About the Arabic Language

  • Arabic is an ancient and modern SEMITIC language, which is a group within the Afro-asiatic family.
  • It is 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.
  • 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.
  • The Arabic alphabet contains 28 letters plus some symbols.
  • There are three vowels, which are either short or long.
  • Writing style in Arabic is from right to left; for example, the word AMERICA, if written in Arabic, would be written as ACIREMA.
  • 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.