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Cleanup Taskforce page: edit · history · watch · purge This is a pretty good article, but it doesn't have any references. It has lots of external links though. If someone could add inline references (like this), it would improve the article a lot. – Quadell (talk) (random) 20:45, 19 September 2006 (UTC) This article wrongly states that the word 'Algebra' was taken from English, when it is in fact the opposite. Update: The references have been organized, and I added one. Awhile back I added some stuff about Arabic Grammar, and the article looks pretty good now. What else needs to be done? The ikiroid (talk·desk·Advise me) 22:42, 29 December 2006 (UTC) I'm adding some comments on the talk page. --Cbdorsett 05:48, 14 January 2007 (UTC) The first sentence of the last paragraph of the "History" section is confusing. Here's the original: By the fourth century AD, the Arab kingdoms of the Lakhmids in southern Iraq, the Ghassanids in southern Syria the Kindite Kingdom emerged in Central Arabia. And here's a proposed clarification: By the fourth century AD, the Arab kingdoms of the Lakhmids in southern Iraq, the Ghassanids in southern Syria, and the Kindite Kingdom in Central Arabia (had?) emerged. Would anyone object to this going in? It makes it grammatical, and while I'm unsure of the facts—thus the optional had—I don't think it's any worse than what's there now. --Pkahle 08:36, 26 September 2007 (UTC) Version 1.0 Editorial Team     (Rated B-Class) This article has been reviewed by the Version 1.0 Editorial Team. This article has been selected for Version 0.7 and subsequent release versions of Wikipedia. Additional information: B This article has been rated as B-Class on the assessment scale. ??? This article has not yet received an importance rating on the assessment scale. 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Contents 1 Phrase list 2 "Turk Arabic" 3 What the best dictionaries of Modern standard Arabic? 4 Oldest Attested Inscription. 5 'Arabic is the language of Qur'an'. 6 Classical Arabic vs Modern Standard Arabic ?! 7 Translation 8 Image at top of infobox 9 English word for book is not "book"? 10 Hebrew and Arabic 11 Introduction seems to contradict the body 12 Caliphate? 13 Need Arabic script 14 IPA renderings 15 Native vs. Non-native speakers 16 morroco, algeria, tunisia 17 Phonetics 18 Free courses? 19 Bot report : Found duplicate references ! 20 Old Persian and Arabic 21 Arabic & Hebrew 22 Arabic in Turkey? "coliph" 23 Simple Question 24 Revert over-enthusiam 25 History of Arabic Language 26 Arabic and Islam 27 Need Arabic 28 Berber and Maghrebi 29 States versus Region in InfoBox 30 Reboot - Working Definition for Countries to Include in Arabic Information Box 31 Resolution to List of Countries 32 Arabic Afrikaans 33 Discrimination from User:81.22.20.126? 34 Begging for help in some Futurama article 35 Editing Focus 36 Arabic influences, and the Christian Arabic speakers 36.1 Arabic and Christianity 37 Taivo's Recent Edit 38 The -un at the end of the words 39 Need deciphering 40 Ranking? 41 inconsistency with classification of 'moods' (cases) of verbs and 'declension' (cases) of nouns. 42 Input requested for Wikimedia strategic planning process

[edit] Phrase list

Is there really a need for a list of basic phrases? As far as I can tell other language pages don't have this. Perhaps we should replace it with a reference to the WikiBook on Arabic.AlexanderKaras (talk) 05:50, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

[edit] "Turk Arabic"

In Turkey when people try to write the Arabic words of the Quran in Latin letters, they write for example "Hacer-ul Esved" instead of "Hajar Al Aswad" (please ignore the C/J and V/W, I'm talking about the vocals). They often use "e" instead of "a" and "u" or "ü" instead of "o". Why is that so? Can this information improve the article's quality? --78.51.103.82 06:45, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

It seems to me that this is more about Turkish than Arabic, and so would belong better there. Drmaik 07:42, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] What the best dictionaries of Modern standard Arabic?

What the best, and most esteemed dictionaries of Modern standard Arabic? Like oxford dictionary is to English. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.57.60.200 (talk) 03:34, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

The most common Arabic-English dictionary is Hans Wehr's Dictionary of Modern Written Arabic. --Anatoli (talk) 04:31, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Oldest Attested Inscription.

Reference to the revisions made earlier regarding whether the langauge can be traced back to 600 AD or 600 BC; someone said the earliest attestation is in 600 AD. Actually, the earliest attested inscription in Arabic dates back to 328 CE, it was not the Quran (see [1]. However, some recorded poetry date at least a century older (unfortunately, I couldn't find a reliable source). --Maha Odeh 08:58, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

There are a few classical or pre-classical Arabic inscriptions which predate the Namara inscription. Most important of which, is the Qaryat Al Faw inscription which dates to the 1st century BC. It was written in Musnad script. References:

• A. R. Al-Ansary, Qaryat Al-Fau: A Portrait Of Pre-Islamic Civilisation In Saudi Arabia, 1982, University of Riyadh (Saudi Arabia), p. 146.
• A. F. L. Beeston, "Nemara And Faw", Bulletin Of The School Of Oriental And African Studies, 1979, Volume 42, pp. 1-6.
• M. C. A. Macdonald, "Reflections On The Linguistic Map Of Pre-Islamic Arabia", Arabian Archaeology And Epigraphy, 2000, Volume 11, p. 50 and 61.

Also of importance is the En Avdat inscription. Dating to the 120s CE. Written in Nabatean script. References:

• A. Negev, "Obodas The God", Israel Exploration Journal, 1986, Volume 36, No. 1-2, pp. 56-60.
• J. A. Bellamy, "Arabic Verses From The First/Second Century: The Inscription Of ʿEn ʿAvdat", Journal Of Semitic Studies, 1990, Volume 35, pp. 73-79.
• M. O'Connor, "The Arabic Loanwords In Nabatean Aramaic", Journal Of The Near Eastern Studies, 1986, Volume 45, No. 3, p. 229, footnote 98.--Xevorim (talk) 08:01, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

[edit] 'Arabic is the language of Qur'an'.

The above sentence was replaced by User:Perspicacite by 'Muhammad, the last prophet in Islam, spoke the Qur'an in Arabic and aides later wrote the text in Arabic.'. I reverted, explaining that I felt this was Muslim POV, but was re-reverted without explanation. It seems to me that the latter sentence is more about the Qur'an than Arabic, introducing details irrelevant to the matter at hand, while the original sentence is fine.

Other edits made at the same time remove a helpful list of religious groups who also speak Arabic, and there's another change I don't particularly mind, deleting 'until recent times' referring to the translation of the Qur'an.

I welcome comments on these changes. Drmaik 11:16, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Classical Arabic vs Modern Standard Arabic ?!

First, I'd like to thank all wiki-members for this nice article. The differntiation between classical arabic and what's called standard arabic sounds very strange and incomprehensible to any arabic native-speaker. In fact, arabic has undergone no change in terms of grammar and lexicon, since the north-western dialect of modhar مضر -Quranic Arabic- had become the standard language. All that happened was the intoduction of some new words or loan words related to modern technology and that doesn't make a difference in any language, does it? All educated arabic-speakers can understand with perfect ease a piece of literatature written in the 8th or 9th centures for example as though it were written nowadays, in addition to Quran of course. .................................. modern authors attempt (with varying degrees of success) to follow the syntactic and grammatical norms laid down by Classical grammarians .................................. this is a very misleading comment. Grammatical and syntactic norms are thoroughly and fully respected in any form of writing; a text that may contain a few errors is generally considered unworthy of reading and the writer pointed at as uneducated. As for history, precisely pre-Islamic era, two varieties of arabic existed; northern arabic and southern arabic ie Yemen's arabic known as the language of himyar لسان حمير . The two varieties differed much in terms of grammar and lexicon; amr ibn el alaa عمرو بن العلاء,for instance, one of early prominent arabic gammarians pointed out that ... the arabic of himyar is not our arabic.The southern variety died out shorty after the spread of Islam. The northern variety contained slight differences in usage, some grammatical rules and even in pronunciation ..some tribes,for instance, replaced pronoun /ki/ كِ / -used to address females- with /shi/ some added /s/ to it, some did not inflect the dual, a usage used in Quran in one ayat. /ذو / 'whose' for the majority of tribes meant /who - which/ in tayii's -طيئ- dialect, /السكين/ assikin 'knife' in koraych's dialect was unknown to other tribes who used /المدية/ el mudia and so on.

Dialects and descendants. ....................... Colloquial Arabic" is a collective term for the spoken varieties of Arabic used throughout the Arab world, which, as mentioned, differ radically from the literary language. ....................... 'radically' sounds radical here. modern dialects do differ from standard arabic, but they are not that different. Any variety of dialectal arabic can be harly distinguished from standard arabic when written. Sentence structure, lexicon, verb conjugation - with some slight differences- remain unaltered. the main difference consists of the loss of inflection - which is shown through signs not letters in writing- and varying pronunciations. That's why all dialects are mutually intelligible online. Arabic and its modern dialects should by no means be compared to Latin and romance languages ... they're two very different cases. ... another factor of the differentiation of the dialects is the use of classical arabic synonyms for the same meaning, some dialects for example use /بيت / beyt for 'home' other dialects use 'دار ' dar , some maghribine dialects use /نوء/ naw ie rain while other dialects use /مطر/ matar ... this may be confusing to uneducated speakers who are not accustomed to other varieties. .... —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sayih (talk • contribs) 23:30, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

• That is exaggerating. Modern Arabic languages, as they have to be named, are very different from Classical Arabic, mainly in grammar.

Example in Arabic: هذا الرجل the same sentence in Egyptian: الراجل ده CAN'T YOU SEE THE DIFFERENCE! or you like to ignore facts? (an example for languages descended from Arabic, is as the languages that were descended from Latin in Europe & all are recognized as languages :)) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.36.132.57 (talk) 20:40, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your comments. Look up Versteegh's book (in the references) for the very significant differences between dialects and standard. 'Any variety of dialectal arabic can be harly distinguished from standard arabic when written' Bahi, huni bash niktiblik 7aja bit-tunsi. Hardly distinguishable from MSA? Also, there are signficant difference between classical and MSA in e.g. agreement, negation (using ma as a sentence negator: I never see that in a newspaper, where you'll find laysa, lam, la). But it is true, this artcile does need better sourcing... Drmaik 04:36, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

  Thank you for your comment. Let me take what I understood of your sentence 

baghi nekteb lek haja bittounsi باغي نكتب لك حاجة بالتونسي the only difference between this phrase and Standard Arabic is the onjugation of the verb. in standard arabic it's أكتب aktub.. in magribine dialects it's the plural form that's used baghi is the gerund from the verb بغى which means want or like among other meanings, the use of the gerund in this way is recognized in literary style. the use of ma ما for negation is very common in literary style modern and old, as well as in dialectal arabic ... eg ما فهمت شي ma f'hamt shi

 and it's grammatically correct ....  

