arabic is constitutionally recognized in both Pakistan and the Philippines primarily as an Islamic religious language, but seldom spoken at home. It is used as a working language, though not officially recognized, in Eritrea.
Emigration from Arabic-speaking countries to Europe and the West has occurred since at least the 19th century. The Arab population of Europe is estimated at more than 6 million, with the highest numbers living in France, Spain, Germany, and several other Western European nations. The largest sources for Arab migrants are Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, and Lebanon, all of which have former colonial and linguistic ties that make France a natural destination.
Restaurant sign, Dearborn, Michigan, US
The US claims about 3.5 million people of Arab ancestry, of which the majority come from the Levant states, especially Lebanon and Syria. Significant populations also have Egyptian, Iraqi, and Moroccan roots. The largest concentrations of Arab Americans are found in the metropolitan areas of Detroit, New York City, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago and Washington, D.C. The Arab Canadian community is smaller but has a similar profile, with the largest numbers living in Ontario and Quebec. A large (though indeterminate) number of Brazilians are descended from Arab immigrants from the 19th to early 20th centuries. Arab immigrants also came to Mexico, Colombia, Venezuela, Argentina, and Chile, which is home to a large Palestinian community. However, following a common pattern of cultural and linguistic assimilation, use of Arabic tends to be replaced by that of the host language (English, French, Spanish or Portuguese) over time.
Language family: Afroasiatic family, Semitic branch. Arabic is by far the most widely spoken language in the Afroasiatic family, which in turn is the fourth-largest by number of speakers (after Indo-European, Sino-Tibetan, and Niger-Congo).
Related languages include: Considering all types of Arabic as a single language, the next most closely related is Maltese, which evolved from late medieval Arabic with centuries of Italian and Sicilian influence and is written in the Latin alphabet. Other Semitic languages include Amharic and Oromo (spoken in Ethiopia), Tigrinya (spoken in Eritrea), and Hebrew.
Trilingual road signs in Hebrew, Arabic and English, Jerusalem
Islamic calligraphy, Istanbul, Turkey [Peter Webscott: Arabic calligraphy | wordscene]
Prayer room sign, Zayed International Airpot, Abu Dhabi