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ABOUT THE ARABIC LANGUAGE
Arabic is an ancient and modern
SEMITIC language, which is a group within the Afro-asiatic family
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Used as the main language of more than 500
million people, the majority of which are in the Middle East, and by
all the main religious nations: Islam, Christians, Jews, and others;
and is spoken by more than 4 million people in the US.
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The
Arabic language is spreading very quickly throughout the nations of the
world. It perhaps ranks 3rd among the world languages. This is due to
the ever-enlarging relationship between the Arab world and other
countries.
- Arabic has been adopted by the United Nations as one
of its six official languages.
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The Arabic alphabet contains 28 letters plus
some symbols.
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There are three vowels, which are either short
or long.
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Writing style in Arabic is from right to left;
for example, the word AMERICA, if written in Arabic, would be written
as ACIREMA
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The Arabic language is written cursively, with
the letters connected to one another. However, some letters connect only
the preceding letters on the right side but not to the left. These are
known as "one-way connecters". English letters do not have
this characteristic.
Countries/Areas where Arabic is
spoken
Map
of the Arab World
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