I'll quote a pre-islamic verse for example .. وما أنا إلا من غزية إن غوت ..غويت وإن ترشد غزية أرشدِ it's also used in Qur'an quite frequently. it's not commonly used in journalistic style as it is felt to convey more personal connotation. well, one must be well versed in grammar and literary tradition to judge such things. Let's suppose this is true, I don't quite often see 'thou knowst' in British or American newspapers though it was used in Shakespeare's works written in modern English. ... I looked at the majority of articles concerning the matter quite some time ago, they contain a good number of errors owing mostly to the lack of adequate knowledge of classical/standard arabic. I'll look again and try to make comments there, thanks again. Any variety of dialectal arabic can be harly distinguished from standard arabic when written .... the quote by the way isn't mine; a conference about arabic dialects was held in algiers last summer. Linguists from all over the Arab World participated and that was their final statement. I'll see if I can get some documents or stuff.--Sayih 16:14, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

OK, well, the first word was bahi = 'good', in this case, 'well'. The fact that you didn't understand other bits might go against the 'hardly distinguishable' argument. huni = here, besh is the future marker. Haja is not normally used to mean 'something' in MSA, rather 'need', though a reading as 'thing' is possible: we'd expect shay' here in MSA (which generally means 'nothing' in Tunisian). niktiblik I wrote as one word as that is what it is in Tunisian, both in terms of word stress ('niktib vs. nik'tiblik' and negation maniktibliksh.)

In any case, it's not the results of discussions like these that end up in the articles, but syntheses of published work. You'll also find Clive Holes' Modern Arabic a good place to follow up related issues: it should be cited in the article (and I don't have time to do that right now). The fact may well be that Arabic speakers don't immediately think 'oh that's in dialect' when something is written in it, but the stark differences are there. Drmaik (talk) 07:43, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

I didn't say dialect and SA don't differ at all, but the difference is not that radical as pointed to in the article. Transliteration in latin script can be confusing, bahi is an adjective is standard arabic meaning beautiful, huni is huna here pronounced with imala an acceptable form of pronunciation even in pre-islamic era. how to write lik doesn't matter much. Notwithstanding the clumsiness of style, all words present in your sentence are present in SA form and meaning , except for bash. Stating references as you said, isn't it strange that these articles don't refer to native-speaker scholars but to Westerners; for all other languages it's their native speakers who decide what is what, for arabic it must be the other way. Excuse me pal, but we know our language more than an orientalist who spent tens of years studying what he couldn't possibly understand very well.

Besides, the core of my comment is about the absurd differentiation between classical Arabic and MSA,with the article contradicting itself clearly about that and stating false things.Can you state your references about that as this 'fact' is ignored by all native speakers.--Sayih (talk) 10:51, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Sayih concerning the differences between "Modern Arabic" and "Standard Arabic" (attention: I used quoting because such thing does not exist). How can we talk about these two varieties and we do not even have the equivalent of these terms in Arabic (academic terms not old(Qadim) and new(Jadid) ). To be honest the first time I heard about them was from an orientalist book (I guess I was ignorant of my own language and all the Medieval books I read before were written in another form; this is absurd). I believe that we should rely more on native sources more than orientalist's ones (as we do in other languages). See Edward Saïd's book about orientalism and bias.

Let's talk about the differences that all the people use as arguments. The only difference I see is the less use of a set of words (considered out-timed) and the introduction of new ones (normal language evolution). Most of the lost words are referring to special terms used in old culture and environment (may be we should call them the Bedouin terms vs. the city ones). The syntax, the grammar, the roots are the same, any child who is able to read can understand old texts and novels (of course not poesy or philosophical texts).

Another very important thing (which is not even an argument; a huge error), most orientalists and authors here do not differentiate between 3elm Al-Balagha and 3elm-Allogha (may be I can translate them to "Language perfection or Art discipline" and the "Language discipline"). In fact, they consider the Al-Balagha (not knowing may be that it exists) as the classical form of Arabic and the normal language as the Modern. This is another misunderstanding of the Arabic language and its associated Arts or Disciplines.

As for the dialects, I admit that there are differences but surely they are not like the ones between French and Spanish for instance (totally incomparable). Another point for Sayih, it is really difficult to assume that dialects can have a written form (they do not represent a whole linguistic identity without Arabic). Finally, I am starting a research on the influence of the Pan-Arab media and communications on the dissolve of the dialects ( in Tunisia for example many new imported words are gaining places such as Kifak (how are you) instead of Shnowa A7walak, another term Tayeb (good or fine) instead of Bahi). I think that all Arab dialects will fuse in the coming years (may be long time but it is coming), especially with new generations. Bestofmed (talk) 00:41, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

• Bestofmed makes good points here. I remember one beginning language textbook that made some fundamental grammatical errors. Some of these orientalists think they are beyond reproach, and they are completely baffled that native speakers have no respect for them. There are scholarly books in Arabic - maybe they should be translated so that the orientalists can read them. By the way, in Tūnsi, it's actually "šniyya Hwālik" - 'aHwāl' is the plural of 'Hāl', so it's grammatically compatible with 'hiya' and not 'huwa.' Cbdorsett (talk) 04:57, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Language politics. While Arabs with a political view of their language make interesting claims, objective analysis is another matter. There are clearly differences between the Classical language and what is referred to by scholars as Modern Standard. The article adequately cites some. As for the differences between dialects, they are most clearly on the order of French to Spanish to Latin. Typically Machreqi Arabs can't bloody well understand Maghrebine dialects. In any event so long as the article is not deformed by nationalist / political a priori ideas about the langauge, have fun making claims and dreaming of dialect unification. (collounsbury (talk) 10:20, 17 January 2008 (UTC))

Making claims and dreaming?? please learn some Wikipedia conducts before using such expressions. Apparently it is clear who is the non-objective here; turning discussion into personal views and emotions. Please answer the claims instead of commenting as a great scholar. We are here to make an agreement, to exchange ideas. Bestofmed (talk) 20:37, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Making claims and dreaming is precisely accurate. Comments above are filled with personal assertions and hand waving based on Arab nationalist sentiment, not data, linguistic studies nor objective analysis. Ach ghangoulek, bghiti chi haja hulm, ma keinch chi taouhide l-lougha, ouldi. If one wishes to change the article, one has to rather than insulting "orientalists" (apparently scholars one doesn't like), bring linguistic science to the table. Or whinge on. (collounsbury (talk) 22:30, 17 January 2008 (UTC))

It seems that you find it hard to believe that there are indeed Arab scholars of Arabic and that Arabs actually study their own language more than non-Arabs. What Bestofmed was trying to say is that Arab scholars do no agree with this division. Grammar is identical, what applies in the so called 'classical' applies in 'msa' and vise versa. vocabulary may have expanded a little in the last 100 or 150 years, but I'm sure that English vocabulary did so too; I mean, try saying Electricity in the year 1800, would anyone know what you are talking about? does that mean that Jane Austin spoke a different language? or does that mean that the word 'lantern' to Jane Austin meant something different?

His claims are not biased or 'nationalist', he is basing what he says on Arab scholars who find no difference with the exception of a few new terms that refer to things that did not exist 1500 years ago. The words that are now rarely used did not change their meaning at all. What you are calling 'clear' differences is not clear at all to Arabs. Unless you speak Arabic better than Arabs, I'd say they know what they are talking about.

By the way, if you make a full search in the whole Arab world among scholars, references, poets, writers and even lay-people; you will not find a single reference to such a difference. If you truely believe they are all fooling themselves or that this is propaganda then allow me to say that your mindset is, at the least, biased. --Maha Odeh (talk) 12:43, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

Boring whinging my dear. I studied Arabic under almost exclusively Arab professors, who had more or less the same analysis - as non-"arab nationalist" professionals. Making the Arab versus Western scholar claim is pure and utter rubbish. Grammar is not identical, nor syntax (as the arty nicely summarizes), although indeed, yes, similar, etc. But whatever, piss and moan as you like - the arty however will require proper citations. Emotional and particular provincial reactions are understandable, but in the end not relevant. (collounsbury (talk) 00:41, 15 February 2008 (UTC))

If I may just but in here. I think there is a little bit of emotion in this discussion and although I enjoy the exchange I respectfully suggest you are arguing at cross purposes. There seems to be two arguments here:

1) Is there a difference between "classical" arabic and "modern standard arabic"? Here I would tend to agree with Maha and Bestofmed; the distinction is minimal or at least to my ears (I am a non-native Arabic speaker having lived in the Arab world for twenty five years) the closest parallel would be the distinction between early modern English and contemporary written English. No native Arabic writer that I am aware of uses the distinction. Both are referred to as Al-lugha Al-fusha (eloquent language - sorry I can't "do" dots under the h).

2) Is there a difference between the classical or written register and the spoken language varieties? Here I think Collounsbury has a point, although that was not the title of the discussion. Having said that, and recognising the importance of neologisms in all current varieties of Arabic there can be little doubt that, upon analysis, even those varieties of Arabic reputed to be "furthest" (this is another discussion: i.e. was "fusha" ever spoken and do the current varieties descend from it or from other varieties of spoken Arabic contemporary with the 7th century poetic language) from the written language, such as the Darija referenced by Collounsbury turn out to be not so far!

If we take his example: "Ach ghangoulek, bghiti chi haja hulm, ma keinch chi taouhide l-lougha, ouldi" and rearrange the presentation it is possible to an analysis which shows common roots with nearly all extant varieties.

Ach or Ash (Ai shai'? = what thing?) common to just about every variety of spoken Arabic and easily linked to the literary version.

ghangoulek or ghadi ngoul lek = (will I say?) ghadi is a gerund of a root cogniscant with ghadda' (tomorrow) and the idea of the future, divergant from the standard sure - but no spoken variety uses "sa" or "saf" - most use an Aramaic derived future marker "ha" - "ha goul lek" (many varieties of bedouin Bilad ash-Shams). The difference between ngoul and 'goul is the Alexandrine plural found in other bedouin dialects even East of the Nile. Finally "lek" = to you is also easily understandable in just about any imaginable dialect.

Bghiti is a peculiar feature of Maghrebi varieties but once one connects with the "classical" verb 'inbigha' or the Gulf usage "baghi" gerund of the unusual (in classical) baghaa and realises that it is in the preterite form (also peculiar to Maghrebi dialects) a little bit of effort makes the connection.

I could go on with ma kein chi (there is nothing) - fairly widespread negative form in spoken - double negative ma//chi or ma//shi and with some thought not so different from the Baghdadi "ma kou" or the peninsular ma fi sh. In fact the Maghrebi version is more conservative than either; using a gerund of kaana (to be).

I find wryly amusing that you used the idafa for towhid al-logha rather the connective dial (dho li in the old form of the classical) - another example of where Maghribi is more conservative than Mashreq varieties etc.

