The Arabic language is one of the Semitic languages, and historians believe that it came from the Arabian Peninsula more than 1,600 years ago.
The Holy Qur’an, Islam’s holy book, played an important role in standardizing the Arabic language, as it was written in Standard Arabic, which became the literary form of the language.
It has become one of the most widely spoken languages in the world, the official language of 22 countries, and it is spoken by almost 450 million people Recently.
What Is the Arabic Language?
The Arabic language origin in the Arabian Peninsula since the 7th century has come to be the principal language of a wide area of the Middle East and North Africa.
Modern spoken Arabic consists of many differences, and a modified form of classical Arabic is used as the language of education and administration across the area.
Arabic is the third most widespread official language after English and French, one of the six official languages of the United Nations.
Arabic is the spoken language of roughly 450 million people, even more people are familiar with the language because it is the language of Islam, practiced by over 1.8 billion people.
Is Arabic a Semitic Language?
The Arabic language is one of the Semitic languages, specialists in the science of comparative languages believe that the Arabic language is nearest to the mother language from which all Semitic languages emanated.
It belongs to the Afro-Asiatic language family, it originated in the Arabian Peninsula and is believed to have evolved from the language of the nomadic tribes of the region.
When Did Arabic Become A Language?
Arabic Become A Language in the 5th century CE, At that time, the region was home to various tribes who spoke different dialects of Arabic. The language was primarily a spoken language and was used for trade, poetry, and storytelling.
In the 7th century, Islam emerged in Arabia, and the Arabic language gained significant importance as the language of the Quran, the holy book of Islam.
The Quran is written in Classical Arabic, which became the standard form of the language.
Where Is the Arabic Language From?
Interracial marriage and Islamic conquests led to the spread of the Arabic language significantly until it became the popular language for many people.
The Arabian Peninsula And Interracial Marriages
As we explained previously the Arabic language originated in the Arabian Peninsula in the 5th century CE.
Arabic started to spread, mainly because of the nomadic tendencies of the people speaking Arabic who lived in the region.
Interracial marriages between people of the Arabian Peninsula and the surrounding areas expedited the process considerably.
Islamic Conquests And The Islamic Golden Age
The Arabic language spread significantly during the Islamic conquests of the 7th century C.E., entering Iberian, Chinese, and North African regions.
During the Islamic Golden Age (8th-13th centuries), Arabic became the language of science, philosophy, and literature. Scholars from across the Islamic world wrote in Arabic, producing works that are still studied today.
It soon became the language of choice for many people, and there were more Arabic speakers than ever.
Over time, as Islam spread across the Arabian Peninsula and beyond, Arabic became the language of religion, culture, and scholarship in the Islamic world.
What is the History of the Arabic Language?
Here are the series of evolutions that arabic went through to become a language:
1. Syro-Arabian Language:
Old Arabic was the beginning of Arabic dialects, Safaitic dialect is the earliest dialect in old Arabic, which the Syro-Arabian desert nomadic tribes used.
These dialects formed the Semitic languages that first came to light in the Arabian Peninsula.
Over the course of millennia, these languages spread as different groups left the Arabian Peninsula, carrying their languages with them, into various parts of the Middle East and neighboring areas.
2. The Quranic Standardization Of Arabic Language:
The Quran, the holy book of Islam, played a significant role in standardizing the Arabic language, as it was written in Classical Arabic, which became the literary form of the language.
3. Spreading Arabic Over the World:
Beginning in the 7th century CE, the Arab Conquests (also known as Islamic or Muslim Conquests) carried speakers of various Arabic dialects, with their religion of Islam and their language of Arabic, out of the Arabian Peninsula into almost all of the Middle East and North Africa, west into the Iberian Peninsula and all the way east to China.
Over time, as the incoming Arabs intermarried with indigenous peoples mostly in the Middle East and North Africa, the Arabic language became the prominent language of these regions.
4. Languages Have Gradually Shrunk Because Of Arabic
While some of the native languages such as Kurdish (Iraq and Syria), Berber (Algeria and Morocco), Mahri (Yemen), and Jebali (Oman) are still spoken in this area, some languages have gradually shrunk.
Aramaic, for example, the language that was spoken most widely in the Middle East before the Conquests, is still spoken in pockets in today’s Syria and Iraq.
