The Arabic language is a Semitic language. It has many varieties. This entry looks at spoken varieties of Arabic, distinguishing them from Standard Arabic and from each other. It deals with the varieties that Arab speakers learn at home, rather than at school: Arabic is a diglossic language. Varieties of Arabic - Overview. In pre-Islamic times, Arabic had noticeable dialect distinctions - in particular between Qahtanite, Adnan, and Himyar. In modern times, the spoken languages or dialects of people througho ...

Including:

• Varieties of Arabic - Overview
• Varieties of Arabic - General varieties
• Varieties of Arabic - Pre-Islamic or pre-Arab Expansion
• Varieties of Arabic - Post-Islamic or post-Arab Expansion
• Varieties of Arabic - Sedentary vs. Bedouin
• Varieties of Arabic - Morphological and syntactic variation
• Varieties of Arabic - Phonetic variation

Read more here: » Varieties of Arabic: Encyclopedia - Varieties of Arabic

The Arabs (Arabic: عرب ʻarab) are a large and heterogenous ethnic group found throughout the Middle East and North Africa, originating in the Arabian Peninsula of southwest Asia. Arab - Who is an Arab?. The definition of who an Arab is has several aspects: Ethnic identity: someone who considers himself to be an Arab (regardless of racial or ethnic origin) and is recognized as such by others. Linguistic: someone whose first language is Arabic (including any of its varieties); this d ...

Including:

• Arab - Who is an Arab?
• Arab - Religions
• Arab - History
• Arab - Traditional genealogy
• Arab - Etymology

Read more here: » Arab: Encyclopedia - Arab

All dialects, sedentary and Bedouin, share the following innovations from Classical Arabic (CA): The dominant order is subject-verb rather than verb-subject. Verbal agreement between subject and object is always complete. In CA, there was no number agreement between subject and verb when the subject was third-person and the subject followed the verb. Loss of case distinctions. Loss of original mood distinctions other than the indicative and imperativ ...

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Varieties of Arabic, Varieties of Arabic - Overview, Varieties of Arabic - General varieties, Varieties of Arabic - Pre-Islamic or pre-Arab Expansion, Varieties of Arabic - Post-Islamic or post-Arab Expansion, Varieties of Arabic - Sedentary vs. Bedouin, Varieties of Arabic - Morphological and syntactic variation, Varieties of Arabic - Phonetic variation

Read more here: » Varieties of Arabic: Encyclopedia II - Varieties of Arabic - Morphological and syntactic variation

The definition of who an Arab is has several aspects: Ethnic identity: someone who considers himself to be an Arab (regardless of racial or ethnic origin) and is recognized as such by others. Linguistic: someone whose first language is Arabic (including any of its varieties); this definition covers more than 200 million people. Arabic belongs to the Semitic family of languages. Genealogical: someone who can trace his or her ancestry back to the original inhabitants of the Arabian Peninsula. Political: ...

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Arab, Arab - Who is an Arab?, Arab - Religions, Arab - History, Arab - Traditional genealogy, Arab - Etymology

Read more here: » Arab: Encyclopedia II - Arab - Who is an Arab?

Before the coming of Islam, most Arabs followed a religion featuring the worship of a number of deities, including Hubal, Wadd, Al-Lat, Manat, and Uzza, while some tribes had converted to Christianity or Judaism, and a few individuals, the hanifs, had apparently rejected polytheism in favor of a vague monotheism. The most prominent Arab Christian kingdoms were the Ghassanid and Lakhmid kingdoms. With the expansion of Islam, the majority of Arabs rapidly became Muslim, and the pre-Islamic po ...

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Arab, Arab - Who is an Arab?, Arab - Religions, Arab - History, Arab - Traditional genealogy, Arab - Etymology

Read more here: » Arab: Encyclopedia II - Arab - Religions

A basic dialectal distinction that cuts across the entire geography of the Arabic-speaking world is between sedentary and Bedouin varieties. Across the Levant and North Africa (i.e. the areas of post-Islamic settlement), this is mostly reflected as an urban (sedentary) vs. rural (Bedouin) split, but the situation is more complicated in Iraq and the Arabian Peninsula. The distinction stems from the settlement patterns in the wake of the Arab conquests. As regions were conquered, army camps were set up that eventually grew into cities, and settlement ...

