The Arabic Language, by Alyssa Principato

The Arabic language is a rather unique one. Those who speak Arabic are mostly born into the language or learn it from someone they are close with who speaks Arabic fluently (Arabic Language 1). The Arabic language is ranked sixth in the world’s top spoken languages (Arabic Language 1). There are an estimated two hundred and twenty two million native speakers of this language (Omiglot 1). This could be surprising to most individuals in the United States because it is not heard very often in everyday conversations as Spanish is. The Arabic language is also the language of the holy book of Islam, which is named the Qur’an (Arabic Language 1). Arabic is also a language which is written in a symbol-like form with the Hebrew, Syriac, and Latin scripts (Omniglot 1). When one looks at the Arabic alphabet, it is very fascinating to see how the symbols are formed and spoken.

The Arabic language is spoken in many countries, such as Afghanistan, Chad, Cyprus, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kenya, Kuwait, Lebanon, and several others (Omiglot 1). Although Arabic is perceived as a difficult language to learn, it is actually less complicated than Latin and easier to speak than German (Arabic Language 1). However, normally those who speak Arabic are native to the language rather than self taught (Arabic Language 1). There are also only twenty-eight letters in the Arabic alphabet and most letters change their form depending on placement in the particular sentence being spoken (Omniglot 1).The root system of Arabic, unlike the English language, consists of words that are constructed from three-letter "roots," which convey a basic idea (Arabic Language 1).

Another interesting concept about the Arabic language is that there are only three vowels in the entire Arabic alphabet (Arabic Language 1). When speaking Arabic, the words “is” and “are” are not used in the present tense at all (Arabic Language 1). Lastly, the basic Arabic sentence order is verb, subject, and then the object being spoken about (Arabic Language 1). Each Arabic country or region has its own dialect, which can make it very difficult for one to speak Arabic in a different country (Omniglot 1). Based on these facts about the way Arabic is spoken, it is vastly different from the English language in many different ways.

Works Cited
Arabic Language. Introduction, 2009. Web. 27 November 2011.
Omniglot Online Encyclopedia of Writing Systems and Languages. Arabic, 1998-2011. Web. 27 November 2011.