In Egypt, the language that was spoken before the Muslims came was Coptic, a direct descendant of the Ancient Egyptian language.
Today it only survives as a liturgical language of the Coptic Church.
Where Does The Arabic Script Come from?
The development of Arabic as a written language began with the emergence of the Arabic script in the 4th century CE.
The Arabic script was derived from the Nabatean script, which was used by the Nabateans in the northern Arabian Peninsula.
Who Made The Arabic Language
Classical Arabic came after Safaitic and other versions of old Arabic and Arabic historians track ancient Arabic back to Ya’rab, they believe that Ya’rab was the earliest speaker of old Arabic and a writer of several ancient Arabic literary materials.
There is disagreement among researchers in comparative linguistics about who was the first to speak the Arabic language.
Some of them said that he was the prophet Adam, it was said that he was the Prophet Noah, it was said that he was Jarhum and Keturah.
It was also said that giants (giant people).
Different Opinions On Who Was The First To Speak The Arabic Language
There are several opinions that differ about who was the first person to speak the Arabic language, and below we review these opinions:
1. Adam Is The First Arabic Speaker (Al-Qurtubi):
He said ‘The sound opinion is that Adam among human beings was the first to speak various languages’.
The Holy Qur’an states this clearly: {And He taught Adam all the names (of everything), …} [2: 31].
2. Jibreel Taught Arabic To The Prophet Noah:
They said that the angel Jibreel taught Arabic to the prophet Noah and then Noah taught it to his son Sam. Later, other Semitic languages emanated from it.
3. Jurham And Qatora Are The First Arabic Speaker (Al-Hafiz):
He said that Jurham and Qatora sons of Qahtaan Ibn ‘Amer Ibn Shalih Ibn Arfakhsheed Ibn Sam Ibn Noah, were the first people to speak the Arabic language, according to al-Hafiz in his book al-Fat-h from Ibn Is-haaq.
4. The Giant People:
They said that the Amalekites (giant people) were the first people to speak the Arabic language.
5. Ya’rub Ibn Qahtaan:
It was said that Ya’rub Ibn Qahtaan was the first one who spoke Arabic, so it was named after him.
6. The Prophet Ismael:
It was said that the prophet Ismael was the first to speak the Arabic language that we use today.
This last opinion is based on the Prophetic Hadith that reads: ” Ismael was the first one who spoke plain Arabic, he was 20 years old”.
But, the above-stated opinion is refuted by the traceable Hadith of Ibn Abbas concerning the story of Umm Ismael : “And he ( Ismael ) learned the Arabic from them (some tribe)” [Reported by Imam al-Bukhari ].
Al-Hafiz said in al-Fat-h: ‘This indicates that the tongue of his parents was not Arabic. Then, this narration shows the weakness of the opinion of those who believed that Ismael was the first to speak the Arabic language’.
And al-Hafiz brought the two opinions into agreement saying: ‘ Ismael was the first who spoke the plain and pure Arabic after he had learned its fundamentals from Jurhum, or it might be that Ismael was the best one among his brothers in speaking pure Arabic’.
Are All Arabic Languages the Same?
For writing, it is almost the same, especially if it is the Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) but as for pronunciation, like any language in the world, it differs according to countries and regions.
Written Arabic Is Almost The Same:
Nearly all Arabic-speaking countries use the Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) as their official written language.
It is the language used in the media, publications, government official papers, etc., except for some local differences.
Originally MSA is derived from classical Arabic – the language of the Quran, but it is the most commonly used language now because, in addition to being formal, it is simpler than classical Arabic.
Spoken Arabic Is not The same across Arabic Countries
Every country has its own dialect and other sub-dialects for its internal cities, groups, etc.
Regional Dialects In One Country
You will find different dialects for people living in Cairo, Upper Egypt, or Sinai, just to name a few, and the same applies to all Arab countries.
Different Dialects Between Countries
For example, Syrians, Palestinians, Saudi Arabians, and Egyptians can communicate with each other very well.
However, if they tried to communicate with Moroccans or Algerians, they would feel that the latter’s spoken language is closer to French than to Arabic.
The Powerful Of The Standard Arabic
But Standard Arabic remains almost exclusively the only recognized language of literacy across the Arabic-speaking world and Most students are learning Arabic with it.
It also enjoys a special position for Arabic speakers because of the large body of texts that have been produced in this form of language, particularly around the golden age of the Islamic civilization.
