Languages of Muslim countries
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Muslims believe that God revealed the Qur'an to the Muhammad literally, word-for-word, in the Arabic language. Thus, Arabic is regarded as the holy language of Islam.
However, there is no single "Muslim language" per se, as Islam, the faith of Muslims, is shared by people of many different ethnicities and languages:
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[edit] Majority Muslim countries
[edit] Middle East
- Iranians speak Persian, Kurdish, Luri, Azerbaijani, Baluchi, and a number of other languages. (See Persian language#Dialects and close languages and Category:Languages of Iran)
- Afghanistan has four major languages, Pashto, Dari, Uzbek and Hindko, each belonging to ethnic groups (tribes) with the same names.
- Yemen: Arabic
- Iraq: Arabic
- Syria: Arabic
- Turkish people speak Turkish, a language in a very different language group from Arabic.
[edit] Africa
- Morocco: Besides the official Standard Arabic being used by official bodies, as is the case in most Arabic-speaking countries, Moroccan Arabic, also known as Darija is the colloquial language. It is grammatically simpler, and has a less voluminous vocabulary than Standard Arabic. As in Algeria, most Moroccan Arabs live in the north of the country. Other Moroccans speak Berber languages such as Tachelhit and Tarifit.
- Berber languages can also be heard in Algeria, notably including Kabyle, spoken by the Kabyle Berbers in the north-east of Algeria. Another Algerian language is Chaoui, spoken by the Chaoui, south-east of the Kabyle region. See Languages of Algeria.
- Libya: Libyan Arabic
- Tunisia: Tunisian Arabic
- Mauritania: The official language of the country is Arabic, but common people of Arab-Berber origin use a distinct variety known as Hassaniya. Many people in the south of the country speak one of the national languages, such as Pulaar, Soninke or Wolof. These are also spoken in Senegal.
- Nigeria: primarily Hausa, but some Yoruba and Igbo speakers are also Muslim.
- Sudan: primarily a Sudanese dialect of Arabic
- Somalia: people primarily speak Somali which is one of the Cushitic languages.
[edit] South Asia
[edit] Southeast Asia
- The most populous "Muslim country" in the world is Indonesia. Languages spoken are Indonesian, other regional languages and dialects, the most widely spoken of which is Javanese, Sundanese, Madurese
- Malaysia: Malay
[edit] Europe
- Bosnia (at least the Muslim component of federation; Bosniak population is almost exactly half of total population): Bosnian
- Al-Andalus: the former Islamic part of the Iberian peninsula had substantial population of Muladis and Catholics, that spoke Romance Mozarabic languages. The Islamic conquerors spoke Arabic and Berber. Christians and Jews used Latin and Hebrew as their religious language, but Arabic became the language of culture for all the population.
[edit] Countries with significant Muslim minorities
[edit] South and West Asia
- India: India has third highest Muslim population. Indian Muslims speaks many languages. In north its is Hindi, Urdu and Kashmiri. In south they speak Kannada, Malayalam, Telugu and Tamil and in east it is Bengali.
- Israel: Arabic
- Sri Lanka: Sri Lanka's Muslim population mainly consists of Sri Lankan Moors who speak a creole of Tamil.
[edit] East Asia
- China: A variety of languages are spoken by Chinese Muslims. Uyghurs in Xinjiang speak the Uyghur language, while the Hui generally speak Mandarin Chinese.
- Philippines: primarily Maguindanao, Maranao, Tausug and other languages in Mindanao. Some Tagalog speakers are Muslims.
- Singapore: English, Malay,Tamil
[edit] Americas
- Canada: English and French
- United States: English
[edit] Europe
- France: French
- Germany: German
- Netherlands: Dutch
- Russia: Russian, Chechen and other languages of the Caucasus
- United Kingdom: English
[edit] Variations in Arabic
Spoken Arabic has many different 'branches'. Whether these are to be considered mere dialects or separate languages is a question of usually politically motivated debate. Many varieties of Arabic are treated as languages in linguistics, as well as being recognized as such by many of their speakers and in a few countries. The main branches of Arabic are Levantine Arabic, Iraqi Arabic, Gulf Arabic, Egyptian Arabic and Maghrebi Arabic. Maltese is a descendant of an Arabic dialect, but spoken by a non-Muslim population.
