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81-400: Dabke ( Arabic : دبكة also spelled dabka , dabki , dubki , dabkeh , plural dabkaat ) is a Levantine folk dance , particularly popular among Lebanese , Jordanian , Palestinian , and Syrian communities. Dabke combines circle dance and line dancing and is widely performed at weddings and other joyous occasions. The line forms from right to left and the leader of the dabke heads

162-562: 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

243-435: 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

324-1077: 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

405-483: 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

486-677: 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

567-576: 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

648-462: 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",

729-465: 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

810-530: A single phrase, as in Ala Dal Ouna, Jafra , and others. For example, even though one might have heard Ala Dal Ouna sung previously telling a different story in this famous love song, people will still call another song ascribing to the same rhythm and theme as Dal Ouna . The majority of dabke music, being folk songs, is on maqam Bayati musical mode. The Oud ( عود ), from which the English word "lute" comes,

891-449: A title to that effect. When these shows occur, dabke is either performed on stage (inside or outside), in a hall on the floor, or outside on the floor. There are different steps that comprise the Dabke dance: the belbel, the inzel, shemmel and taxi; a combination of each of these steps as well as the occasional jump and turn make the dance complete. In America, the tradition has persisted and

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972-503: 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

1053-499: 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

1134-470: 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

1215-727: 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

1296-585: 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

1377-542: 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

1458-509: Is a woodwind instrument traditionally made from reed cane. It differs from the Mijwiz and Arghul in that it does not have a reed, instead the musician blows against the side of the instrument at an angle to produce the tone. The Shubabeh is traditionally played by herders in the wilderness. Dabke competitions or shows often consist of different cultural dances and various troupes performing dabke. Many universities host events called Arab Night or

1539-482: Is also used across India. It is believed to have arrived along with other Persian influences in the medieval era , and is a popular folk instrument . In southern India , its use became mainstream, especially in protests, during the early half of the 20th century. Since the 1950s, it has also been used prominently in Bollywood . In some forms of Islam , daf holds special importance because some Muslims believe that it

1620-469: 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

1701-408: 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

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1782-468: 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

1863-699: Is held in the same kind of communal spaces as it would in the Levant. Dance music is also commonly played in America at Arab-community cultural centers and conventions such as Lebanese American festivals around the country and the annual convention hosted by the American Federation of Ramallah Palestine. In her study titled Syrian Radical Dabka, ethnomusicologist Shayna Silverstein described the changes in social interpretations and performances of dabke as performed in Syria. In

1944-566: 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

2025-836: 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

2106-438: Is produced by hitting the membrane with either hand – the left hand, which also holds the daf, strikes the edges, and the right hand strikes the center. The right-hand fingers are fastened about their neighbours and suddenly released, like the action of finger-snapping, to produce loud, rapid, sharp sounds. The Pahlavi (Middle Persian) name of the daf is dap. Some pictures of daf have been found in paintings that date before

2187-469: Is shaped like half a pear with a short non-fretted neck. It has six courses of two strings and played with a plectrum, usually a trimmed eagle's feather. This instrument creates a deep and mellow sound. The mijwiz ( مجوز ), which means "double" in Arabic, is very popular in Levantine music. It is a type of reed clarinet that is played by breathing smoothly through a circular aperture at the end and by moving

2268-466: Is the national musical instrument of Pakistan and is also depicted on the reverse and obverse of the Azerbaijani 1 qəpik coin and 1 manat banknote respectively, since 2006. It traditionally has a round wooden frame (although in the modern era it may also be made of metal), jingles, and a thin, translucent head made of fish or goat skin (or, more recently, a synthetic material). The sound

2349-559: 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

2430-558: Is the only musical instrument which is permitted to be used. Other Muslims believe musical instruments in general are allowed, not exclusively the daf. The Prophet of Islam, Muhammad , did not impose a total prohibition on using the daf, stating that it is permissible during Eid , a wedding Walima , or to greet a government official after they arrive from a journey. It has always been an important part of Islamic Sufi music . The jingles, which are thin metal plates or rings, are attached to hooks in three or four rectangular holes in

