78-504: Asharq Al-Awsat ( Arabic : الشرق الأوسط , romanized : Aš-Šarq al-ʾAwsaṭ , meaning "The Middle East") is an Arabic international newspaper headquartered in London . A pioneer of the "off-shore" model in the Arabic press, the paper is often noted for its distinctive green-tinted pages. Although published under the name of a private company, Saudi Research and Marketing Group (SRMG),
156-513: A collection of related dialects that constitute the precursor of Arabic, first emerged during the Iron Age . Previously, the earliest attestation of Old Arabic was thought to be a single 1st century CE inscription in Sabaic script at Qaryat al-Faw , in southern present-day Saudi Arabia. However, this inscription does not participate in several of the key innovations of the Arabic language group, such as
234-435: A corpus of poetic texts, in addition to Qur'an usage and Bedouin informants whom he considered to be reliable speakers of the ʿarabiyya . Arabic spread with the spread of Islam . Following the early Muslim conquests , Arabic gained vocabulary from Middle Persian and Turkish . In the early Abbasid period , many Classical Greek terms entered Arabic through translations carried out at Baghdad's House of Wisdom . By
312-1077: A dialect of Arabic and written in the Latin alphabet . The Balkan languages, including Albanian, Greek , Serbo-Croatian, and Bulgarian , have also acquired many words of Arabic origin, mainly through direct contact with Ottoman Turkish . Arabic has influenced languages across the globe throughout its history, especially languages where Islam is the predominant religion and in countries that were conquered by Muslims. The most markedly influenced languages are Persian , Turkish , Hindustani ( Hindi and Urdu ), Kashmiri , Kurdish , Bosnian , Kazakh , Bengali , Malay ( Indonesian and Malaysian ), Maldivian , Pashto , Punjabi , Albanian , Armenian , Azerbaijani , Sicilian, Spanish, Greek, Bulgarian, Tagalog , Sindhi , Odia , Hebrew and African languages such as Hausa , Amharic , Tigrinya , Somali , Tamazight , and Swahili . Conversely, Arabic has borrowed some words (mostly nouns) from other languages, including its sister-language Aramaic, Persian, Greek, and Latin and to
390-483: A lesser extent and more recently from Turkish, English, French, and Italian. Arabic is spoken by as many as 380 million speakers, both native and non-native, in the Arab world, making it the fifth most spoken language in the world, and the fourth most used language on the internet in terms of users. It also serves as the liturgical language of more than 2 billion Muslims . In 2011, Bloomberg Businessweek ranked Arabic
468-476: A liberal face to the world, was far more critical of Arab governments than its Arabic editions: The trouble with Asharq al-Awsat, beyond its disturbing acquiescence to Arab regimes, is that it claimed a liberalism that was patently false... the newspaper in Arabic would abide by the red lines that govern criticism of Arab leaders while in English it ran roughshod over those very same lines. A column I wrote tearing into
546-570: A massive effort to increase circulation in Saudi Arabia. The paper's first editor-in-chief Jihad Khazen, now a columnist and editor emeritus for the rival pan-Arab daily Al-Hayat , gave credit to Hisham Hafiz , with the subsequent support of his brother Mohammed Ali Hafez, for the initial idea of establishing an Arabic-language newspaper in London. Then the daily was launched in 1978. Former editor-in-chief Othman Al Omeir has likewise given credit to
624-677: A millennium before the modern period . Early lexicographers ( لُغَوِيُّون lughawiyyūn ) sought to explain words in the Quran that were unfamiliar or had a particular contextual meaning, and to identify words of non-Arabic origin that appear in the Quran. They gathered shawāhid ( شَوَاهِد 'instances of attested usage') from poetry and the speech of the Arabs—particularly the Bedouin ʾaʿrāb [ ar ] ( أَعْراب ) who were perceived to speak
702-440: A number of sites across the world. Media scholar Marc Lynch has called Asharq al-Awsat "the most conservative" of the major pan-Arab papers. The New York Times in 2005 called Asharq Al-Awsat "one of the oldest and most influential in the region." The paper's chief competitors in Saudi Arabia are Al Hayat and Okaz ; globally, its chief competitor is Al Hayat , though it is often paired with Al-Quds Al-Arabi which
780-492: A press conference with the new Asharq Al Awsat bureau chief by his side in which the Egyptian president attacked the newspaper and its stance toward the peace process in general, citing his suspicions of the bureau chief's "high" salary, and accusing Prince Fahd of using the newspaper as a weapon against Egypt and the Egyptian president personally. Khazen later reminisced about the events, saying: "I think that this press conference