In addition to the Islamic religious texts and the classical Arabic literary texts, major scholarly contributions to the fields of science, medicine, astronomy, mathematics, and sociology for instance were written in the Middle Ages in this standard Arabic language.
Is Arabic A Single Language Or A Language Family?
All language learners face the difficulties of regional variations or dialects, and Arabic is one such language.
The problem that faces most learners of Arabic is that the written language is different from the various dialects spoken throughout the Arab world.
Today, Modern Standard Arabic (MSA – also known as Classical Arabic) is the standardized variety of the language and is used in most formal speech throughout the Arab world to ease communication.
It’s what students of Arabic as a foreign language tend to learn before moving on to a more specific dialect. Here we take a look at the five major varieties of Arabic.
1- North African Arabic:
Spoken in North Africa, from Morocco to Libya, North African Arabic is also known as Maghrebi Arabic and frequently borrows words from Spanish, French, and Italian.
Some of these words have remained the same while others have changed to varying degrees.
2- Hassaniya Arabic:
spoken in Mauritania and the western Sahara, is regarded as a version of Maghrebi Arabic.
3- Egyptian Arabic:
Egyptian Arabic is widely understood due to the country’s cinematic influence and strong media presence.
But Egyptians don’t necessarily understand other dialects easily, except perhaps Levantine Arabic, Libyan, or Tunisian, which is mutually intelligible due to proximity.
4- Levantine Arabic:
Spoken in the Levant region – comprising Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, and Palestine – this is also a widely intelligible variation of the language.
5- Iraqi Arabic or Mesopotamian Arabic:
Aramaic was the lingua franca in Mesopotamia (an ancient region of western Asia, which Iraq is now a part of), and Iraqi Arabic bears track.
Is Arabic A Religion Or A Language?
The Arabic language is an ancient and independent language, and it is one of the Semitic languages, as we mentioned previously, but it is closely linked with Islam and is the language of the Holy Qur’an.
The Arabic language serves not only as a powerful symbol of Arab national identity but is also the sacrosanct language of the scripture of Islam.
The Impact Of The Holy Qur’an On The Arabic Language
The effect of the revelation of the Qur’an on the Arabic language proved to be dramatic, profound, and lasting, making it the lingua franca of a great Islamic civilization and the language of Islam to the current day.
Within the course of a century, the Arab conquests had spread to cover a vast area in Asia, Africa, and southern Europe.
It was Islam that took Arabic to these new lands, carried by the Muslim armies and migrants to the Levant, the Fertile Crescent, Egypt, North Africa, and Spain, and in the east to Persia and beyond.
The Quran Affirms its connection with Arabic (12:2) but Muhammad
is also told that he has been sent to all people to give good news and warning (34:28).
Islam Transform The Arabic From A Spoken Language To A Language Of Scholarship
The Qur’an was the first book to be written down in Arabic, and as can be seen in the early interest in grammar, phonetics, stylistics and other linguistic disciplines, all Arabic and Islamic scholarship was rooted in the drive to serve the Qur’an.
Islam introduced a religious system with branches of religious knowledge, such as qur’anic exegesis (tafsīr), the study of the prophetic traditions (hadith),
theology and Islamic law (fiqh) and Sufism, all of which also had implications for the use and development of the Arabic language.
Arabic became the language of scholarship in science and philosophy in the 9th century when the ‘translation movement’ (Gutas 2005) saw concerted work on translations of Greek, Indian, Persian, and Chinese, medical, philosophical, and scientific texts.
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Conclusion
The Arabic language is a Semitic language, the language of the Holy Qur’an, and has a long history dating back more than 1,600 years.
It originated in the Arabian Peninsula as a group of dialects spoken by Bedouin tribes and evolved into the language of the Qur’an, which is considered the oldest form of the Arabic language.
As Islam spread throughout the Middle East and beyond, the Arabic language became more widespread and developed into several different.
During the Islamic Golden Age, Arabic became the language of science, philosophy, and literature, and many important works in these fields were written in Arabic.
Today Arabic is spoken by almost more than 450 million people around the world and it’s the official language of 22 countries.
It has a lot of regional dialects but Modern Standard Arabic (MSA – also known as Classical Arabic) is the standardized variety of the language and is used in most formal speech throughout the Arab world to ease communication.
