10 interesting facts about the Arabic language:
- The Arabic alphabet is not actually an alphabet:
One of the qualities that make Arabic a difficult language to learn is the fact that its writing system doesn’t follow an alphabet but an ajbad. An ajbad is a system where each letter stands for a consonant and not a vowel, which requires the user of the language to provide the vowels using vowel marks.
2. Arabic language belongs to the Afroasiatic family:
In the family tree of languages, Arabic belongs to the Afroasiatic family which is spread across the Middle East and a large part of Africa, consisting of 6 branches and around 300 living languages and dialects and is spoken by more than 350 million native speakers. Arabic is the most widely spoken language in this family!
3. There are more than 300 million Arab speakers in the world:
Arabic is the official language for the 22 countries that form the Arab League. Predominantly, the native speakers live in Middle East and North Africa. It is also one of the 6 languages of the UN, yet less than 1% of the population in UK can hold a basic conversation in Arabic.
4. Arabic constructs words from basic roots:
As in other Semitic languages, Arabic has a complex and unusual method of constructing words from a basic root. This means that a pattern of three letters such as ‘k-t-b’, will always be the foundation of words that have the semantic field of ‘writing’, such as the work ‘kitaab’ which means ‘a book’ and ‘maktab’ which means ‘a desk or office’. The beauty of it is that it conveys a depth of both meaning and emotion unmatched by many languages.
5. Arabic has sounds that don’t exist in other languages:
There are many differences between Arabic and English, the most obvious one being that it is written from right to left. There are also a few sounds that don’t exist in other languages, such as ‘ح’ , which is a ‘h’ sound as in ‘hubb’ (love). To get an idea of how this is pronounced, imagine breathing on a window pane to create a mist.
6. English has many words of Arabic origin:
English has many words acquired either directly from Arabic or indirectly from Arabic words that have entered into Romance languages before passing into English with words like alcohol, algebra, algorithm, cotton and to name a few. Even the number system used today was introduced to Europeans by Arab merchants.
7. Arabic is at least 1500 years old:
Classic Arabic originated in the sixth century, but earlier versions of the language existed including the Safaitic dialect, an old Arabic dialect used by the pre Islamic nomadic inhabitants of the SyroArabian desert which dates back to the 1st century.
8. It’s a Study in Dialects:
Arabic is spoken in 22 countries but it is a language of regional dialects. Often these dialects are almost completely incomprehensible to each other, despite being the same language! Arabic is suspected of having lived as a spoken by unwritten language for centuries prior to the birth of Islam, which may explain some of this.
9. Arabic is a Semitic language:
A Semitic language is a name used to name a group of Asiatic and African languages like Hebrew, Aramaic, Arabic, Ethiopic, and Assyrian. In regards to Arabic writing, many languages use the Arabic alphabet, like Persian/Farsi, Urdu, Pashto, and Kurdish. You will be able to read in any of these languages, even though you might not understand!
10. The oldest form of Arabic literature is poetry:
Arabic literature has a great old history. The history of Arabic literature goes back to 16 centuries ago. It actually began in the Arabian Peninsula!
If these interesting facts made you appreciate the Arabic language more, then do come down to Dadafish for a class on Arabic culture! Download the Dadafish app and sign up for some new and fun classes in these last few weeks of summer!