arabic

Arabic is a Central Semitic language within the Afro-Asiatic family. It is commonly described as a macrolanguage because it includes Modern Standard Arabic as well as a broad range of regional dialects that vary significantly from one another in pronunciation, vocabulary, and syntax.

The Arabic writing system uses the Arabic script, an abjad of 28 letters written from right to left. Classical Arabic is the language of the Qur’an and early Islamic literature, while Modern Standard Arabic is the standardized form used in education, media, literature, and formal communication across the Arab world. In everyday life, people primarily speak regional dialects such as Egyptian, Levantine, Gulf, Maghrebi, and Iraqi; these dialects differ enough that mutual intelligibility can vary.

Arabic features a root-and-pattern morphology with triconsonantal roots that generate related words through systematic patterns. Its phonology includes emphatic consonants and several sounds uncommon in many other languages. In written texts, short vowels are often not indicated, though diacritics are used in learning materials, religious texts, and to avoid ambiguity.

Geographically, Arabic is spoken across the Arab world—North Africa and the Middle East—and by immigrant and diaspora communities worldwide. There are hundreds of millions of native speakers, with a larger number of second-language speakers. Arabic is one of the six official languages of the United Nations.

Historically, Arabic developed from earlier forms in the Arabian Peninsula, becoming Classical Arabic in the early centuries of Islam and spreading with Islamic expansion. Modern Standard Arabic emerged in the 19th and 20th centuries as a pan-Arab formal variety. The language has exerted substantial influence on regional culture, science, and literature and has contributed loanwords to many other languages.