858-576: A result, many European languages have borrowed words from it. Arabic influence, mainly in vocabulary, is seen in European languages (mainly Spanish and to a lesser extent Portuguese , Catalan , and Sicilian ) owing to the proximity of Europe and the long-lasting Arabic cultural and linguistic presence, mainly in Southern Iberia, during the Al-Andalus era. Maltese is a Semitic language developed from
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#1732847822683936-407: A rival, was considered fair game) and then Saudi Arabia's other Arab allies. Within such a hierarchy of red lines, the Egyptian regime can indeed pull rank and demand that Asharq al- Awsat silence a critic. Alhomayed responded to Eltahawy in both the English and Arabic version of Asharq Al Awsat . Eltahawy noted that in the majority of cases the writer was left to discover on their own that he or she
1014-462: A script derived from ASA attest to a language known as Hasaitic . On the northwestern frontier of Arabia, various languages known to scholars as Thamudic B , Thamudic D, Safaitic , and Hismaic are attested. The last two share important isoglosses with later forms of Arabic, leading scholars to theorize that Safaitic and Hismaic are early forms of Arabic and that they should be considered Old Arabic . Linguists generally believe that "Old Arabic",
1092-588: A second article, accusing him of lying. A third piece in March 2007, an opinion piece written by Alhomayed himself, repeated the claims. However, in July 2008, Alhomayed stated that the allegations were untrue and apologized at the High Court in London "for any embarrassment" caused. In its apology, which the newspaper also published in its print and web edition, Alhomayed said that "Sheikh Hamad did not hold secret discussions with
1170-465: A single language, despite mutual incomprehensibility among differing spoken versions. From a linguistic standpoint, it is often said that the various spoken varieties of Arabic differ among each other collectively about as much as the Romance languages . This is an apt comparison in a number of ways. The period of divergence from a single spoken form is similar—perhaps 1500 years for Arabic, 2000 years for
1248-503: A type of Arabic. Cypriot Arabic is recognized as a minority language in Cyprus. The sociolinguistic situation of Arabic in modern times provides a prime example of the linguistic phenomenon of diglossia , which is the normal use of two separate varieties of the same language, usually in different social situations. Tawleed is the process of giving a new shade of meaning to an old classical word. For example, al-hatif lexicographically means
1326-499: A variety of regional vernacular Arabic dialects , which are not necessarily mutually intelligible. Classical Arabic is the language found in the Quran , used from the period of Pre-Islamic Arabia to that of the Abbasid Caliphate . Classical Arabic is prescriptive, according to the syntactic and grammatical norms laid down by classical grammarians (such as Sibawayh ) and the vocabulary defined in classical dictionaries (such as
1404-470: A wider audience." In the wake of the industrial revolution and European hegemony and colonialism , pioneering Arabic presses, such as the Amiri Press established by Muhammad Ali (1819), dramatically changed the diffusion and consumption of Arabic literature and publications. Rifa'a al-Tahtawi proposed the establishment of Madrasat al-Alsun in 1836 and led a translation campaign that highlighted
1482-727: Is a Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in the Arab world . The ISO assigns language codes to 32 varieties of Arabic , including its standard form of Literary Arabic, known as Modern Standard Arabic , which is derived from Classical Arabic . This distinction exists primarily among Western linguists; Arabic speakers themselves generally do not distinguish between Modern Standard Arabic and Classical Arabic, but rather refer to both as al-ʿarabiyyatu l-fuṣḥā ( اَلعَرَبِيَّةُ ٱلْفُصْحَىٰ "the eloquent Arabic") or simply al-fuṣḥā ( اَلْفُصْحَىٰ ). Arabic
1560-585: Is a minimum level of comprehension between all Arabic dialects, this level can increase or decrease based on geographic proximity: for example, Levantine and Gulf speakers understand each other much better than they do speakers from the Maghreb. The issue of diglossia between spoken and written language is a complicating factor: A single written form, differing sharply from any of the spoken varieties learned natively, unites several sometimes divergent spoken forms. For political reasons, Arabs mostly assert that they all speak