All I am saying "ouldi" is that you seem to be getting het up about this whereas there is no real reason to and that perhaps there is an argument from both points of view. BTW I am aware that my transliterations are not perfect - I can't do them with this keyboard so apologies for that and ma' salema or, in Hassaniya, - wada'na koum moulana! Wildbe (talk) 13:03, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

I am not fluent in Arabic but I'd like to comment that we should distinguish between Modern Standard Arabic - MSA (language of the media) and modern Arabic dialects (Egyptian, Maghribi, etc.). The former, although modernized has mostly the same grammar rules as the Classical Arabic (CA). By modernisation, I mean new words, which have to do with modern life - newly created, borrowed from other languages or spoken dialects. --Atitarev (talk) 23:24, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Translation

I found this on a vandalized page, does anyone know what it means: بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم مع تحياتي: عبد العليم محمد ليمو

Zenofwar (talk) 21:57, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

It's In the name of God the Most Merciful the Most Gracious, with best rgards

then the guy signs his name in full.

it's polite vandalism, no? --Sayih (talk) 23:55, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

It is rather polite, but why put it on the googel (not google) page? Zenofwar (talk) 16:06, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Image at top of infobox

An editor just replaced the image of the word "al-'arabiyyah" with an image showing the word written with Naskh script, on the grounds that "we" don't see Kufic much anymore. I disagree. Kufic is seen everywhere and is used often for things to give them an official appearance. Book titles (I'm looking at one right now), certificates, seals, signs on buildings, official letterheads, and more. Naskh is used for ordinary text. It's easier to read - something like Times Roman in English. I would support reverting the image to Kufic on those grounds, but, unfortunately, the previous image was not Kufic, but a modern artistic font. I don't 'object' to the Naskh image, but I think a true Kufic one would be much more suitable. Cbdorsett (talk) 14:25, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] English word for book is not "book"?

The influence of Arabic has been most profound in Islamic countries. Arabic is a major source of vocabulary for languages as diverse as Berber, English, Kurdish, Persian, Swahili, Urdu, Hindi (only the colloquial variety), Turkish, Malay and Indonesian, as well as other languages in countries where these languages are spoken. For example the Arabic word for book /kitāb/ is used in all the languages listed, apart from Malay and Indonesian (where it specifically means "religious book").

I found this statement rather odd... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.88.131.233 (talk) 13:32, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

• I agree. I'll delete English from the list. Cbdorsett (talk) 09:41, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Actually, the word for 'book' in Swahili is not kitab, but -tabu, singular kitabu/plural vitabu. The singular kitabu was borrowed from Arabic kitab and restructured to correspond with Swahili phonotactics and with the initial syllable being reinterpreted as the Swahili singular prefix ki-. The statement in the article makes it sound like you can go to Kenya and use a bare Arabic word and be understood. I don't know the other languages, but there is probably a similar situation in many of them. Arabic kitab was borrowed into these languages, but the words are no longer strictly kitab. (Taivo (talk) 15:32, 15 May 2008 (UTC))

If you read kitab BACKWARDS you get a word that starts with b and ends with k, as the word book. In the same way you arrive from arabic AL to french LA. Is is possible that words read backwards has been transferred from a language to another? For a person used to latin letter writings its natural to consider arabic to be written backwards. Are there more examples of this kind? / eriksson.g@gmail.com —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.224.114.36 (talk) 12:32, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

This is a rather naive statement. It implies that the people borrowing the written forms of words don't actually know how to read the language. If they don't know how to read the language, how can they possibly borrow words from the written form of it? They can't. The only thing they can borrow from the writing system of a language they don't know how to read is the shape of the letters--as happened when Sequoyah borrowed the shapes of English letters to invent the Cherokee syllabary. People simply do not borrow words "backwards". It does not happen. The two examples you cite are pure coincidence. If it was true, then the English word for "book" would be "botok" because the Arabic root has a "t" in the middle. The French "la" does not come from Arabic, but is a clip of the Latin "illa". (Taivo (talk) 12:48, 9 August 2008 (UTC))

There are examples of cognates having sounds move (possibly switching) but this is due to a process called metathesis, not to interorthographic errors. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 00:20, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Hebrew and Arabic

I can understand Hebrew without education .. Hebrew are like Arabic language ...--89.138.198.96 (talk) 04:49, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

What do you think about 'Adeni Yemenite Hebrew?--72.38.211.144 (talk) 21:47, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

There is a difference between that Arabized Yemenite Hebrew & Hebrew --Mahmudmasri (talk) 05:35, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Introduction seems to contradict the body

This paragraph

Modern Standard Arabic derives from Classical Arabic, the only surviving member of the Old North Arabian dialect group, attested epigraphically since the 6th century, which has been a literary language and the liturgical language of Islam since the 7th century.

contradicts the information in the body of the article. Pre-classical Arabic inscription date back to the 2nd century BCE and proto-Arabic inscription to the 8th ecntury BCE. Even if confined to Classical arabic only, there is information on pre-Islamic Arabic writings from the 4th century AD. How do other editors propose we correct it? Tiamut^talk 14:53, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Caliphate?

Really 700 years of caliphate government on Iberian Peninsula? What was the caliph name in the year 1200 or 1400? If one reads such a claim in the introduction, it is hard to believe the rest of the text is accurate. Accidental visitor 89.77.134.144 (talk) 08:14, 13 February 2008 (UTC).

See Al-Andalus, Umayyad conquest of Hispania, and Reconquista. The Iberian Peninsula had a Muslim political presence from 711 to 1492 though it was greatly reduced in the 1200s and constituted Umayyads, Hammadids, Almoravids, and Almohads in that order, the last one being the presence 1200 on. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 14:00, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

Yes, "political presence" in the year 1200 or 1400 is correct, but did Nasrids held the title of caliphs? 89.77.134.144 (talk) 18:36, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

Hmmm, list of caliphs says that even the Almohads are not universally accepted. If we were to accept that not all Muslim rulership in the Iberian peninsula was caliphesque, how might we reword the article without changing the dates? — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 02:19, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Need Arabic script

Need Arabic script at Nuubaat. Badagnani (talk) 22:26, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] IPA renderings

Please could someone check all the IPA renderings of Arabic words/phrases. One example [baytul mudi:r] cannot be right, because the y symbol in IPA represents a vowel that Arabic (according to the article) does not have. EEye (talk) 15:51, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Native vs. Non-native speakers

Why a page this old listed there being 422 million native Arabic speakers (when the total population of all the Arabic-speaking countries is only about 3/4 of that) is beyond me.

This figure seams to have arisen from a misunderstanding of the data given in the encarta list of languages spoken by more than 10 million people. This list includes non-native speakers as well as native ones, of which there are an additional 200 million for Arabic. Therefore, I've separated figure on the number of speakers into two figures that reflect this.Szfski (talk) 08:11, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

What about the arab imigrants in non arab countries?--N-G-50 (talk) 16:04, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

The section on the varieties of Arabic (Egyptian, Gulf, etc.) lists the number of speakers for each variety and the sum total of all those speakers is 220 million. Where do the rest of the supposed 400+ speakers live? Are there really that many Arab immigrants in non-Arab countries? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.160.148.80 (talk) 23:59, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

[edit] morroco, algeria, tunisia

They should be in blue because they speak mostly french than arabic. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Musliman08 (talk • contribs) 18:28, 27 May 2008

No, that's not true. (Taivo (talk) 17:53, 27 May 2008 (UTC))

You have no prove for that. Wikipedia policy reflects facts and official status of countries. I am a Tunisian and I assure you that we speak Arabic. I agree with you that educated Tunisians speak French, but as a foreign language (English is gaining ground lately too; will this make us Anglophiles!). Bestofmed (talk) 23:34, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Phonetics

"In some Gulf dialects, /q/ is palatalized to [dʒ] or [ʒ]." Is there any support for this? It seems to me that this sentence refers to jīm, not qāf. I think the sentence should be moved, but I'll wait for input from native speakers from the Gulf. Cbdorsett (talk) 09:30, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

That is in fact accurate for the first one ([dʒ]), I've never heard [ʒ] instead of /q/, but then again I couldn't have spoken to every single person in the Gulf so there may be some truth to it. --Maha Odeh (talk) 09:41, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

The transcription and attribution are wrong. He intended, I think, many Najdi (and perhaps gulf) dialects which palatalize /q/ to a voiced palatal plosive, not the affricate used in the transliteration. It should be transliterated as a /ɟ/. 144.91.50.99 (talk) 21:03, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Free courses?

I don't understand why the links to free online courses were removed? This must be great for paysites, but I don't see how it is good for Wikipedia or people interested in Arabic.HD1986 (talk) 11:21, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not here for advertising of any kind. It is an encyclopedia, not the yellow pages. (Taivo (talk) 16:20, 19 June 2008 (UTC))

Yes, but removing links to free courses will not really hurt the economy of those free courses, don't you think so? I think there are other factors playing roles here. HD1986 (talk) 06:07, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

It's not about hurting the economy of the free courses. Let them continue to do business. It's about the nature of Wikipedia. This isn't the Yellow Pages. It's an encyclopedia. No advertising. (Taivo (talk) 08:16, 20 June 2008 (UTC))

This the definition of advertising from Wiki:

Advertising is a form of communication that typically attempts to persuade potential customers to purchase or to consume more of a particular brand of product or service.

This the definition of a customer from merriam-webster's: [2]

one that purchases a commodity or service

The definition of purchase from merriam-webster's: [3]:

to obtain by paying money or its equivalent

If you were into philosophy, you should have realized by now that your argument is false, because there is no money involved in a free course. HD1986 (talk) 09:05, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

And if you really understood what I was saying, then you would be able to show me in Encyclopedia Britannica a listing for "free Arabic courses". Wikipedia is NOT a sourcebook for learning Arabic, it is an encyclopedia. A free Arabic course does not provide the scientific authoritative voice that Wikipedia references provide for DESCRIBING the item in the article, in this case, Arabic. Arabic grammars are listed because they are the descriptions of the language. Wikipedia is not here to help anyone do anything other than to understand what something is, not how to use or learn to use it. (Taivo (talk) 09:28, 20 June 2008 (UTC))

Firstly, you have relinquished your former argument and now you are talking other things. The reference to Encyclopedia Britannica is invalid because there are hundred differences between Wiki and that ency. and you can't just pick things at your will and say that we're doing what Encyclopedia Britannica is doing.

A free Arabic course does not provide the scientific authoritative voice that Wikipedia references provide

This is false, because those free courses are not references but external links; and if we were to apply what you say uniformly then I think there is an awful lot of work that should be done in most of the Wiki articles with external links.

Wikipedia is not here to help anyone do anything other than to understand what something is, not how to use or learn to use it.

Well, certainly a free online course in Arabic won't go any further than explaining what Arabic grammar is. You are using many words without really making any clear point. What is the difference between descriping Arabic grammar and teaching people to use it? This looks to me like playing on words. Arabic grammar is an abstract thing, it is not a machine. HD1986 (talk) 11:28, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Bot report : Found duplicate references !

In language&redirect=no&oldid=228898351 the last revision I edited, I found duplicate named references, i.e. references sharing the same name, but not having the same content. Please check them, as I am not able to fix them automatically :)

• "Bishop2" :
  • Brian Bishop (April 1998). "[? A History of the Arabic Language]". The Center for Arabic Culture. ?. 
  • Brian Bishop (April 1998). "A History of the Arabic Language". The Center for Arabic Culture. 

