The Arabic language consists of several linguistic strands: two – Modern Standard Arabic and Classical Arabic – are prevalent across the Arab world. Then there are various Arabic dialects that differ across regions.
Across the Arab World
Modern Standard Arabic fusHa
MSA is the mother tongue of no one: It is the language taught in schools and spoken formally, the language of the elite and the cultured. In comparison to Arabic dialects, MSA will sound clearer and more measured. In the same way, it is easier to speak with other learners of a language rather than native speakers as they slow down to think about their speech.
Classical Arabic 3rabiya klasikeya
The sacred language of the Quran and the predecessor to MSA. This form of Arabic is learnt by Muslims worldwide in order to read their Holy Book and is not read so much as recited melodically in a beautiful stream of the most formal Arabic, where grammatical cases flow into structured, poetic rhythm. Like MSA, there are no native speakers of Classical Arabic.
The diversity of Arabic dialects
There is a myth that Arabic dialects differ as widely as French from Spanish. However, on closer inspection, you can see that they are one and the same language. Dialects of neighbouring areas will have closer sounding dialects.
Egyptian ammiyah
Egyptian Arabic is well known throughout the Arab world due to the plethora of films, music and books published in this dialect. Many foreign television shows also are dubbed in ammiyah, including very popular Turkish soap operas and heavily censored Game of Thrones episodes. A few pronunciation peculiarities of the region are pronouncing jeem as ‘G’, a phoneme otherwise not found in Arabic (there isn’t a letter for it). Also, Qaaf becomes a glottal stop in Ammiyah, pronouncing QaHwa (coffee) as ‘aHwa.
Levantine shaami: Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Palestine
Like ammiyah, the shaami dialect is also used to dub foreign films and TV programmes and can be found broadcast into Arab homes across the world. Primary differences from MSA include daily language such as greetings and expressions and simplification of verbs.
North African maghribi: Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya
North African dialects, often known as darija, are influenced by French, a remnant of French occupation of the region, and somewhat by Amazigh, the Berber language. This can be found particularly in the accent and some key vocabulary. I.e. the letter jeem in dajaaj (chicken) sounds like the J in bonjour rather than the J in James. Moroccan in particular is known to sound very fast. Arabs from other regions can find they require much concentration to understand maghribi dialects.
Gulf khaleeji : Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, UAE, Oman, Saudi
Many consider that the khaleeji dialect is the closest to MSA. It has fewer loan words from other languages – such as Persian, French, English, Hebrew – than the other dialects.
Examples of Language
Let’s consider some fundamental day-to-day words – interrogatives – and how they differ across these regions:
| What | Where | When | How | Why | Who | |
| fusHa | maatha | ayna | mataa | kayf | limaatha | man |
| aamiyah | eih | feen | imta | izzayy | leih | miin |
| shaami | shoo | wayn | imta | keef | leesh | meen |
| maghribi | shnoo | feen | foquash | kifash | 3lash | shkoon |
| khaleeji | maa aysh | ayn | mata | kayf | limih | man |
Do you notice the similarities and differences? From this example, which Arabic dialect do you think is the closest to MSA?
Thank you for visiting ArabicOnline.Eu. Our award winning interactive courses of Modern Standard Arabic have been developed for anyone with a genuine interest in Arabic, whether for private, educational or professional reasons and are specially designed for self-study. Our website and our language courses are free from advertisements and we don't share any personal details of our visitors or registered members with third parties. Nor do we sell data for targeted advertising. We believe passionately that learning should be free from commercial distractions. For this reason we rely on subscriptions to fund the development of our products. Click here to find out more about our Beginner to Intermediate Arabic courses.