1638-542: Is a sister language rather than their direct ancestor. Arabia had a wide variety of Semitic languages in antiquity. The term "Arab" was initially used to describe those living in the Arabian Peninsula , as perceived by geographers from ancient Greece . In the southwest, various Central Semitic languages both belonging to and outside the Ancient South Arabian family (e.g. Southern Thamudic) were spoken. It
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#17328478226831716-469: Is believed that the ancestors of the Modern South Arabian languages (non-Central Semitic languages) were spoken in southern Arabia at this time. To the north, in the oases of northern Hejaz , Dadanitic and Taymanitic held some prestige as inscriptional languages. In Najd and parts of western Arabia, a language known to scholars as Thamudic C is attested. In eastern Arabia, inscriptions in
1794-506: Is considered to be its polar opposite. According to this dichotomy, Asharq Al Awsat represents the "moderate camp" when compared to the "rejection camp" of Al-Quds Al-Arabi . One example is Mona Eltahawy , who wrote for the paper from January 2004 to early 2006, focusing on protests against the Mubarak government in Egypt . She wrote that its new English-language website, designed to present
1872-408: Is credited with establishing the rules of Arabic prosody . Al-Jahiz (776–868) proposed to Al-Akhfash al-Akbar an overhaul of the grammar of Arabic, but it would not come to pass for two centuries. The standardization of Arabic reached completion around the end of the 8th century. The first comprehensive description of the ʿarabiyya "Arabic", Sībawayhi's al - Kitāb , is based first of all upon
1950-468: Is credited with standardizing Arabic grammar , or an-naḥw ( النَّحو "the way" ), and pioneering a system of diacritics to differentiate consonants ( نقط الإعجام nuqaṭu‿l-i'jām "pointing for non-Arabs") and indicate vocalization ( التشكيل at-tashkīl ). Al-Khalil ibn Ahmad al-Farahidi (718–786) compiled the first Arabic dictionary, Kitāb al-'Ayn ( كتاب العين "The Book of the Letter ع "), and
2028-566: Is not present in the spoken varieties, but deletes Classical words that sound obsolete in MSA. In addition, MSA has borrowed or coined many terms for concepts that did not exist in Quranic times, and MSA continues to evolve. Some words have been borrowed from other languages—notice that transliteration mainly indicates spelling and not real pronunciation (e.g., فِلْم film 'film' or ديمقراطية dīmuqrāṭiyyah 'democracy'). The current preference
2106-836: Is official in Mali and recognized as a minority language in Morocco, while the Senegalese government adopted the Latin script to write it. Maltese is official in (predominantly Catholic ) Malta and written with the Latin script . Linguists agree that it is a variety of spoken Arabic, descended from Siculo-Arabic , though it has experienced extensive changes as a result of sustained and intensive contact with Italo-Romance varieties, and more recently also with English. Due to "a mix of social, cultural, historical, political, and indeed linguistic factors", many Maltese people today consider their language Semitic but not
2184-559: Is the third most widespread official language after English and French, one of six official languages of the United Nations , and the liturgical language of Islam . Arabic is widely taught in schools and universities around the world and is used to varying degrees in workplaces, governments and the media. During the Middle Ages , Arabic was a major vehicle of culture and learning, especially in science, mathematics and philosophy. As
2262-584: Is the variety used in most current, printed Arabic publications, spoken by some of the Arabic media across North Africa and the Middle East, and understood by most educated Arabic speakers. "Literary Arabic" and "Standard Arabic" ( فُصْحَى fuṣḥá ) are less strictly defined terms that may refer to Modern Standard Arabic or Classical Arabic. Some of the differences between Classical Arabic (CA) and Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) are as follows: MSA uses much Classical vocabulary (e.g., dhahaba 'to go') that
2340-413: Is to avoid direct borrowings, preferring to either use loan translations (e.g., فرع farʻ 'branch', also used for the branch of a company or organization; جناح janāḥ 'wing', is also used for the wing of an airplane, building, air force, etc.), or to coin new words using forms within existing roots ( استماتة istimātah ' apoptosis ', using the root موت m/w/t 'death' put into