DumZiBoT (talk) 10:57, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Old Persian and Arabic

It would be ridiculous to remove the Old Persian Avestan pointer in the article. Its known fact that Old Persian and Arabic are almost exact same and theres indefinite sources to match the claim. Consult with the sources as well see [[4]] its common sense that Old Persian is the basic structure of Arabic. If this User:Xevorim keeps removing that claim you can inform the admins. --CMJTHY (talk) 02:00, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

It seems you have no idea what Avestan Persian is, nor do you have any knowledge of Arabic. Old Avestan is an indo-iranian language from the indo-european language family. Arabic is a central Semitic language from the Afro-asiatic language group. I've also checked the book u refer to...it doesn't even make that claim!!--Xevorim (talk) 18:20, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

Find yourself a reliabe linguistic book or article that makes that claim...otherwise, don't mention it!--Xevorim (talk) 18:22, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

CMJTHY, you are, ahem, completely wrong. Avestan and Arabic are completely unrelated languages and you cannot find a single reliable linguistic source that will make that claim because there are none. There is nothing to report to the admins about Xevorim. He is 100% in the right and you are wrong. Wikipedia will not defend your errors. (Taivo (talk) 15:39, 19 August 2008 (UTC))

This is getting ridiculous. First, Avestan and Old Persian are completely different languages. And Second, neither Avestan nor Old Persian is even distantly related to Arabic. Can't you people read a simple linguistics text? (Taivo (talk) 06:09, 21 August 2008 (UTC))

[edit] Arabic & Hebrew

It is mentioned that Arabic is: “it is closely related to Old Persian Avestan language, Hebrew”. This gives wrong imitation that Arabic was found at the age of Hebrew while there is huge time difference. Arabic was found before Hebrew. So I think this phrase in the article needs to be rephrased. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.93.198.53 (talk) 06:03, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

"Arabic was found before Hebrew"?!

Care to mention any sources?--Xevorim (talk) 17:46, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Relax Mr. IP. Hebrew is definitely older than Arabic. Hakeem.gadi (talk) 08:50, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Arabic in Turkey? "coliph"

On my mother's side, they're Assyrians on her father's side, and they immigrated from Turkey in the 50s or so. (christian arabs living in turkey, fled due to kurdish attacking their villages) One of the things I noticed was how they spoke. I'm a native arabic speaker myself, but my arabic is mostly founded on lebanese arabic, common where I live, and the more formal speak.

One striking thing was the use of "k" instead of "h" in plenty of places. Such as:

Ahweh -> Kahweh Haeh -> Haek ("la faute de", "[it's his] fault") Marlahah -> Marlakah

But this doesn't apply to everything. There's also other weird terms rarely used by us, stuff like "Zabash" (watermelon, "Bateekh" seems to be canteloupe), "Oroman" (Turkish loanword?), and other terms for objects and places. I guess all the turkish words are because this particular family (a massive on at that because it started off very large and they all live in pretty much the same city now all near each other) grew up in turkey, or at least the elders did, so the kids learned it too.

There's a lot of weird deviations though that I have no explanation for:

Hekeh -> Ague' (e acute accent, my keyboard doesn't do this) Waen -> Angus ("where are you?") Inta/Intie -> Int/Inte (him/her yous. Like, angus int, is where are you for a man.) Langus (I've never heard anything like this before. It means where are you going. You can't really say "langus inte", but I've heard some say "langus tat rooh", even though it doesn't seem to be correct) Asch sayt? ("What did you do?") Hawne' -> Hawnak (here)

There's also a lot of Swedish loan words. I guess it's like our french and english loanwords. But it's more like we prefer the local word rather than the real one, I don't know if that's loanword or pidgin.

I just thought it would be interesting to mention this. I have never seen any mention, ever, to that region of Turkey (they call it "Coliph", like o = uh) nor their language. I'm hoping somebody has more details for me?

99.241.10.79 (talk) 01:35, 4 September 2008 (UTC) (Jorophose in disguise)

[edit] Simple Question

Does this article deal with the type of Arabic that was spoken 1,000+ years ago? thanks, The roof of this court is too high to be yours (talk) 16:38, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

It does. It doesn't elaborate on Old North Arabian and preclassical Arabic as it does on Classical Arabic (which dates to the 4th century CE). The grammar section describes the grammar of Classical and Modern Standard Arabic.--Xevorim (talk) 00:04, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps a separate page should be created to detail Old North Arabian/preclassical Arabic? Such information could also be worked into this existing article.. The roof of this court is too high to be yours (talk) 00:30, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

I agree. I intend on expanding the Old North Arabian article and creating a Preclassical Arabic article. --Xevorim (talk) 11:14, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Revert over-enthusiam

Sometimes I feel like some editors on Wikipedia slightly abuse their authoroty. The last edit that was reverted on this article (because it "lacked source") was actually true and a common sense; it is even mentioned in other articles in wikipedia.

I wish if editors handle other people's edits with the sufficient care. I don't think it is a simple thing to undo edits made by other intelligent human being; and it shouldn't become so because the article spent some time on your watchlist. Having spent more time on Wikipedia than others doesn't mean that you know more than them, especially if it is clear that you don't. I'm not refering to a specific editor with what I say. HD1986 (talk) 08:18, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Sometimes an edit is just on the verge of good, and was clearly well-intentioned, but it has grammar errors, typos, etc. that are too extensive to fix easily. Sometimes there are 50 changes (literally), 25 of which are good and 25 of which are bad. Sometimes there is information that looks POV and needs more explanation on the talk page before addition is appropriate. There are many good reasons for reverting rather than just editing edits that were well-intentioned and not just vandalism. Sometimes we just make mistakes. Read the reasoning for the revert and address that. Don't just complain about a revert. (Taivo (talk) 12:45, 24 September 2008 (UTC))

[edit] History of Arabic Language

The first sentence of the Wikipedia article on Hebrew begins, "Hebrew (עִבְרִית, ‘Ivrit) is a Semitic language of the Afro-Asiatic language family..."

I looked up the article on the Afro-Asiatic language family and found that "The Afro-Asiatic languages constitute a language family with about 375 languages (SIL estimate) and more than 300 million speakers spread throughout...Southwest Asia (including some 200 million speakers of Arabic)."

It makes sense to include the reference to Afro-Asiatic languages as part of the linguistic grouping and history of the Arbic language, yes? PinkWorld (talk) 08:35, 28 November 2008 (UTC)Pink

Sure. HD86 (talk) 15:39, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Arabic and Islam

Ive added a little bit to this section, which was necessary to address the view that Arabic is not only the liturgical language, but that its claimed to be God's favorite language for human communication. Seems rather silly to think of a language as preferred by God, as Arabic existed long before Islam, has changed over the centuries, and has diverged into distinct dialects (one would infer that language considered perfect would not need to change at all.) This addresses the basic issue from a critical standpoint, but I'm thinking there needs to be more of an insider's explanation into why Arabic is considered to be divine. -Zahd (talk) 06:11, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Need Arabic

Need Arabic script at Qâlat daqqa and Tabil (both Tunisia-related articles). Badagnani (talk) 18:48, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Berber and Maghrebi

Berber influence is just one of the reasons why mutual intelligibility between Maghrebi and non-Maghrebi varieties is impaired. It is not the sole reason. Neither Bateson (which discusses a full range of phonological and morphological features) nor Benmamoun (Elabbas Benmamoun, The Feature Structure of Functional Categories: A Comparative Study of Arabic Dialects, (Oxford University Press, 2000), passim) nor Fischer (Wolfgang Fischer, "Arabic", International Encyclopedia of Linguistics (Oxford University Press, 1992), pp 91-98) nor Kaye & Rosenhouse (Alan S. Kaye & Judith Rosenhouse, "Arabic Dialects and Maltese", The Semitic Languages (Routledge, 1997), pp. 263-311) ascribe all the differences between Maghrebi and non-Maghrebi to Berber influence. Indeed, Kaye & Rosenhouse are very specific in identifying changes that are the result of Berber influence (for example the loss of many short and reduced long vowels, pg. 265) and most of the changes are not ascribed to Berber. Ascribing the entire range of changes to Berber makes no more sense than blaming the entire range of differences between Iraqi and Egyptian Arabic on Kurdish/Aramaic influence on Iraqi or Coptic influence on Egyptian. It just isn't the case. Languages with a broad geographic spread like Arabic simply undergo changes that make them mutually unintelligible at their ends (compare California and Scots English, for example). Yes, there was Berber influence, but it is not the sole reason for mutual intelligibility and the majority of the sources bear that out. (Taivo (talk) 11:50, 29 December 2008 (UTC))

[edit] States versus Region in InfoBox

The laundry list of countries where Arabic is spoken is pretty much meaningless. The "Region" option for the InfoBox is for just such languages that are spoken across a wide swath of the globe. Once the number of countries exceeds 12, I think, then "Region" should be used rather than "States" so that the InfoBox is actually informative rather than a bone of contention where proponents argue over whether the 100 speakers of X language in Y country crosses some threshold of inclusion. Please discuss the issue here rather than engaging in an edit war over a minor detail. (Taivo (talk) 14:46, 1 January 2009 (UTC))

I support the change (but don't consider misleading/false information a particularly 'minor' detail). Maybe there'll be some consensus at last. the roof of this court is too high to be yours (talk) 14:52, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

[deleted off-topic argument]

I gave a reason above. There was a continual edit war going on over whether or not to include a particular country in the list. The Language Infobox template specifically provides for the option of listing regions instead of specific states for languages that are spoken over wide territories. This was a solution that was acceptable to one of the participants in the edit war. The other problem with laundry lists of countries is that they become less informative the longer they become. It then becomes impossible to see a pattern in the overall noise. Country lists are relevant when the number of countries is small, but become increasingly irrelevant the longer the list. Honestly, which is more informative: "The Middle East and North Africa" or "Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Israel, Palestine, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, etc."? For the geographically challenged, the more information that can be packed in the fewest words, the better. By warring over individual states to include or not include we fail to see the forest for the trees. (Taivo (talk) 09:44, 2 January 2009 (UTC))

With all due respect, an edit war about the content of the list is no reason to remove the list altogether. As for your question about the most informative option, it's doubtless the second one. "The Middle East and North Africa" is very vague, especially as the two most populous countries in the Middle East, Turkey and Iran, are not Arabic-speaking. That is not to say that we could not ultimately go for your option, but the way forward is to discuss and to gain a consensus, not to impose it and edit-war over it.JdeJ (talk) 09:52, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

[deleted off-topic argument]

French language and English language do not try to list all the countries spoken in the info box. Spanish language does. Personally, I find such a long list intrusive. Note that under official Arabic countries, the list is collapsed. I suppose one could argue that it should also be fully expanded, but that would be rather annoying. Perhaps a collapsed list would work for the countries spoken in as well ("The Middle East and North Africa (see list)"), and for Malta, we could simply enforce the sourcing rules.

Now that I've taken a look at this, I notice a couple errors. Arabic is not a native language in Somalia, and so I believe that country should be removed from the list. (It is a native language in Eritrea, among a small Rashaida community.) Or perhaps we could tack it on at the end with "also official in Somalia (see below), and a liturgical language ..."