2511-584: 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

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2592-413: 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

2673-516: 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

2754-445: 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

2835-683: The Common Era . The presence of the Iranian daf in the 6th–5th century BCE Behistun Inscription suggests that it existed before the rise of Islam and Sufism . Iranian music has always been a spiritual tool. It shows that daf played an important role in Mazdean Iran emerging as an important element during the Sassanian period, during the Kâvusakân dynasty. Also, there is a kind of square frame drum in

2916-605: The National Museum of Iran in Tehran , portrays a double ney (end-blown reed pipes ), chang (harp), and a daf in a shrine or court processional, as similarly documented in Egypt , Elam , and the Persian province of Babylonia , where music was arranged for performance by large orchestral ensembles. The Arabs introduced the daf and other Middle Eastern musical instruments to Spain, and

2997-516: The Sassanid periods (224 AD–651 AD). In this period the daf was played in order to accompany Iranian classical music. Dafs were likely used in the court to be played in the modes and melodies of traditional music. This traditional or classical music was created by Barbod the Great and was named the khosravani after the mythical king Khosrow II . Recent research reveals that these modes were used in

3078-561: 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

3159-494: 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

3240-419: 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

3321-699: 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. Daf Daf

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3402-454: 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

3483-543: The 20th century and beyond, dabke has both been interpreted as an element of nationalist ideologies or as a modern and aesthetic form of folk dance, performed by academically trained dancers from the Higher Institute of Dramatic Arts . To reinforce these interpretations and the continuation of dabke in rural as well as in urban settings, performances have been promoted countrywide by government-sponsored folk dance ensembles as well as in educational programs disseminated by

3564-514: 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

3645-812: 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

3726-412: 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

3807-515: The Ministry of Culture. Since the beginning of the Syrian Civil War , dabke performances as a manifestation of community gatherings have further accompanied protest meetings and demonstrations against the ruling government of Syria. In August 2011, a group in a Lebanese village Dhour El Choueir , Lebanon set a new world record. Organized by Dhour El Choueir Summer Festival, a human chain of 5,050

3888-672: 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

3969-561: 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

4050-655: The Spanish adapted and promoted the daf and other musical instruments (such as the guitar ) in medieval Europe. In the 15th century, the daf was only used in Sufi ceremonies; the Ottomans reintroduced it to Europe in the 17th century. The daf still functions as an important part of Iranian music (both traditional and classical) as it did in ancient times. It successfully encourages many young Iranians to take up learning this ancient instrument. Daf, and its smaller version called dafli ,

4131-477: The circular wooden frame. The drumhead is made of fish or goat skin. The width of the frame is 45–50 centimetres (18–20 in) and the depth, 5–7 centimetres (2–3 in). In order to bend the frame, the wood ("buka", "orev") may be softened in water before being bent around a hot metal cylinder. The frame is closed by gluing the ends together. Finally, the skin is attached to the frame by fixing it with another wooden frame or by using nails. Another variation

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4212-515: The climate. When the fishskin becomes loose, the drum head is heated to retighten the membrane, retune the instrument, and thus restore its correct sound. The membrane or head of the drum is now made out of plastic. The most commonly produced heads are from Alexandria, Egypt. The daff ( دف ), also known as the Riq ( رق ), is similar to the tambourine. It consists of a round frame, covered on one side with goat or fish skin. Pairs of metal discs are set into

4293-567: 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

4374-420: The dabke jumps may have originated in ancient Canaanite fertility rituals related to agriculture, chasing off evil spirits and protecting young plants. Another theory is that the stomping part of dabke started out as a way of solidifying roofs made of mud. People would stomp on the rooftops of houses together to help compress the material to compact it to prevent cracks from forming. This eventually evolved into

4455-423: The dancing form of dabke that is known today. Dabke is popular across the Levant, Each type of dabke dance has its own corresponding set of songs, the theme of which is often love there are six main types of dabke: There are about twenty types of dabke, including but not limited to: There are numerous kinds of songs that are sung during and specifically for dabke, by both men and women respectively, depending on