2418-516: Is used to denote concepts that have arisen in the industrial and post-industrial era , especially in modern times. Due to its grounding in Classical Arabic, Modern Standard Arabic is removed over a millennium from everyday speech, which is construed as a multitude of dialects of this language. These dialects and Modern Standard Arabic are described by some scholars as not mutually comprehensible. The former are usually acquired in families, while
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2496-445: The Lisān al-ʻArab ). Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) largely follows the grammatical standards of Classical Arabic and uses much of the same vocabulary. However, it has discarded some grammatical constructions and vocabulary that no longer have any counterpart in the spoken varieties and has adopted certain new constructions and vocabulary from the spoken varieties. Much of the new vocabulary
2574-545: The Jewish exodus from Arab and Muslim countries . "The intensity of the Jew-hatred," he wrote, "disseminated by the media and art, literature, and political cartoons has reached a degree that cannot be ignored." He continued: "antisemitism in the Arab world is the product of loathsome, racist education that is rooted in the Arab mentality that is used to labeling people according to tribal, family, and racial affiliation, and according to
2652-508: The Shiite Muslim commemoration of Arbaeen in Iraq of sexually harassing women, which was proven to be false, according to Agence France-Presse ; the paper sacked its Baghdad correspondent over a report. The article had said that a World Health Organization report had described "unplanned pregnancies and [...] disease" seen "following the arrival of scores of unregulated Iranians to take part in
2730-561: The Xth form , or جامعة jāmiʻah 'university', based on جمع jamaʻa 'to gather, unite'; جمهورية jumhūriyyah 'republic', based on جمهور jumhūr 'multitude'). An earlier tendency was to redefine an older word although this has fallen into disuse (e.g., هاتف hātif 'telephone' < 'invisible caller (in Sufism)'; جريدة jarīdah 'newspaper' < 'palm-leaf stalk'). Colloquial or dialectal Arabic refers to
2808-494: The northern Hejaz . These features are evidence of common descent from a hypothetical ancestor , Proto-Arabic . The following features of Proto-Arabic can be reconstructed with confidence: On the other hand, several Arabic varieties are closer to other Semitic languages and maintain features not found in Classical Arabic, indicating that these varieties cannot have developed from Classical Arabic. Thus, Arabic vernaculars do not descend from Classical Arabic: Classical Arabic
2886-547: The settlement had been reached amicably out of court without any payment for damages . However, on another occasion Asharq Al Awsat was accused of publishing a false interview regarding football club Portsmouth . The following day The Guardian mentioned that the interview was actually true. In addition to Jihad Khazen, other well-known past editors include Erfan Nizameddine, Othman Al Omeir (founder of Elaph ), and Abdul Rahman Al Rashed (general manager of Al Arabiya between April 2004 and November 2014). Former editor
2964-419: The "learned" tradition (Classical Arabic). This variety and both its classicizing and "lay" iterations have been termed Middle Arabic in the past, but they are thought to continue an Old Higazi register. It is clear that the orthography of the Quran was not developed for the standardized form of Classical Arabic; rather, it shows the attempt on the part of writers to record an archaic form of Old Higazi. In
3042-748: The "purest," most eloquent form of Arabic—initiating a process of jamʿu‿l-luɣah ( جمع اللغة 'compiling the language') which took place over the 8th and early 9th centuries. Kitāb al-'Ayn ( c. 8th century ), attributed to Al-Khalil ibn Ahmad al-Farahidi , is considered the first lexicon to include all Arabic roots ; it sought to exhaust all possible root permutations —later called taqālīb ( تقاليب ) — calling those that are actually used mustaʿmal ( مستعمَل ) and those that are not used muhmal ( مُهمَل ). Lisān al-ʿArab (1290) by Ibn Manzur gives 9,273 roots, while Tāj al-ʿArūs (1774) by Murtada az-Zabidi gives 11,978 roots. Qatari Prime Minister [REDACTED] Member State of
3120-454: The 11th and 12th centuries in al-Andalus , the zajal and muwashah poetry forms developed in the dialectical Arabic of Cordoba and the Maghreb. 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." According to James L. Gelvin , " Nahda writers attempted to simplify the Arabic language and script so that it might be accessible to