We're also missing Tanzania, where it is a native language in Zanzibar, [edit conflict] as well as Kenya, Cyprus, Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Cameroon, Niger, Nigeria, Mali, and perhaps Senegal. kwami (talk) 09:56, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

On Country List per Kwami: While Zanzibar is discussable (really how many speak Arabic as a mother tongue, rather than learning it for liturgical reasons?), the Central Asian states are very dubious - I am not aware of significant native Arabic mother tongue speakers in Central Asia. Similarly Cyprus no longer has a native Arabic speaking population as such, and the Sahel states - Senegal Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Cameroun all strike me as dubious (there are certainly, e.g. Senegalese that speak Arabic, but vanishingly few as mother tongue - mostly of Maure extraction - versus school-learned Quranic Arabic. The same for Mali). As Arabic has the confusion of a dual role of being liturgical and a mother tongue, it strikes me some clear standard has to be adopted. I for one would not count countries where Arabic is not spoken on a daily basis outside of religious settings, by at least some significant minority. Thus I would not list any of the Sahel states, nor Cyprus, for the Central Asian states. Turkey and Iran would have to be included due to their native Arabic speaking minorities. (collounsbury (talk) 10:47, 2 January 2009 (UTC))

I agree that we should only consider native speakers. From Ethnologue, we have the following numbers of native Arabic speakers (these figures exclude Standard Arabic):

Niger, 30k. Cameroon, 64k. Nigeria, 100k (data from 1973). Cyprus, 1300 (all over 30 yrs). Iran, 1.4M. Eritrea, unknown. Turkey, 400k. Kenya, 15k. Tanzania, 195k ethnic pop. ("Some or all may speak Swahili as first language"). Ethiopia, unknown. Djibouti, 52k. Afghanistan, 5k (data from 1967, usage declining). Tajikistan, 1k (ditto). Uzbekistan, 700. Mali, 106k.

kwami (talk)

[off-topic]

True, both the article on French and on English list the countries in the article rather than in the fact box. Of course that could be an option here as well, and I'll be glad to discuss that option, but currently the article does not list the countries where Arabic is spoken. As for the precise countries where Arabic is spoken, I must confess to not being an expert and cannot comment on that. My concern is that this article, just like any other language article, should mention the countries where the language is official. It can be done in the infobox or in the article, but it would have to be somewhere in the article. Let me also add that what we're interested in is the countries where Arabic is official, not where it is spoken.JdeJ (talk) 10:04, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

Actually, there are two places in the info box: one for 'where spoken', which generally means where a language has a non-immigrant or expat speaking population, and below that an official status section. Arabic is one of the few languages which has countries in the second list which aren't in the first, though perhaps only Somalia. kwami (talk) 10:14, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

Exactly JdeJ! We're only interested in where Arabic is official. Middayexpress (talk) 10:11, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

[off topic]

I suggest at this point that comments not primarily addressing the topic be removed. Remember that this is not a forum.JdeJ (talk) 10:51, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

Deleted personal attacks and all the Swahili stuff. kwami (talk) 11:09, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Reboot - Working Definition for Countries to Include in Arabic Information Box

[well I wrote this reboot while JdeJ wrote the above] The above convo seems hopelessly lost in a largely irrelevant dispute over Swahili that has no place at all in this conversation. I would suggest that much of the legitimate differences over this stem from the inherent ambiguity involved in Arabic (which form / dialect is being used, etc), and the fact it is widely used beyond its mother tongue community, for religious reasons. And for those same religious reasons, some non-native speakers claim it as a spoken tongue, for prestige reasons. That is neither good nor bad. However it does muddy the waters.

I would suggest as I noted above (On Country List per Kwami) that a working definition that would be clearest to use the standard of where significant settled (non-migrant, non-immigrant) populations of native mother tongue speakers exist, and Arabic is used daily, extensively (in a least some region) for non religious purposes, and exclude countries where Arabic is generally more or less purely a liturgical language. While evidently not as simple a call as it sounds, it would create a list that responds to what the average reader is likely to understand and expect. I also found Taivo's solution to the Malta edit war elegant, and not at all inaccurate. Middle East & North Africa captures virtually the entire category of nations meeting the suggested above standard - and yes including Turkey and Iran which both have provinces that meet said standard (For Turkey, bordering Syria, for Iran, bordering Iraq & the Gulf). (collounsbury (talk) 11:02, 2 January 2009 (UTC))

Added note given removal of the largely irrel Swahili stuff which included an explanation of how this arose: the revision by Taivo came about as a solution to an edit war launched by a Maltese user that objected strongly to the inclusion of Malta in the countries list in the info box. The inclusion of Maltese, depending on one's point of view a dialect of Maghrebi Arabic heavily influenced by Romance languages or a descendant of Maghrebi dialectal Arabic - the distinction is arguable on linguistic grounds but of course another mater on nationalistic ones, rather irritated him evidently. Taivo suggested Middle East North Africa for the reasons above, and to finesse the list question. Rather than being imposed, it seemed like a useful and accurate compromise. I should note that I defended the inclusion of Malta solely on the grounds that I thought the Maltese editor should lay out a rationale (others I think were more in favour). Personally I think the country list should err on the conservative with respect to inclusion, and so long as the exclusion of Malta is consistent with similar situations, I am in favour. I am also in favour of not listing countries with a highly marginal presence of Arabic, taking a less controversial example, Senegal, which indeed does have some native, mother tongue speakers of Arabic, but vanishingly few (although liturgically based knowledge of Arabic is rather wider spread than mother tongue). (collounsbury (talk) 11:44, 2 January 2009 (UTC))

My reservations were not so much 'nationalistic' (favoured indictment by those grasping at straws) but surprise at the utter ignorance of most editors when it comes to making wanton changes regarding the Maltese language. So long as all things are factual and above board, I have no complaints :) the roof of this court is too high to be yours (talk) 11:58, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

Mmmm... I don't know about that. I think it is not insignificant that the Northeast African nations have Arabic as an official language, that they're a part of the Arab League, that they've traded and interacted longer with the Arabian Peninsula (which is just a few miles away from them) than even North Africa has, that they were in fact the first on the entire African continent to adopt Islam, and that most Arab-themed websites and the UN consider them to be Arab States. Even a couple of genetics website do (1, 2). I think that means a lot more than the fact that a few ethnic Arabs living in Turkey and Iran speak the language but no actual Turks or Persians do. But that's just me. Middayexpress (talk) 11:34, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

Somali is part of the Arab league for political reasons. I know from personal experience very few Somalis speak Arabic as mother tongue. Further your phrasing, with all its 19th century primitive ethnocentrism, on "actual Turks or Persians" is at once prejudicial and wrong. The minorities referenced are (1) native born citizens of Iran and Turkey, established in the border provinces since an ancient date; (2) "actual" Turk or "Persian" is a nationalistic claim that is inappropriate to an encyclopedia, insofar as said populations are native born citizens, they are "actual" (every bit as much as a native Kurdish speaker born as a Turkish citizen is an actual citizen. Adoption of Islam has fuck all to do with the issue of Arabic as a spoken language, that is why I explicitly excluded the liturgical element (insofar as such a standard makes nonsense out of Xian Arabs...). Genetics is equally of no fucking relevance at all. Speaking a language is not a matter of blood or genetics, speaking a language as a mother tongue is not a matter of blood or genetics. Nor is culture = to language. (collounsbury (talk) 11:44, 2 January 2009 (UTC))

So, the issues seem to be:

1. Do we collapse the list, as we do with its official status; move it to the text, as in the French and English articles; or leave it in the info box, as in the Spanish article?
2. Do we simply repeat ourselves between the lists of where spoken vs. where official? If we don't, are we primarily concerned with native speakers, noting that Arabic is also a liturgical language in many more countries?
3. If native speakers, do we include waning communities like those of Cyprus and Central Asia? If not, where do we draw the line? Djibouti grants official status, yet only has 50k speakers, fewer than Cameroon, but Arabic is numerically significant enough in Turkey and Iran to affect world-scale language maps. (Note the answer may depend on whether we're speaking of an infobox summary or a full paragraph in the text.)

kwami (talk) 11:44, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

I am in favor of (2), and would exclude declining or probably effectively extinct communities in Cyprus, Central Asia (as you'd have to really bloody search to find a genuine speaker of Arabic among the native born population). With respect to the NE African situation, although objective analysis would exclude, I suspect politics will get in the way, and lead to endless edit warring. Inclusion with a note as to largely symbolic / liturgical or 2nd language usage would seem approp. It will be hard given the politics to be 100% consistent. On numbers, perhaps less important than raw numbers is % of population, 50k in Djibouti is rather more important than 100k, e.g., in Cameroun. This all in respect to the info box. Obviously the text can expand further and note island communities in Central Asia, etc. (collounsbury (talk) 11:55, 2 January 2009 (UTC))

Now I think it's my turn to again ask you to "slow down"! lol Turks and Persians are actual ethnic groups, and that's obviously what I was referring to above, not to nationality (Persian isn't even a nationality). Secondly, my point in mentioning the religious, political, economic and other ties to Arabia wasn't to piss you off (which, incidentally, doesn't seem hard to do), but to point out that the ties extend beyond just language, okay? Now, I cannot verify or debate whether you have personally met Somalis that did or did not speak Arabic. What I can say is that many do. Most speak the Yemeni dialect, but some also speak the Egyptian one because many teachers in rural areas are Egyptian. The same goes for Djibouti (no Egyptian dialect, though). Sudan goes without saying. Eritrea is only partly Arabic-speaking, but Arabic is an official language there. However, it is not spoken in Ethiopia. Middayexpress (talk) 12:01, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

Primo, regarding ethnic groups, yes, Turk and if you insist on old fashioned language, Persian are ethnic groups. And? If you were referring to the ethnic groups that makes your comment even less intelligible, as States is not equal to Ethnic group. "Actual" Turks and Persians makes even less sense if you actually were indeed thinking along such lines (except in a rather vulgar 19th century primitive ethnonationalist sense). Religious etc. ties mean fuck all: the subject at hand is the language and listing where it is spoken. I am very well aware of Somalis learning Arabic as a second language for work as well as religious reasons. I proposed a relatively clear standard regarding mother tongue usage to help clarify such confusion. (collounsbury (talk) 12:16, 2 January 2009 (UTC))

Also let me add that your own cite merely confirms my observation regarding 2nd versus 1st language usage of Arabic in NE Africa. (collounsbury (talk) 12:23, 2 January 2009 (UTC))

Dude, I never said Arabic was a first language in NE Africa, what're you kidding me? I said that it is widely spoken there and official, which is what my source confirms, okay? Now please try and write without swearing. I don't believe I once swore at you, so that's just uncalled for. Middayexpress (talk) 12:33, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

Well, mate it is pretty fucking hard to tell what you are in fact arguing since you throw out irrelevancies. Now your source merely indicates, which is not at all in dispute, that Arabic is understood (as a 2nd language). Now, the proposition on hand is to specifically exclude that from the category as it is deceptive and opens up putting a large number of countries in the Arabic spoken info box where Arabic is not widely spoken as commonly understood (on a daily basis, outside of limited fields, such as religion). Your incoherent arguments about "actual" Turks, Iranians/Persians, etc notwithstanding. Now if you have some clear and responsive argument, please do share it, including why mother tongue is objectionable as a standard. (collounsbury (talk) 12:40, 2 January 2009 (UTC))