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Varieties of Arabic, Varieties of Arabic - Overview, Varieties of Arabic - General varieties, Varieties of Arabic - Pre-Islamic or pre-Arab Expansion, Varieties of Arabic - Post-Islamic or post-Arab Expansion, Varieties of Arabic - Sedentary vs. Bedouin, Varieties of Arabic - Morphological and syntactic variation, Varieties of Arabic - Phonetic variation

Read more here: » Varieties of Arabic: Encyclopedia II - Varieties of Arabic - Sedentary vs. Bedouin

The main division is between the Maghreb (North Africa) varieties (characterized by a first person singular in n-) and those of the Middle East, followed by that between sedentary varieties and the much more conservative Bedouin varieties. "Peripheral" varieties located in countries where Arabic is not a dominant language (e.g., Turkey, Afghanistan, Cyprus, Chad, and Nigeria) are particularly divergent in some respects, especially vocabulary, being less influenced by classical Arabic; however, historically they fall within the same di ...

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Varieties of Arabic, Varieties of Arabic - Overview, Varieties of Arabic - General varieties, Varieties of Arabic - Pre-Islamic or pre-Arab Expansion, Varieties of Arabic - Post-Islamic or post-Arab Expansion, Varieties of Arabic - Sedentary vs. Bedouin, Varieties of Arabic - Morphological and syntactic variation, Varieties of Arabic - Phonetic variation

Read more here: » Varieties of Arabic: Encyclopedia II - Varieties of Arabic - General varieties

Medieval Arab genealogists divided the Arabs into three groups: the "ancient Arabs", tribes that had been destroyed or vanished, such as Ad and Thamud; they are often alluded to in the Qur'an as examples of God's power to destroy wicked peoples. the "Pure Arabs" of South Arabia, descending from Qahtan. The Qahtanites (Qahtanis) are said to have migrated the land of Yemen following the destruction of the Ma'rib Dam (sadd Ma'rib). The Qahtanite Arabs were responsible for the ancient civilizations of Yemen, notably ...

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Arab, Arab - Who is an Arab?, Arab - Religions, Arab - History, Arab - Traditional genealogy, Arab - Etymology

Read more here: » Arab: Encyclopedia II - Arab - Traditional genealogy

The first written attestation of the ethnonym "Arab" occurs in an Assyrian inscription of 853 BC, where Shalmaneser III lists a King Gindibu of mâtu arbâi (Arab land) as among the people he defeated at the Battle of Karkar. Some of the names given in these texts are Aramaic, while others are the first attestations of Proto-Arabic dialects. The Hebrew Bible likewise refers occasionally to peoples called `Arvi (or variants thereof), translated as "Arab" or "Arabian". The scope of the Hebrew term at this early stage is unclear, ...

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Arab, Arab - Who is an Arab?, Arab - Religions, Arab - History, Arab - Traditional genealogy, Arab - Etymology

Read more here: » Arab: Encyclopedia II - Arab - History

Western varieties: Maghreb Arabic Koines: Moroccan Arabic (ISO 639-3:ary) Algerian Arabic (ISO 639-3:arq , saharan: aao) Tunisian Arabic (ISO 639-3:aeb) Fully pre-Hilalian: Jebli Arabic Jijel Arabic Siculo-Arabic (extinct) Maltese language (ISO 639-3:mlt) Bedouin: Saharan Arabic Libyan Arabic (ISO 639-3:ayl) Hassaniya Arabic (ISO 6 ...

See also:

Varieties of Arabic, Varieties of Arabic - Overview, Varieties of Arabic - General varieties, Varieties of Arabic - Pre-Islamic or pre-Arab Expansion, Varieties of Arabic - Post-Islamic or post-Arab Expansion, Varieties of Arabic - Sedentary vs. Bedouin, Varieties of Arabic - Morphological and syntactic variation, Varieties of Arabic - Phonetic variation

Read more here: » Varieties of Arabic: Encyclopedia II - Varieties of Arabic - Post-Islamic or post-Arab Expansion