3198-562: The 4th to the 6th centuries, the Nabataean script evolved into the Arabic script recognizable from the early Islamic era. There are inscriptions in an undotted, 17-letter Arabic script dating to the 6th century CE, found at four locations in Syria ( Zabad , Jebel Usays , Harran , Umm el-Jimal ). The oldest surviving papyrus in Arabic dates to 643 CE, and it uses dots to produce the modern 28-letter Arabic alphabet. The language of that papyrus and of
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3276-812: 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. For example, Maimonides , the Andalusi Jewish philosopher, authored works in Judeo-Arabic —Arabic written in Hebrew script . Ibn Jinni of Mosul , a pioneer in phonology , wrote prolifically in the 10th century on Arabic morphology and phonology in works such as Kitāb Al-Munṣif , Kitāb Al-Muḥtasab , and Kitāb Al-Khaṣāʾiṣ [ ar ] . Ibn Mada' of Cordoba (1116–1196) realized
3354-695: The Arab League The prime minister of the State of Qatar ( Arabic : رئیس الوزراء القطري ) is the second most powerful official of Qatar , who heads the Government of Qatar . Khalifa bin Hamad Al Thani , the Emir of Qatar from the coup d'état of 22 February 1972, was the first holder of this position from its establishment on 29 May 1970. He served as prime minister until the coup d'état of 27 June 1995, when he
3432-500: The Egyptian regime for allowing its security forces to beat peaceful protesters and to sexually assault female journalists and demonstrators was spiked from the Arabic newspaper and web site but appeared in its entirety on the English web site... The major red lines at Asharq al-Awsat could be quite simple —in descending order they were the Saudi royal family, Saudi Arabia's allies in the Gulf (Qatar,
3510-662: The Iraqi ministry of health on possible legal action against the paper." Haider al-Abadi , Iraqi Prime Minister, and "several other leading Shiite figures" condemned the Asharq al-Awsat ' s report and demanded an "apology". In April 2019, Saudi journalist businessman Hussein Shobakshi published a column in Asharq Al-Awsat in which he condemned the prevalence of anti-Semitism in Islamic culture. He claimed that this anti-Semitism had led to
3588-643: The Israeli government en route to the Beirut Conference". Sheikh Hamad's solicitor, Cameron Doley, said: "It is an unequivocal victory. Allegations of that nature at that time could have been damaging to him and Qatar. The paper has accepted that it got it wrong. My client is happy with that—there was never anything more in it for him than getting that admission." This story was confirmed in Asharq Al Awsat ' s sister publication, Arab News , which reported that
3666-412: The Middle East and North Africa have become a badge of sophistication and modernity and ... feigning, or asserting, weakness or lack of facility in Arabic is sometimes paraded as a sign of status, class, and perversely, even education through a mélange of code-switching practises." Arabic has been taught worldwide in many elementary and secondary schools, especially Muslim schools. Universities around
3744-672: The Qur'an is referred to by linguists as "Quranic Arabic", as distinct from its codification soon thereafter into " Classical Arabic ". In late pre-Islamic times, a transdialectal and transcommunal variety of Arabic emerged in the Hejaz , which continued living its parallel life after literary Arabic had been institutionally standardized in the 2nd and 3rd century of the Hijra , most strongly in Judeo-Christian texts, keeping alive ancient features eliminated from
3822-561: The Romance languages. Also, while it is comprehensible to people from the Maghreb , a linguistically innovative variety such as Moroccan Arabic is essentially incomprehensible to Arabs from the Mashriq , much as French is incomprehensible to Spanish or Italian speakers but relatively easily learned by them. This suggests that the spoken varieties may linguistically be considered separate languages. With
3900-514: The annual Shia pilgrimage to Karbala ." According to the article, 169 unmarried women had become pregnant from the Iranian pilgrims. The UN 's health agency said no such report had been published by WHO, and condemned mentioning its name in what it called "unfounded" news. According to Rana Sidani , spokeswoman for the WHO, the organization was "shocked" by the report. She said that they were "consulting with
