Modern Standard Arabic

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

(Standard) Arabic اللغة العربية
Spoken in:	Arab world
Total speakers:	—
Language family:	Afro-Asiatic (Standard) Arabic
Writing system:	Arabic alphabet
Official status
Official language of:	Arab world
Regulated by:	no official regulation
Language codes
ISO 639-1:	none
ISO 639-2:	`to be added`
ISO/FDIS 639-3:	`arb`
Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. See IPA chart for English for an English-based pronunciation key.

Modern Standard Arabic is the form of Arabic currently used in Arabic books, newspapers and nearly all written media. It is synonomous with Modern Written Arabic. It is also used on TV, especially in newsbroadcasts. TV shows translated into Arabic are almost always in Modern Standard Arabic.

To most Arabs, Modern Standard Arabic and Classical Arabic are one and the same. They rarely distinguish between the two. Linguists however, point to syntactic differences, as well as differences in vocabulary; but they do not claim they are separate languages. They have the same grammar, and morphology.

Modern Standard Arabic is generally the term used when someone is studying Arabic to read newspapers, write, translate, and or watch newsbroadcasts in Arabic. This term avoids the denotation of a language out of use that the term "Classical Arabic" entails. The term also avoids the ambiguity of "Arabic" which refers to the diverse dialects. This is the main reason the term has gained popularity on Arabic self-learning books. Classical Arabic is generally the term used to refer to the language studyed for religous purposes, or study of the most ancient Arabic texts (i.e. the Qur'an and before).

Although they are not different languages, there are differences that even native speakers notice. The most obvious is the number of currently archaic words, as well as constructs that aren't used anymore. However, Arabs who don't have trouble with these will probably attribute the differences to nothing more than style variation.

[edit] Linguistic Differences

The differences between Classical Arabic and Modern Standard Arabic as linguistic entities are mainly important to linguists. Arabs will argue that the language has not changed.