Firstly, it was never my contention that Arabic is a first language in either Somalia or Djibouti or Eritrea. I said that it was an official language. Some on this talk page have been arguing that it's not spoken in Somalia, Djibouti and Eritrea except by "Egyptian teachers" and the like, which I've demonstrated with my sources to be untrue. Arabic is, in fact, widely spoken and understood in all three countries, albeit as a second language to Somali and Tigrinya, respectively. I realize you have pushed for a "mother tongue" method of inclusion, but I've likewise already explained to you that this is unsatisfactory because that leaves out countries like Somalia and Eritrea which post-independence opted to use their own native languages as their respective nation's primary language, while primarily Berber North African countries like Morocco and Libya chose instead to have Arabic as their official language. Arabic isn't any more a "mother tongue" for North Africans than it is for Somalis or Sudanese or even many southern Yemenis since all of the aforementioned people were Arabized. I therefore think, instead of attempting the impossible task of determining for whom Arabic is really a "mother tongue", to just go with where it is widely spoken and official. I don't believe that's an unreasonable or offensive suggestion. Middayexpress (talk) 13:06, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

First, your statements with respect to North African are factually incorrect, and riddled with unscientific 19th c understanding of language. The majority of all the Maghreb countries populations are native, mother tongue speakers of Arabic, that is without question. That the majority of the population is also descended from Berbers that switched to using Arabic is utterly irrelevant. Arabic is, by normal standards for mother tongue - that is the primary language spoken in the household/family from an early age - the mother tongue of the majority of the population. Your continued confusion of blood/ancestry/culture with language notwithstanding. As for an impossible task, there is relatively reliable scientific data collected by linguists on mother tongue versus 2nd language usage, e.g. Ethnologue (not that Ethnologue is perfect or indisputable). The political decision for Somali et al to declare Arabic an official language does not change the observable data that it is a 2nd language that is not widely used in daily domestic (contra international) interactions (Djibouti of course is different). (collounsbury (talk) 13:52, 2 January 2009 (UTC))

Nah, they're not incorrect. They're spot on. North Africans are overwhelimingly Berbers who all more or less enjoyed a recognizably indigineous Berber culture and language before their eventual Arabization (an Arabization which I did not trace to colonial days, by the way; re-read my previous post if you must). I'm not condemning it or condoning; just stating facts. You write that I'm off on the real linguistic situation in North Africa, correct? That Arabic is actually a "mother tongue" for that region's mostly Arabized Berber population? I don't dispute that most North Africans speak Arabic as a first language. I, however, say that Arabic has only supplanted their own true mother tongues, which are the Berber languages, no different than how Arabic has supplanted the Beja language for many once Beja now 'Arab' Sudanese. That's just a point I wanted to make because I'm tiring of this conversation. It's evident that all of my linking and sources are leading nowhere. So I'll do you a huge favor and give you what you've obviously been seeking all along: Don't include any Northeast African nation in your proposed list of Arabic-speaking countries. None of those countries, after all, really speak it as a "mother tongue" (and no one ever said they did). Include just Middle Eastern and North African nations of your choosing. I honestly don't care at this point. I'm just glad I had the opportunity to dig into the facts on the real linguistic situation of Arabic in Africa, and I'm pleased in a most unexpected way to have run into you. It's been, shall we say, an education! lol Middayexpress (talk) 14:44, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

While trying to convey anything to you is clearly rather like tilting at wind mills, I will simply note that you are using a racialist if not racist standard in talking about "language"; and one that has no place in modern scholarship. "True mother tongues" is a meaningless and entirely POV pushing statement. The question of mother tongue is not one of some semi-fictive ethno-nationalism, but an objective observation as to language usage. "Real Mother Tongue" is a meaningless and racialist assertion based on 19th century attitudes and understandings of linguistics and ethnicity. (collounsbury (talk) 16:29, 2 January 2009 (UTC))

A clarification to head off characterizations. Although an ongoing process, the switch from Berber to Arabic language dates to the medieval period and is not an artifact of post-colonial legislating on language as such, although certainly ongoing promotion of Arabic has continued to erode Berber usage in the modern period. It is clear that a plurality if not an outright overwhelming majority of the populations of the Maghreb states (including the Sahara) were, by the colonial period, Arabic speakers (with the most Berber speakers in mountainous Algeria and Morocco). Just to clarify should our friend wish to try to imply as above that the Maghrebi switch to Arabic is either recent or post-independence driven. (collounsbury (talk) 13:56, 2 January 2009 (UTC))

I find that it's always best to pretend that I'm actually addressing someone when actually addressing someone directly. But whatever. Middayexpress (talk) 14:44, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

Ethiopia has Arabic speakers near the Sudanese border. I think most of us are agreed that we should not be considering Egyptian teachers in Somalia. If we do, why not count Egyptian teachers in Britain and add the UK to the list? As for Arabic only being spoken by Arabs in Turkey and Iran, you could argue that Israel should be removed from the list because Arabic is only spoken by Arabs in that country—or of course the same argument for Somalia or Eritrea. kwami (talk) 12:10, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

Precisely. (collounsbury (talk) 12:16, 2 January 2009 (UTC))

I didn't mention Egyptian teachers to up the count of Arabic speakers in Somalia, if that's what you're insinuating. I don't need to do that cause the source I already linked to explains that "Somali is spoken by the vast majority of the population. Arabic is widely understood as are, to a lesser degree, Italian and English." In other words, it's not just Arabs that speak it, as I already explained to you earlier. I likewise already explained in my comment above why I mentioned Egyptian teachers: "some also speak the Egyptian one because many teachers in rural areas are Egyptian". Middayexpress (talk) 12:29, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

And Arabic is widely spoken in both Djibouti and Eritrea. Middayexpress (talk) 12:40, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

I thought you were talking about native speakers. That's the question: Do we put two hundred countries on the English-speaking list because people learn English in school in nearly every country? Or do we stick to native-speaking populations? I think we need to settle that before we argue specifics. kwami (talk) 12:54, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

Exactly. 2nd language rather confuses. (collounsbury (talk) 13:13, 2 January 2009 (UTC))

The standard for the top section of the infoboxes has generally been taken to be only mother tongue speakers. (The second section is for official status, which doesn't seem to be a problem here.) As such, the Arabic language infobox should be an intelligent conflation of the infoboxes of the constituent Varieties of Arabic, which do a much better job (in general) of indicating mother tongue usage. (This is for the obvious reason that Standard Arabic is no one's mother tongue.) We still end up with the question (that sparked this whole discussion) of the position of Maltese vis a vis the Varieties of Arabic. We could take the tack that since it is listed as a separate language on the Varieties of Arabic page we can exclude Malta here. That is the solution I think best since it seems that the majority of you seem to prefer to have a list in the top section of the infobox. But the list of Varieties of Arabic includes Uzbeki and Tajiki Arabic (even though there are few native speakers remaining). Personally, I still think that we should follow the lead of French and English rather than Spanish. The infobox should summarize and the text should provide the detail. (Taivo (talk) 14:46, 2 January 2009 (UTC))

I remain in accordance with Taivo's informed suggestion/s on this issue. the roof of this court is too high to be yours (talk) 14:50, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

I concur as well w Taivo (& Peitru). Rolling up the Varieties of Arabic would be a reasonable approach that at least has a clear benchmark with some more or less clear referants. I agree in particular re following the Fr. & Eng. page examples. I still favour Taivo's MENA solution as avoiding extensive controversy, as I think the objections poorly founded. (collounsbury (talk) 16:23, 2 January 2009 (UTC))

[edit] Resolution to List of Countries

Here is what I am proposing for the article once we have reached consensus and requested that the article be unblocked:

In the Language Infobox under |region: Primarily in Arab countries of the Middle East and North Africa

No individual entries under |state

That the section labelled "Dialects and Descendants" be modified slightly so that each of the dialects has a clearer delineation of the states where it is spoken. Add "Central Asian varieties" to include Uzbeki and Tajiki and that should cover the range of communities.

Here are the countries that are listed in the separate pages for the varieties: Mauritania, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Cameroon, Western Sahara, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Chad, Sudan, Egypt, Djibouti, Somalia, all countries of the Arabian Peninsula, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Turkey, Cyprus, Iraq, Iran, Uzbekistan, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, and Malta (for Maltese only). Each of these should be found in one or more of the sentence-long descriptions of the dialects and descendants. (Taivo (talk) 15:10, 3 January 2009 (UTC))

This looks like a very good approach. I fully support. (collounsbury (talk) 16:35, 3 January 2009 (UTC))

Same. the roof of this court is too high to be yours (talk) 17:04, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

Why no individual entries under 'state'? There shouldn't be much argument over where it's official. Also, mention of liturgical use should prob'ly be made under 'region'. kwami (talk) 21:01, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

Because that was the original problem area. A long list of states is not as enlightening for a world-level language as a summary in the Infobox (see English language and French language). The details of where each dialect is spoken is a much better place to list the countries where Arabic is spoken so that dialects and countries support one another. We're not looking at "official" usage anyway for the |states section, but mother tongue usage which is different (Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Afghanistan, for example, are mother tongue countries, but not official use countries. Listing a region instead of countries also circumvents the problem of Malta. Technically, Maltese is a descendant of Arabic, so within the dialects and descendants section Malta is listed directly with Maltese and the note that it is generally considered to be a different language. If we list Maltese within a |states list, however, it gives the impression that Maltese is still Arabic or that Arabic is spoken on Malta. We had an edit war over this. It's just better all around to treat Arabic as a major language of the world like we do English and French and list |region in the infobox and list countries in the text. (Taivo (talk) 04:42, 4 January 2009 (UTC))

"Arabic" is not official in Malta, so that is a non-issue. Also, with possible rare exception, none of the dialects covered in the text will be official in any country, since standard Arabic is no-one's mother tongue, so your idea of conflating the two sections won't work well. There needs to be a dedicated list of countries where Arabic is official, though I agree it can just be linked from the infobox. kwami (talk) 08:27, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

Maltese, an Arabic dialect in some analyses is official. The problem mate is (a) Official occurs in countries where there is no real native usage Arabic (Somali notably, its membership in the Arab League being an artefact of its former dictator's foreign policies), (b) the Info Box specifically says "spoken in" - not "official language in" and insofar as is clearly the case that Arabic is official in states where it has no real mother tongue usage, this is confusing. Now, yes, you can split hairs and argue Fusha / Classical / Modern Standard versus dialects, but none of the Arab states makes a legal distinction between Formal and Informal (dialectical) Arabic, the later being simply considered (often as a conceit, but that's another matter) simply "bad street Arabic." Taivo's suggestion is based on a good model, French and English, and avoids the particular problems associated with being, as he said, a world language. Inserting "official" as the standard either means changing the info box to reflect the same (I suppose possible) or incorrectly asserting based on a legalism, that the langauge is spoken, by general implication by native speakers as opposed to 2nd language users. Which brings us back to the case of English and French. (collounsbury (talk) 11:07, 4 January 2009 (UTC))

I would further add, and echo Taivo, that "official language" in the case of a language like Arabic we miss out countries with significant native / mother tongue communities, such as Turkey and Iran, where it does not have official status but where significant mother tongue (never mind fluent 2nd language users as in Iran) exist. Focusing on "official" in such instances is wholly inadequate as you end up excluding countries with more significant daily & mother tongue users of the language (what one normally understands by the compact phrase 'spoken in') and including countries where it is not in fact of use beyond liturgical or trade applications. (collounsbury (talk) 11:19, 4 January 2009 (UTC))