3978-518: The brothers, Hisham and Mohammad Hafiz, for founding and then overseeing the paper. Together with El Khazen, the brothers set out to prove the value of the idea through a number of trial issues to the then-Crown Prince and later king Fahd , who had initially warmed to the thought but then lost his enthusiasm. Khazen also gave credit to the then-Saudi ambassador to London and then-deputy minister of information in helping gain Fahd's verbal approval for issuing
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#17328478226834056-567: The conversion of Semitic mimation to nunation in the singular. It is best reassessed as a separate language on the Central Semitic dialect continuum. It was also thought that Old Arabic coexisted alongside—and then gradually displaced— epigraphic Ancient North Arabian (ANA), which was theorized to have been the regional tongue for many centuries. ANA, despite its name, was considered a very distinct language, and mutually unintelligible, from "Arabic". Scholars named its variant dialects after
4134-577: The emergence of Central Semitic languages, particularly in grammar. Innovations of the Central Semitic languages—all maintained in Arabic—include: There are 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
4212-728: The eve of the conquests: Northern and Central (Al-Jallad 2009). The modern dialects emerged from a new contact situation produced following the conquests. Instead of the emergence of a single or multiple koines, the dialects contain several sedimentary layers of borrowed and areal features, which they absorbed at different points in their linguistic histories. According to Veersteegh and Bickerton, colloquial Arabic dialects arose from pidginized Arabic formed from contact between Arabs and conquered peoples. Pidginization and subsequent creolization among Arabs and arabized peoples could explain relative morphological and phonological simplicity of vernacular Arabic compared to Classical and MSA. In around
4290-593: The fact that they participate in the innovations common to all forms of Arabic. The earliest attestation of continuous Arabic text in an ancestor of the modern Arabic script are three lines of poetry by a man named Garm(')allāhe found in En Avdat, Israel , and dated to around 125 CE. This is followed by the Namara inscription , an epitaph of the Lakhmid king Imru' al-Qays bar 'Amro, dating to 328 CE, found at Namaraa, Syria. From
4368-501: The fourth most useful language for business, after English, Mandarin Chinese , and French. Arabic is written with the Arabic alphabet , an abjad script that is written from right to left . Arabic is usually classified as a Central Semitic language . Linguists still differ as to the best classification of Semitic language sub-groups. The Semitic languages changed between Proto-Semitic and
4446-579: The inclusion of new words into their published standard dictionaries. They also publish old and historical Arabic manuscripts. In 1997, a bureau of Arabization standardization was added to the Educational, Cultural, and Scientific Organization of the Arab League . These academies and organizations have worked toward the Arabization of the sciences, creating terms in Arabic to describe new concepts, toward
4524-608: The language. Software and books with tapes are an important part of Arabic learning, as many of Arabic learners may live in places where there are no academic or Arabic language school classes available. Radio series of Arabic language classes are also provided from some radio stations. A number of websites on the Internet provide online classes for all levels as a means of distance education; most teach Modern Standard Arabic, but some teach regional varieties from numerous countries. The tradition of Arabic lexicography extended for about
4602-599: The late 6th century AD, a relatively uniform intertribal "poetic koine" distinct from the spoken vernaculars developed based on the Bedouin dialects of Najd , probably in connection with the court of al-Ḥīra . During the first Islamic century, the majority of Arabic poets and Arabic-writing persons spoke Arabic as their mother tongue. Their texts, although mainly preserved in far later manuscripts, contain traces of non-standardized Classical Arabic elements in morphology and syntax. Abu al-Aswad al-Du'ali ( c. 603 –689)
4680-420: The latter is taught in formal education settings. However, there have been studies reporting some degree of comprehension of stories told in the standard variety among preschool-aged children. The relation between Modern Standard Arabic and these dialects is sometimes compared to that of Classical Latin and Vulgar Latin vernaculars (which became Romance languages ) in medieval and early modern Europe. MSA
