Arabic
Arabic usually refers to Modern Standard Arabic, the language of present-day media across the middle east. This is a slightly simplified and modernized version of Classical Arabic, the language of the Qur'an.
"Arabic" can also refer to one of the many national or regional dialects spoken daily across the Middle East, which can sometimes differ enough to be mutually incomprehensible, but are usually similar enough for natives to understand.
It is sometimes difficult to separate concepts in Islam from concepts specific to Arab culture, from the language itself. The Qur'an, for instance, is expressed in Arabic and cannot be translated according to Muslims. Concepts that derive from both Islam and Arab tradition, which are expressed as words in the Arabic language, include khalifa, jihad, ijma, umma, sharia, ulema, tarika, kaffir, kufr and ijtihad (all of which merit their own articles here in the wikipedia). Also the English words algorithm, algebra are derived from Arab names and alcohol and oasis are Arab words. The Arabic numeral system is also in modern use.
Arabic is a Semitic language, closely related to the Hebrew language. Many dialects are spoken in modern Arabic states such as Egypt, Lebanon, and Morocco, but all of these countries use Modern Standard Arabic for printed media. Its function however is different from Western standard languages: it is mainly the language of the Qur'an (in its Classical form), and is not spoken in everyday life. Consequently, prestigious vernacular varieties have some of the functions that standard languages have in Western countries (see Chambers, Sociolinguistic Theory). Arabic is the language of Islam, but is also spoken by Arab Christians and Oriental Jews.
The Arabic alphabet derives from the eastern version of Aramaic script (the western version resembles Greek of that era, a loose resemblance like that of Coptic or Cyrillic script to Greek script; but the underlying language does not vary as much between eastern and western variants as the scripts themselves do - a situation a little like the differences between Serb and Croat).
Standard Arabic has only three vowels, in long and short variants, namely /i, a, u/. Naturally, there is quite some allophony.
- Voiceless plosives: /t/, /t', /k/, /q/, hamzah -/?/
- Voiced plosives: /b/, /d/, /d'/, /dZ/ (/dZ/ is /g/ for some speakers, i.e. a plosive)
- Voiceless fricatives: /f/, /T/, /s/, /s'/, /S/, /x/, /X/, /h/
- Voiced fricatives: /D/, /z/, /z'/, /G/, ain - /?\/
- Nasals: /m/, /n/
- Laterals: /l/ ([l'] only in /?alla:h/, the name of God, i.e. Allah)
- Vibrant: /r/
- Semi-vowels: /w/, /j/
/'/ is used to indicate velarization and pharyngalization (=emphatic consonants; usually transcribed as dotted consonants). The other symbols are SAMPA.
In the dialects there are more phonemes, one occurs in the Maghreb as well in the written language mostly for names: /v/.
Vowels and consonants can be (phonologically) short or long.
Like all Semitic languages the grammar is based on a triconsonantal (usually) root, which is not a word in itself. The consonants k t b together indicating 'write', q r ? indicate 'read', ? k l indicate 'eat'. The pattern of vowels and affixes gives the exact meaning. The simplest form of the verb is the perfect, third person masculine singular: kataba 'he wrote', qara?a 'he read'. From this the other persons are formed:
- katabtu I wrote
- katabta you (masc.) wrote
- katabti you (fem.) wrote
- katabat she wrote
- katabna we wrote
- katabu: they (masc.) wrote
- etc., there also being dual forms
The imperfect has a different shape and different affixes:
- jaktubu he is writing
- taktubu she is writing; you (masc.) are writing
- taktubi:na you (fem.) are writing
- ?aktubu I am writing, etc.
Derived verbs are variations on the shape of the primary kataba stem, such as kattaba, ka:taba, inkataba, takattaba, etc., with senses such as intensive, reflexive, and causative, though the exact meaning varies from verb to verb and needs to be recorded in a lexicon.
Arabic has a dual grammatical number