A final general reflexion, the page on French has an elegant resolution on usage, dividing between significant mother tongue communities, significant "administrative" usage while finessing legal status, and "cultural" usage. Given (i) "official" status of a language is more a statement of politics than anything regarding usage, and (ii) actual usage is often in significant deviation from legal status, this strikes me as an intelligent standard. Both French and English simply refer to discussion rather than try a laundry list of countries, which I agree with Taivo is better practise for a "world level" language with significant non-mother tongue usage. Taivo's regional referent seems efficient in this respect for Arabic. On the legal status, again the French lang. page is useful, taking the Arabic Language region as an example, where in the Maghreb, for example, French has absolutely no particular legal standing encoded in law, but is the de facto language of administration in most technical areas, despite having no official standing as such. If were to accept legalisms as the standard, one would not present French at all for the Maghreb, although it is overwhelmingly present and for technical issues, has effectively displaced formal Arabic. (collounsbury (talk) 11:32, 4 January 2009 (UTC))

There are two sections in the infobox, one of which does indeed say 'official language in'. It's often not clear which of these we're discussing. Maltese is a non-issue for the latter, because the official language of Malta is "Maltese", not "Arabic". It is clearly considered a separate language for official purposes regardless of linguistic questions. The only issue that I see is whether "Arabic" always means MSAr, or occasionally Hassaniyya etc. But yes, the French article is a good model. kwami (talk) 20:14, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

I know of no country that has an Arabic variety as its official language. They are all MSAr, AFAIK. The sociolinguistic attitude toward the varieties really precludes the use of a vernacular as the official version. Right now under the official languages section the infobox says something like "official in 25 countries". We could easily add a list of countries there because "officialness" is not really subject to debate (since it's "official"). (Taivo (talk) 20:24, 4 January 2009 (UTC))

I'm discussing the spoken, that is the section that got edited. In any event, as I just wrote, the Arab world does not clearly differentiate between Dialect and MSA / Fusha, to most Arabs they are strongly perceived as ONE language, and the dialects are merely 'debased' versions of MSA. Obviously a political and cultural stand, but that is the way it is thought of. Taking Egypt as an example, one moves up and down the "register" mixing according to need Egyptian dialect and various flavours of MSA / Fusha as needed or desired for impression - and it is not considered language mixing generally (contra mixing in Fr. or Eng), but merely 'speaking better.' Thus again looking at "official languages" is nonesense in terms of differntiation. (collounsbury (talk) 20:43, 4 January 2009 (UTC))

None of this has anything to do with Maltese, the language which provoked this article being protected in the first place. Sticking with official language status regarding inclusion seems the only sensible option, layman's (gratuitous) opinions aside. the roof of this court is too high to be yours (talk) 22:17, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

In response to Collounsbury, Maltese is certainly not a dialect of Arabic. It is genetically derived from it, but does not share mutual intelligibility, and as such, is an individual language, and thus not a dialect. mɪn'dʒi:klə (talk) 19:22, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

Also Maltese' use of the Latin alphabet in its standard form, unlike Arabic dialects united by a common orthography. the roof of this court is too high to be yours (talk) 19:39, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

Yes, the position of Maltese vis a vis the official status of Arabic is not under dispute here, especially since the official status of Maltese is plainly listed at Maltese language. In the official status block here we are only talking about a list of countries where MSAr is recognized. Relax, our Maltese friends, the discussants here know where Maltese stands. (Taivo (talk) 20:06, 5 January 2009 (UTC))

Aside: Is Mingeyqla Maltese? Ma nafx. the roof of this court is too high to be yours (talk) 20:40, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

If we have not had any dissenting views expressed in the next day or two, we should ask that the block be lifted and incorporate the changes we've been discussing. Can you lift the block, kwami, or do we have to request this of the original blocker? (Taivo (talk) 20:09, 5 January 2009 (UTC))

Sure, I'll lift it. kwami (talk) 00:05, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

I think I got all the changes made properly except for a list of states in the "official language" box. Double check me to make sure I got the right states listed under the right variety. I separated Shuwa Arabic from Sudanese Arabic and tried to make the variety names fit better into the format found on Varieties of Arabic, but I'm not sure I got it right. Double check that section under Dialects and Descendants. (Taivo (talk) 08:53, 7 January 2009 (UTC))

At some point we need to add some representation of the Judeo-Arabic varieties. (Taivo (talk) 08:57, 7 January 2009 (UTC))

[edit] Arabic Afrikaans

Would it be appropriate to mention/link Arabic Afrikaans somewhere in this article? If only in the list in the last section? -- WolfieInu 18:19, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Discrimination from User:81.22.20.126?

Arabic_language#Dialects_and_descendants«# Bahrani Arabic, spoken by Shiites in Bahrain, and to a lesser extent in Oman»

I'm afraid that this sentence would be racist! Why not changing it to "spoken in Bahrain, or if someone, or the editor User:81.22.20.126 was sure of this, please cite it. --Mahmudmasri (talk) 17:25, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

No discrimination there. It is actually spoken by the Shia of Bahrain who are called Bahrani.

Shia of Bahrain is fine its not a discriminatory.

[edit] Begging for help in some Futurama article

sorry for the off-topicness, but if someones with a good knowledge of Arabic could just go over to that link, that would just be perfect (somebody needs your help!). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:The_30%25_Iron_Chef#The_30.25_Iron_Chef

thanks, Twipley (talk) 22:06, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Editing Focus

I think we should spend more time working on articles about Western topics,and not about asian ones —Preceding unsigned comment added by 190.64.12.87 (talk) 00:59, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Hey there, and welcome to Wikipedia. To address your comment, the thing you've got to understand is that Wikipedia is a community of volunteer editors. This means that people are normally going to make edits on topics that interest them, and not necessarily according to a central plan. You are quite welcome to focus your own editing on European topics, but I don't think it likely that volunteer editors are going to stop working on Asia articles, nor do I think they should. Arabic is the world's 5th most spoken language and as such deserves some scrutiny from our editors. – Novem Lingvae (talk) 18:15, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Arabic influences, and the Christian Arabic speakers

The Persian alphabet was based on the Arabic alphabet although Iranians do not speak Arabic and are not Arabs. Originally the Arabic writing system used exclusively for the Arabic language, the Arabic script was modified to match the demands of being a writing system for the Persian language. This system is known as the Perso-Arabic script. ^[1] Although the two languages are not related, Persian/Farsi draws much of its everyday lexicon from Arabic. In addition, roughly 50% of today’s Persian lexicon is of Arabic origin, not only in writing but also in everyday speech.

[edit] Arabic and Christianity

Arabic-speaking Christians predate Arabic-speaking Muslims, as there were many Arab tribes which adhered to Christianity since the first century, including the Nabateans and the Ghassanids (who were of Qahtani origin and spoke Yemeni-Arabic as well as Greek), who protected the south-eastern frontiers of the Roman and Byzantine Empires in north Arabia. The tribes of Tayy, Abd Al-Qais, and Taghlib were also known to have included a large number of Christians prior to Islam. The Yemeni city of Najran was also a center of Arabic-speaking Christianity, and were made famous by virtue of their persecution by one of the kings of Yemen , Dhu Nawas, himself an enthusiastic convert to Judaism. The leader of the Arabs of Najran during the period of persection, Al-Harith, was canonized by the Roman Catholic Church as St. Aretas. ^[2]

Arabic-speaking Christians have made significant contributions to Arab civilization and still do. Some of Arab literature's finest poets were Arabic-speaking Christians, and some Arabic-speaking Christians were physicians, writers, government officials, men of letters, and held equally important cultural and scientific roles as their Muslim counterparts. A great example of this would be the Lebanese Maronite poet Kahlil Gibran.

The largest numbers of Arabic-speaking Christians are found in Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Palestine and Jordan. Emigrant Arab communities throughout the Americas, especially among the Arab populations of Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, and the United States, are overwhelmingly Christian.

Also Jewish speakers of Arabic

History

Judeo-Arabic can be divided into five periods: Pre-Islamic Judeo-Arabic (pre-eighth century), Early Judeo-Arabic (eighth/ninth to tenth centuries), Classical Judeo-Arabic (tenth to fifteenth centuries), Later Judeo-Arabic (fifteenth to nineteenth centuries), and Modern Judeo-Arabic (twentieth century). Much of what we know about Classical Judeo-Arabic comes from documents found in the Cairo Geniza (see Hary 1997).

It is almost impossible to determine a precise date for the origin of Judeo-Arabic. There is some evidence that the Jews in the Arabian Peninsula used some sort of Arabic Jewish dialect even before the Islamic conquests (600s C.E.). Referred to as al-Yahūdiyya (Newby 1971; 1988:21-23; Gil 1984:206), this dialect was similar to the dominant Arabic dialect but included some Hebrew and Aramaic vocabulary, especially in the religious and cultural domains. Some of these loan words passed into the speech and writings of the Arabs, thus accounting for the Hebrew and Aramaic origins of certain Koranic words. There is no evidence that Pre-Islamic Judeo-Arabic produced any literature, especially if we examine the language of the Jewish poet as-Samaw’al bnu ‘Ādiyā’, which did not differ from that of his Arab contemporaries. His poetry is part of the canon of Arabic literature – not Jewish literature. In fact, if Arab sources had not reported that he was Jewish, we never would have known. On the other hand, there may have been some al-Yahūdiyya writings in Hebrew characters in the pre-Islamic period (Newby 1971:220).

After the great conquests of early Islam, the Jews in the newly conquered lands adopted the language of the conquerors and began to incorporate Arabic into their writings, slowly developing, at times, their own spoken dialect. In the following centuries, Jewish varieties of Arabic came to exist all around the Arabic-speaking world, from Iraq and Yemen in the East to Spain and Morocco in the West.^[3]

Judeo Arabic-

Mizrahi Jews or Mizrahim, (Hebrew: מזרחים, Standard Mizraḥim Tiberian Mizrāḥîm ; "Easterners"), also referred to as Adot HaMizrach (Communities of the East) are Jews descended from the Jewish communities of the Middle East, North Africa, Central Asia and the Caucasus. The term Mizrahi is used in Israel for Jews from all the Arab world and adjacent countries, primarily Muslim-majority, including Iraqi Jews, Syrian Jews, Lebanese Jews, Yemenite Jews, Persian Jews, Afghan Jews, Bukharian Jews, Maghrebi Jews, Berber Jews and Kurdish Jews, as well as communities such as Mountain Jews and Georgian Jews, and among the Jews of India and Jews of Pakistan, the Baghdadi Jews (descendants of relatively recent Iraqi Jews settled in the last few centuries, in contrast to Jewish communities of the Indian subcontinent established millennia earlier)

Musta'arabi Jews (Arabic, "Arabized") are a group of Arabic-speaking Jews who lived in the Middle Eastern

[edit] Taivo's Recent Edit

Recently, the following text was added to the page's introduction: Not all of the varieties are mutually intelligible and speakers will nearly always use Standard Arabic to speak with persons who speak a different variety.

This is hugely misleading. When two people who speak different but mutually intelligible varieties (e.g. an Egyptian and a Sudanese,) they do not revert to Standard Arabic. Moreover, while it is true that there are varieties of colloquial Arabic which are mutually unintelligible (such as Moroccan and Iraqi, for example) it's misleading to state that a Moroccan and an Iraqi who needed to communicate would resort to Standard Arabic. In fact, in most informal situations, they most certainly do not do this. A Moroccan lost in Egypt would sound very strange asking for directions in a VSO sentence with case endings. What speakers of different dialects actually use is an intermediate language which draws heavily on both MSA and features common to most dialects.

