Arabic language facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Arabic
العربية al-ʻarabiyyah
al-ʿArabiyyah in written Arabic (Naskh script)
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
Use of Arabic as the sole official language (green) and an official language (blue)
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Arabic (العربية) is a Semitic language, in the same family as Hebrew and Aramaic. Around 250 million people use it as their first language. Many more people can also understand it, but not as a first language. It is written with the Arabic alphabet, which is written from right to left, like Hebrew. Since it is so widely spoken throughout the world, it is one of the six official languages of the UN, alongside English, Spanish, French, Russian, and Chinese.

Many countries speak Arabic as an official language, but not all of them speak it the same way. There are many dialects, or varieties of a language, like Modern Standard Arabic, Egyptian Arabic, Gulf Arabic, Maghrebi Arabic, Levantine Arabic, and many others. Some of these dialects are so different from each other that they have a hard time understanding the other.

Most of the countries that use Arabic as their official language are in the Middle East. They are part of the Arab World. 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 for native speakers of Indo-European languages. 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, ,alcohol and Emir

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

Images for kids

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  Safaitic inscription

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  Arabic from the Quran in the old Hijazi dialect (Hijazi script, 7th century AD)

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  The Qur'an has served and continues to serve as a fundamental reference for Arabic. (Maghrebi Kufic script, Blue Qur'an, 9th-10th century)

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  Coverage in Al-Ahram in 1934 of the inauguration of the Academy of the Arabic Language in Cairo, an organization of major importance to the modernization of Arabic.

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  Arabic calligraphy written by a Malay Muslim in Malaysia. The calligrapher is making a rough draft.

See also

In Spanish: Idioma árabe para niños