Arabic language

Arabic
العربية al-ʻarabiyyah
al-ʿArabiyyah in written Arabic (Naskh script)
Pronunciation	/al ʕarabijja/, /ʕarabiː/
Native to	Majorities in the countries of the Arab League, minorities in neighboring countries: Israel, Iran, Turkey, Eritrea, Mali, Niger, Chad, Senegal, South Sudan, Ethiopia, Arabic-speaking communities in the Western world
Native speakers	295 million  (2010)
Language family	Afro-Asiatic Semitic Central Semitic Arabic
Standard forms	Modern Standard Arabic
Dialects	Western (Maghrebi) Central (incl. Egyptian, Sudanese) Northern (incl. Levantine, Iraqi) Southern (incl. Gulf, Hejazi)
Writing system	Arabic alphabet Arabic Braille Syriac alphabet (Garshuni) Hebrew alphabet (Judaeo-Arabic)
Official status
Official language in	Standard Arabic is an official language of 27 states, the third most after English and French List Algeria Bahrain Comoros Chad Djibouti Egypt Eritrea Iraq Israel Jordan Kuwait Lebanon Libya Mauritania Morocco Oman Palestine Qatar Saudi Arabia Somalia Sudan Syria Tunisia United Arab Emirates Western Sahara Yemen African Union Arab League Organisation of Islamic Cooperation United Nations
Language codes
ISO 639-1	ar
ISO 639-2	ara
ISO 639-3	ara Arabic (generic)
Use of Arabic as the sole official language (green) and an official language (blue)

Arabic (العربية) is a Semitic language, in the same family as Hebrew and Aramaic. Around 250 million people use it for their first language. Many more people can also understand it, but not as a first language. It is written with the Arabic alphabet. There are many different dialects (varieties) of Arabic found around the Arab world.

Many countries speak Arabic as an official language, but not all of them speak it the same way. Most of the countries that use Arabic as their official language are in the Middle East. This is because the largest religion in the Middle East is Islam.

The language is very important in Islam, because Muslims believe that Allah (God) used it to talk to Muhammad through the Archangel Gabriel (Jibril), giving him the Quran in Arabic. Many Arabic speakers are Muslims, but not all are.

Arabic is also becoming a popular language to learn in the Western world, even though Arabic grammar is sometimes very hard to learn. Many other languages have borrowed words from Arabic, because of its importance in history. Some English words that can be traced to Arabic are: sugar, cotton, magazine, algebra, and alcohol.

Arabic is an official language of:

• Algeria
• Bahrain
• Comoros
• Chad
• Djibouti
• Egypt
• Eritrea
• Iraq
• Israel
• Jordan
• Kuwait
• Lebanon
• Libya
• Mauritania
• Morocco
• Oman
• Palestine
• Qatar
• Western Sahara
• Saudi Arabia
• Sudan
• Syria
• Tunisia
• United Arab Emirates
• Yemen

It is also a national language of:

• Mali
• Senegal