For a source, the best option would be to check out check out Diglossia in Arabic: Investigating Solutions by Muhammad Raji Zughoul. Anthropological Linguistics, Vol. 22, No. 5 [May, 1980], pp. 201-217.

Among others, Zughoul describes the following features of this medial language which he terms Educated Arabic (EA)

a) SVO word order of colloquial Arabic is maintained

b) Morphological rules of colloquial Arabic apply to Educated Arabic. Case endings are deleted

c) The lexicon of EA draws heavily on Formal arabic and is open to borrowings.

d) Phonologically, the vowels of Formal arabic stay the same, whereas the consonants show a shift to colloquial Arabic. Phonological processes remain dialectal.

Haim Blanc (1960) remarked, in his analysis of the speech of four educated Arabs that "it is the exception rather than the rule to find any sustained segment of discourse in a single one of the style varieties alluded to. Speakers tend to pass from one to the other, sometimes within a single sentence."

Likewise, Kassem Shaaban (1978) shows that this medial language remains dominated by dialectal features especially in terms of phonology and syntax, and that switching to MSA depends on the nature of the topic, the country of the speaker, and familiarity with other interlocutors and other dialects.

To conclude: an unsourced assertion that "speakers will nearly always use Standard Arabic to speak with persons who speak a different variety" is in conflict with most sources on the subject, and should be removed.

Szfski (talk) 00:25, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Then substitute "Educated/Medial Arabic" for "Standard Arabic". The point is that "Arabic" is not a unitary language, but a highly complex mix of sometimes mutually unintelligible varieties. (Taivo (talk) 00:41, 8 March 2009 (UTC))

This is true of most languages with a certain degree of geographic and sociolectic diversity. Cockney rhyming slang is not mutually intelligible with AAVE, even though both are referred to as "English." Even though your point is well taken in that this factor is far more pronounced in the Arab world than in the Anglophone one, there is in fact no such thing as a unitary language. The rest of the article (in particular, the section on Dialects and Descendants) gives more than adequate coverage of the fact that what people call "Arabic" in different regions of the Arab world is subject to extreme variation. The edit seems superfluous. Szfski (talk) 01:10, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

The lead could still reference the phenomenon of mutually unintelligible dialects. Perhaps the sentence should read Not all of the varieties are mutually intelligible and speakers may use a sort of medial language with features common to most Arabic varieties to communicate with speakers of mutually unintelligible varieties. (That sound kind of clunky, but it's a start) — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 02:18, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

That would be a good start to stating what happens. With my original version, I was aware that a speaker from Beirut wouldn't necessarily need to switch to speak to someone from Medina, but I wasn't exactly sure how to best get the point across without the "clunkiness". But Aeusoes' version works fine for me. And comparing this to English is only partially appropriate (although "Cockney Rhyming Slang" is a different creature and not anyone's native tongue). With English, speakers of barely intelligible dialects (like Western US and a rural north British dialect) don't have a "standard" mediated variety to rely on like Arabic does with Standard Arabic. Diglossia has its origins in describing the Arabic situation--it is, truly, the textbook example. (Taivo (talk) 02:54, 8 March 2009 (UTC))

Yes, I'm well aware of the fact that the term diglossia was first coined by Marçais to describe the sociolinguistic situation of Arabic. Unfortunately, such a binary view of Arabic was, and still is, a bit too simplistic. In between the MSA of Al-Jazeera and the language one uses to buy coffee, there exists a linguistic gradient consisting of half a dozen mesolectic registers, one of which is the aforementioned Educated Arabic. If Wikipedia were in the business of coining new terms, I would suggest that it be called polyglossia. But for now Aeusoes1's version works just fine for me. Szfski (talk) 18:01, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

The closest thing to what you're talking about, Szfski, is a post-creole speech continuum though that's in reference to creole languages. It also may be the case that Arabic has less mesolectal varieties than the example in that article. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 18:30, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

That is essentially what I'm talking about, but without the creole part. (Nonetheless, many of the Arabic dialects do show signs of hefty creolization with Aramaic, Chaldean, Coptic and Berber, depending on the dialect, although that's beside the point.) A number of Arabists have challanged Ferguson's and Marçais' High/Low dichotomy (Blanc, 1960; Badawi, 1973; El-Hassan, 1977, 1978; Mitchell, 1978; Holes, 1995). Blanc and Badawi identify different intermediate levels between MSA and colloquial Arabic. For example, in his analysis of the different levels of contemporary language usage in Egypt, Badawi identified 5 different levels:

1. فصحى التراث. (Fusha of Arab Heritage, Classical Arabic)

2. فصحى العصر (Contemporary Fusha, MSA)

3. عامية المثقفين (Vernacular of the Educated)

4. عامية المتنورين (Vernacular of the Literate)

5. عامية الاميين (Vernacular of the unlettered)

It was El-Hassan (1977) who argued for the existence of Educated Spoken Arabic, the aforementioned variety I described. But the most recent research has described Arabic as a fluid continuum rather than a conglomeration of discrete levels. Holes (1995) declared "the concept of Arabic as a 'diglossic' language...a misleading oversimplification." and described the behavior of most Arabic speakers as "one of constant style shifting along a cline at opposite ends of which are 'pure' MSA and the 'pure' regional dialect, more accurately conceived of as idealized constructs than real entities."

My question: is there a way for me to make the article reflect this complexity? I feel like the article could do with an extra section dedicated to this topic. There's certainly more than enough source material available, especially if I'm allowed to include Arabic sources. Szfski (talk) 20:26, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Yes, of course. Do it! — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 20:34, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Alright, but I want to be sure I present this in the least confusing way possible and in a way that doesn't require a whole lot of cleanup. I'm at home with specialized technical writing on Arabic, but am not sure how to proceed in an encyclopedic format with a greater topical range and an intended audience of non-specialists. So forgive my assault upon your patience as I ask for a lot of hand-holding as I do this.

Issue 1- I want to describe the existence of this intermediary language which various sources call "Educated Arabic," "Educated Spoken Arabic" and "Formal Spoken Arabic." What would be the best way to determine the terminology to be used? Should I create a separate section for this topic alone?

Issue 2- I want to describe the synchronic continuum which exists in Arabic speaking communities. Should this be separate from discussion of Educated Spoken Arabic? Should I represent only the continuum model (which is the one supported by most, but not all, of today's researchers), or should I attempt to portray the actual scholarly debate on this issue?

Issue 3- How much of this should be included in this article, and how much should I move to the article on Varieties of Arabic?

Szfski (talk) 21:42, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

(unindent) Hmmm, probably the best thing to do is expand most of that information at Varieties of Arabic and turn the "dialects and descendents" section here into a brief overview of that article, including the EA/ESA/FSA/. Don't be too afraid of being too technical or of others needing to clean up your inclusions. Wikipedia allows for revision. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 23:00, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

I agree that this material is better located at Varieties of Arabic and only summarized here. The one thing I will caution you on is an overproliferation of Arabic writing. This is the English Wikipedia and too much of the Arabic abjad distracts readers. Transliterate more--not every term needs to be written in Arabic script. (Taivo (talk) 03:38, 9 March 2009 (UTC))

[edit] The -un at the end of the words

I recently got the Rosetta Stone software, which teaches you to end words with -un, -tun or something similar. But when I practised it with a friend he gave me a funny look and said no one talks like that. It's apparently super-formal, would someone mind mentioning it somewhere here? Thanks. Ponial (talk) 17:19, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

It already does, read the bloody article. (collounsbury (talk) 19:37, 9 March 2009 (UTC))

[edit] Need deciphering

Not sure whether this is the appropriate forum, but can someone decipher text in this Mughal inscription, dating 16th century: File:Details of calligraphy on a pendentive, Humayun's Tomb complex.jpg Thanks! --Ekabhishek (talk) 04:55, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

I think this is the wrong place to place your request. Anyway, the text in that photo says, "لا إله إلا الله محمد رسول الله," which means, "there's no true god but Allah (god), and Muhammad is his prophet. Ahmediq152 (talk) 06:23, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Ranking?

The box states the language's ranking by number of native speakers is 6. the ranking page ranks it as the fifth. Shouldn't the ranking in the box be changed? Ahmediq152 (talk) 18:20, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

I have changed the ranking to five. Ahmediq152 (talk) 11:47, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

The section on the varieties of Arabic (Egyptian, Gulf, etc.) lists the number of speakers for each variety and the sum total of all those speakers is 220 million. Where do the rest of the supposed 400+ speakers live? Are there really that many Arab immigrants in non-Arab countries? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.160.148.80 (talk) 00:17, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

[edit] inconsistency with classification of 'moods' (cases) of verbs and 'declension' (cases) of nouns.

In the article, it states that nouns in Arabic are assigned three declensions, (nominative, accusative, and genitive). Without going into too much detail, these linguistic terms are proxy-translations that, in their current translation, really do not render a holistic picture of the true uses of marfuu'un (nominative), manSuubun (dative, accusative, locative, ablative), and majruurun (genitive, ablative). Nevertheless, this oversight does not comprise my entire concern.

Rather, this article takes the liberty to articulate the more comprehensive applications of Arabic verbal i'araab (declension for nouns; moods for verbs) than for nominal i'araab. It should be noted that Arabic verbs also have three distinct 'moods,' marfuu'un (indicative), manSuubun (subjunctive), and majzuumun (jussive). The additions of imperative and energetic should be considered subcategories of the jussive and subjunctive respectively if we are characterizing Arabic verbs using the Arabic model for classification of moods.

Main point: Let's try to be consistent with our terminologies. If we are going to apply all categories of Western linguistic terminology to one section (verbs), let's also apply it to the others (nouns).

All the more reason to learn Arabic as its own language with its own linguistic principles. Even professors of Arabic linguistics prefer to not apply Western linguistic classifications to Arabic. This is due to the very frequent focus on translation, and of course, fundamental concepts become 'lost' therein in pursuit of simplicity.

[edit] Input requested for Wikimedia strategic planning process

Hi everyone, as you all may know Wikimeida is in the midst of its strategic planning process (see http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page for more information). As part of this process, I have been developing a fact base on Middle East and North African languages and their Wikipedias. The purpose of this fact base is to help the Wikimedia community understand the importance of these languages as they develop strategies to expand the reach of Wikimedia worldwide as well as to discuss the specific barriers to growth of these language projects. If any of you are also editors of any of the Middle East and North African language Wikipedias, I would really appreciate it if you took some time to look at what I've put together and make any changes or additions that you thought were appropriate. It would be especially great if anyone had some thoughts or ideas to add to the section on barriers to growth of Middle East and North African language Wikipedias. I want to make sure that we have the most accurate information possible to inform the strategic plan as it is developed. This is the link http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/Reach/Regional_Analysis/Middle_East_%26_North_Africa Thanks!!! Sarah476 (talk) 20:21, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

euse

"Some Muslim speakers of Arabic consider their language to be "the language chosen by God to speak to mankind"[11] and is most notably understood by Muslims as being the lingua franca of the afterlife."

Source is related to Arabic language associated with radical Islam. Please rewrite this or provide valid source

24.80.105.24 (talk) 00:02, 28 October 2009 (UTC)ditc