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Arabic is a Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world, with a standard prestige language (Modern Standard Arabic) and diverse vernacular varieties that impede mutual intelligibility. MSA is used in formal contexts, news bulletins, and for prayers, and is the lingua franca of the Arab world and the liturgical language of Islam. Arabic vernaculars do not descend from MSA or Classical Arabic. Combined, Arabic dialects have 362 million native speakers, while MSA is spoken by 274 million L2 speakers, making it the sixth most spoken language in the world.

Arabic is traditionally written with the Arabic alphabet, a right-to-left abjad, and dialects are also often written in Latin or Hebrew characters with no standardized orthography. Maltese and Hassaniya are the only varieties officially written in a Latin alphabet.

Arabic is usually classified as a Central Semitic language, and has several features which Classical Arabic, the modern Arabic varieties, as well as the Safaitic and Hismaic inscriptions share which are unattested in any other Central Semitic language variety, including the Dadanitic and Taymanitic languages of the northern Hejaz. These features are evidence of common descent from a hypothetical ancestor, Proto-Arabic.

Arabic spread with the spread of Islam, and by the 8th century, knowledge of Classical Arabic had become an essential prerequisite for rising into the higher classes throughout the Islamic world, both for Muslims and non-Muslims.

Arabic has a rich history, with Old Arabic emerging around the 1st century CE and a relatively uniform intertribal “poetic koine” distinct from the spoken vernaculars developed based on the Bedouin dialects of Najd in the late 6th century AD. Standardization of Arabic reached completion around the end of the 8th century.

The Nahda was a cultural and especially literary renaissance of the 19th century in which writers sought “to fuse Arabic and European forms of expression.” In response, a number of Arabic academies were established with the aim of developing standardized additions to the Arabic lexicon to suit new concepts.

Arabic is an official language of 26 states and 1 disputed territory, the third most after English and French, and is one of six official languages of the United Nations.

Arabic gained vocabulary from Middle Persian and Turkish, and in the early Abbasid period, many Classical Greek terms entered Arabic through translations carried out at Baghdad’s House of Wisdom.

Arabic is a complex language, with Abu al-Aswad al-Du’ali credited with standardizing Arabic grammar, and Al-Khalil ibn Ahmad al-Farahidi compiling the first Arabic dictionary. Ibn Jinni of Mosul, a pioneer in phonology, wrote prolifically in the 10th century on Arabic morphology and phonology.

Charles Ferguson's koine theory claims that the modern Arabic dialects collectively descend from a single military koine that sprang up during the Islamic conquests, but this view has been challenged in recent times. Instead, the dialects contain several sedimentary layers of borrowed and areal features.Overview of Arabic Language

Arabic refers to Standard Arabic, which has Classical Arabic and Modern Standard Arabic as its two divisions.
Classical Arabic is the language of the Quran, while Modern Standard Arabic is used in most current, printed Arabic publications.
Colloquial or dialectal Arabic refers to the many national or regional varieties which constitute the everyday spoken language.
Diglossia is the normal use of two separate varieties of the same language, usually in different social situations, and is a common phenomenon in Arabic.
The issue of whether Arabic is one language or many languages is politically charged, and while there is a minimum level of comprehension between all Arabic dialects, this level can increase or decrease based on geographic proximity.
Arabic is taught worldwide in many elementary and secondary schools, especially Muslim schools, and is also studied at universities around the world as part of foreign language, Middle Eastern studies, and religious studies courses.
The most important sources of borrowings into Arabic are from the related languages Aramaic and Ethiopic, while Arabic has also influenced other languages, especially in Islamic countries.
English has many Arabic loanwords, some directly and most via other Mediterranean languages.
The sociolinguistic situation of Arabic in modern times provides a prime example of diglossia.
Hassaniya Arabic and Maltese are the only varieties of modern Arabic to have acquired official status.
During Muhammad's lifetime, there were dialects of spoken Arabic, and it was in the dialect of Mecca that the Quran was written.
The issue of diglossia between spoken and written language is a significant complicating factor.Overview of the Arabic Language
Arabic is a Semitic language spoken by over 400 million people worldwide.
It is the fifth most spoken language in the world and is an official language of the United Nations.
Arabic has two main forms: Classical Arabic (CA) and Modern Standard Arabic (MSA), with the latter being used in formal situations such as the media and education.
Colloquial Arabic is the term for the spoken dialects used throughout the Arab world, which differ from the literary language.
Most Arabic loanwords in languages not in direct contact with the Arab world are transferred indirectly via other languages, such as Persian.
Arabic words made their way into several West African languages as Islam spread across the Sahara.
Arabic occupied a position similar to that of Latin in Europe in the Islamic world, and many Arabic concepts in various fields were coined by non-native Arabic speakers, notably by Aramaic and Persian translators.
The main dialectal division is between the varieties within and outside of the Arabian peninsula, followed by that between sedentary varieties and the much more conservative Bedouin varieties.
The largest difference in non-peninsula varieties is between the non-Egyptian North African dialects and the others.
The literary Arabic language is learned at school and is technically not the native language of any speakers, while colloquial dialects are learned at home and constitute the native languages of Arabic speakers.
There is a continuous range of "in-between" spoken varieties between MSA and colloquial, depending on the social class and education level of the speakers involved and the level of formality of the speech situation.
Modern Standard Arabic has six pure vowels and two diphthongs, with short and corresponding long vowels. The pronunciation of vowels differs from speaker to speaker, reflecting the pronunciation of the corresponding colloquial variety.Phonetics and Phonology of Modern Standard Arabic
Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) is the standardized literary form of Arabic used in formal contexts across the Arab world.
MSA has 28 consonants and 6 vowels, which can be short or long, and stress is based on vowel length.
The pronunciation of short /u/ and /i/ tends towards [ʊ~~o] and [i~~e~ɨ], respectively, in many dialects.
The consonants triggering "emphatic" allophones are the pharyngealized consonants /tˤ dˤ sˤ ðˤ/; /q/; and /r/, if not followed immediately by /i(ː)/, and many dialects have multiple emphatic allophones of each vowel.
The phoneme /d͡ʒ/ has many standard pronunciations, with [d͡ʒ], [ʒ], and [ɡ] being common in different regions.
The consonant /θ/ can be pronounced as [s] or [t͡s] in some places of Maghreb.
The consonants /x/ and /ɣ/ are velar, post-velar, or uvular, while /ħ, ʕ/ are epiglottal [ʜ, ʢ] in Western Asia.
Vowels and consonants can be phonologically short or long, and long (geminate) consonants are normally written doubled in Latin transcription.
Arabic has two kinds of syllables: open syllables (CV) and (CVV)—and closed syllables (CVC), (CVVC) and (CVCC).
Word stress is not phonemically contrastive in Standard Arabic, and it bears a strong relationship to vowel length.
The final short vowels are often not pronounced, and there are different levels of pronunciation from full to informal short pronunciation.
Spoken dialects of Arabic have different phonemes and vowel changes, with many dialects having fewer phonemes than MSA.
Short vowels, especially /i u/, are often deleted in many contexts, and original /aj aw/ have been monophthongized to /eː oː/ in most dialects.