4536-577: 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

4617-728: 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

4698-593: 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

4779-458: The fingers over the holes down the front of the tube in order to create the different notes. The minjjayrah is similar to the mijwiz, an open ended reed flute played in the same style. The tablah ( طبلة ) is a small hand-drum also known as the durbakke. Most tablahs are beautifully decorated, some with wood, tile or bone inlay, etched metal, or paintings in designs typical of the Near East. One of

4860-501: 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

4941-465: The frame to produce the jingle when struck by the hand. The sounds of this percussion instrument set the rhythm of much Arab music, particularly in the performances of classical pieces. The arghul ( يرغول ), also known as the yarghoul , is commonly used in solos, often accompanied by singers, that begin dabke performances. Unlike the mijwiz , it only has finger holes in one of its pipes/reeds. (see Al-Shamaliyya , under Types). The Shubabeh ( شبابة )

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5022-579: 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

5103-608: 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

5184-599: 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)

5265-420: 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

5346-561: The line, alternating between facing the audience and the other dancers. The etymology of 'dabke' is uncertain but is thought to be derived from the Levantine Arabic word dabaka ( Arabic : دبكة ) meaning "stamping of the feet" or "to make a noise". According to Youssef Ibrahim Yazbec , a Lebanese historian, journalist, and politician, the dabke descends from Phoenician dances thousands of years old. According to Palestinian folklorists Abdul-Latif Barghouthi and Awwad Sa'ud al-'Awwad,

5427-883: 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

5508-400: The most commonly played of the percussion instruments; the tablah is a membranophone of goat or fish skin stretched over a vase-shaped drum with a wide neck. Usually made of earthenware or metal, it is placed either under the left arm or between the legs and struck in the middle for the strong beats and on the edge for the sharp in-between beats. Though today fishskin heads are rarely used due to

5589-768: 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

5670-547: The occasion, song, and audience. Some of the most popular of these songs, such as Dal Ouna (دلعونا) , Al Jafra (الجفرا) , Al Dahiyya (الدحية) , and Zareef il-Tool (ظريف الطول) , are actually entire genres in themselves, in the sense that lyrics can vary significantly in each performance but the basic rhythm of the music is consistent and recognizable. This variation can be seen in the hundreds of lyrical variations heard and recorded of these songs which regardless of specific lyrics, are recognized by their rhythm and at times,

5751-424: 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

5832-549: 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

5913-619: The recitation of Mazdean ( Zoroastrian ) prayers. The modes were passed down from master to student and are today known as the radif and dastgāh system. Many of the melodies were lost, but most of those that remain date to the Sassanid period. Dafs can be played to produce highly complex and intense rhythms, causing one to go under a trance and reach an ecstatic and spiritually-high state. For this reason, they have always been connected with religion in Iran. An engraved bronze cup from Lorestan at

5994-410: 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

6075-458: 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

6156-458: 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

6237-556: 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

6318-460: The stonecutting of Taq-e Bostan (another famous monument located 5km northeast of Kermanshah city). These frame drums were played in the ancient Middle East , Greece , and Rome and reached medieval Europe through Islamic culture . Nowruz (the first day of the Iranian New Year and the national festival of the Iranian people ) and other festive occasions have been accompanied by daf in

6399-501: 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

6480-451: 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

6561-1032: Was made and currently holds the world record. This event broke the record set by Tollab, the Lebanese Student Federation in Montreal , with the participation of "La Troupe Folklorique Les Chevaliers du Liban" that had made a human chain of 4,475 people dancing the dabke for more than five minutes straight at Montreal's Marcelin Wilson Park. Tollab had itself broken a record of 2,743 set by a group of Israeli Arabs in Acre, Israel . An earlier record of 1,700 had been set in Toronto. Arabic language Arabic (endonym: اَلْعَرَبِيَّةُ , romanized :  al-ʿarabiyyah , pronounced [al ʕaraˈbijːa] , or عَرَبِيّ , ʿarabīy , pronounced [ˈʕarabiː] or [ʕaraˈbij] )

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