4758-883: The many national or regional varieties which constitute the everyday spoken language. Colloquial Arabic has many regional variants; geographically distant varieties usually differ enough to be mutually unintelligible , and some linguists consider them distinct languages. However, research indicates a high degree of mutual intelligibility between closely related Arabic variants for native speakers listening to words, sentences, and texts; and between more distantly related dialects in interactional situations. The varieties are typically unwritten. They are often used in informal spoken media, such as soap operas and talk shows , as well as occasionally in certain forms of written media such as poetry and printed advertising. Hassaniya Arabic , Maltese , and Cypriot Arabic are only varieties of modern Arabic to have acquired official recognition. Hassaniya
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#17328478226834836-768: The need for a lexical injection in Arabic, to suit concepts of the industrial and post-industrial age (such as sayyārah سَيَّارَة 'automobile' or bākhirah باخِرة 'steamship'). In response, a number of Arabic academies modeled after the Académie française were established with the aim of developing standardized additions to the Arabic lexicon to suit these transformations, first in Damascus (1919), then in Cairo (1932), Baghdad (1948), Rabat (1960), Amman (1977), Khartum [ ar ] (1993), and Tunis (1993). They review language development, monitor new words and approve
4914-716: The newspaper while the prince was on an official visit to England. After the news of the paper's first big scoop (regarding the formation of the U.S. Central Command for the Middle East), the still new newspaper made its name through the controversy surrounding the Egypt–Israel peace treaty . In the face of widespread criticism from contributors and staff toward the Camp David Accords and Egyptian President Anwar Sadat , Cairo bureau chief Salah al Din Hafez resigned. Then, Sadat held
4992-424: The one whose sound is heard but whose person remains unseen. Now the term al-hatif is used for a telephone. Therefore, the process of tawleed can express the needs of modern civilization in a manner that would appear to be originally Arabic. In the case of Arabic, educated Arabs of any nationality can be assumed to speak both their school-taught Standard Arabic as well as their native dialects, which depending on
5070-549: The overhaul of Arabic grammar first proposed by Al-Jahiz 200 years prior. The Maghrebi lexicographer Ibn Manzur compiled Lisān al-ʿArab ( لسان العرب , "Tongue of Arabs"), a major reference dictionary of Arabic, in 1290. 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; this view has been challenged in recent times. Ahmad al-Jallad proposes that there were at least two considerably distinct types of Arabic on
5148-408: The paper is often billed as "the leading Arab daily newspaper," and calls itself "the premier pan-Arab daily newspaper" based on the fact that past estimates of its circulation have given it the largest circulation of the off-shore pan-Arab dailies, a category including its chief competitor Al-Hayat . However, reliable estimates are available only from the early 2000s, before rival Al-Hayat launched
5226-732: The paper was founded with the approval of the Saudi royal family and government ministers, and is noted for its support of the Saudi government. The newspaper is owned by Faisal bin Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud , a member of the Saudi royal family. Asharq Al-Awsat covers events through a network of bureaus and correspondents throughout the Arab world , Europe , the United States , and Asia . The paper also has copyright syndications with The Washington Post , Los Angeles Times , The New York Times , and Global Viewpoint, permitting it to publish Arabic translations of columnists like Thomas Friedman and David Ignatius . Launched in London in 1978, and printed on four continents in 14 cities,
5304-410: The region may be mutually unintelligible. Some of these dialects can be considered to constitute separate languages which may have "sub-dialects" of their own. When educated Arabs of different dialects engage in conversation (for example, a Moroccan speaking with a Lebanese), many speakers code-switch back and forth between the dialectal and standard varieties of the language, sometimes even within
5382-480: The religious school which they belong. It is this education that prompted thousands of Jews were citizens of Arab countries to emigrate after the establishment of the State of Israel." Though the newspaper is owned by Faisal bin Salman , and is considered more pro-Saudi than its rival Al-Hayat was, Asharq Al-Awsat has billed itself as the "leading international Arabic paper," as it was the first Arabic daily to use satellite transmission for simultaneous printing in
5460-458: The same sentence. The issue of whether Arabic is one language or many languages is politically charged, in the same way it is for the varieties of Chinese , Hindi and Urdu , Serbian and Croatian , Scots and English, etc. In contrast to speakers of Hindi and Urdu who claim they cannot understand each other even when they can, speakers of the varieties of Arabic will claim they can all understand each other even when they cannot. While there
5538-458: The sole example of Medieval linguist Abu Hayyan al-Gharnati – who, while a scholar of the Arabic language, was not ethnically Arab – Medieval scholars of the Arabic language made no efforts at studying comparative linguistics, considering all other languages inferior. In modern times, the educated upper classes in the Arab world have taken a nearly opposite view. Yasir Suleiman wrote in 2011 that "studying and knowing English or French in most of
5616-556: The standardization of these new terms throughout the Arabic-speaking world, and toward the development of Arabic as a world language . This gave rise to what Western scholars call Modern Standard Arabic. From the 1950s, Arabization became a postcolonial nationalist policy in countries such as Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, and Sudan. Arabic usually refers to Standard Arabic, which Western linguists divide into Classical Arabic and Modern Standard Arabic. It could also refer to any of
5694-501: The towns where the inscriptions were discovered (Dadanitic, Taymanitic, Hismaic, Safaitic). However, most arguments for a single ANA language or language family were based on the shape of the definite article, a prefixed h-. It has been argued that the h- is an archaism and not a shared innovation, and thus unsuitable for language classification, rendering the hypothesis of an ANA language family untenable. Safaitic and Hismaic, previously considered ANA, should be considered Old Arabic due to
5772-451: The world have classes that teach Arabic as part of their foreign languages , Middle Eastern studies , and religious studies courses. Arabic language schools exist to assist students to learn Arabic outside the academic world. There are many Arabic language schools in the Arab world and other Muslim countries. Because the Quran is written in Arabic and all Islamic terms are in Arabic, millions of Muslims (both Arab and non-Arab) study
5850-444: Was Tariq Alhomayed whose leadership earned mixed reviews as it was associated with much criticism of Asharq Al-Awsat . In July 2012, Adel Al Toraifi , chief editor of The Majalla , was appointed deputy chief editor of Asharq Al Awsat . On 1 January 2013, Al Toraifi replaced Alhomayed as editor of the paper. Al Toraifi's term ended in July 2014. In 2016, Asharq al-Awsat published a report accusing Iranian pilgrims taking part in
5928-620: Was banned rather than receiving a reason or justification from Alhomayed. Nothing official was reported about the matter until 16 September 2010 when the paper quoted Al Rashed saying that he voluntarily stopped writing for them. On 18 September 2010, Al Rashed returned to writing in Asharq Al Awsat . As of 2021, he remains a regular contributor. Arabic language Arabic (endonym: اَلْعَرَبِيَّةُ , romanized : al-ʿarabiyyah , pronounced [al ʕaraˈbijːa] , or عَرَبِيّ , ʿarabīy , pronounced [ˈʕarabiː] or [ʕaraˈbij] )
6006-711: Was when the paper published three reports about the Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim al-Thani 's trip to an Arab foreign ministers' conference in Beirut during the Lebanon conflict in August 2006 . Asharq Al Awsat claimed in August 2006 that he had held discussions with Israeli ministers en route to the conference, briefing them on the Arab position. Sheikh Hamad denied the allegations and Asharq Al Awsat printed
6084-531: Was worth a million dollars (in its value at the time) of free publicity for the newspaper, which since became the subject of interest for many foreign governments and the foreign media." Ex-editor Alhomayed is widely criticised for publishing a series of vindictive articles about the State of Qatar between 2004 and 2008, a period that witnessed a disturbance in Saudi/Qatari official relations. The highlight of that phase
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