Foreign languages—Arabic. Arabic language - history and brief description

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ARABIC, the generalized name of the various dialects and patois spoken by the Arabs (hereinafter, these numerous spoken forms are called colloquial Arabic, abbreviated RAYA), as well as their common literary language (hereinafter, abbreviated LAYA; the term "standard Arabic" is also used abroad) . Belongs to the Afroasian language macrofamily. It is the existence of LAL as a common supra-dialect form and its high prestige (this is, first of all, the language of the Koran, as well as a huge literature in terms of volume and time of existence) in combination with a common ethnic self-consciousness that determines the recognition of very different Arabic territorial dialects - a total number of more than 30 - in a single language.

HISTORY OF THE ARABIC LANGUAGE AND ITS SOCIOLINGUISTIC CHARACTERISTICS

Mentions of the peoples of the Arabian desert, called "Arabs", are found in Assyrian military chronicles of the 8th-7th centuries. BC, in biblical texts of the 9th century. BC, in the epigraphic texts of the ancient states of South Arabia (I millennium BC - middle of the 1st millennium AD), from ancient authors (for example, Herodotus, 5th century BC .), in early medieval Byzantine and Syriac sources. As applied to the Arabic language, this name is noted in the 3rd c. BC. in Hebrew sources in the form as . For the native speakers themselves, the name "Arabs" and "Arabic" for themselves and their language has been fixed since the emergence and spread of Islam. The first use of the name "Arabic" in Arabic sources is noted in the Koran (middle of the 7th century AD) in the form (sura XVI, verse 103/105 and several others), which means "clear/understandable Arabic language".

Arabic is spoken in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Oman, Yemen, Egypt, Sudan, Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, Mauritania, Western Sahara, Somalia, Djibouti, the Republic of Chad. "Islands" dialects of the Arabic language are also found in the territories of neighboring African states, in Turkey, Cyprus, Iran, Afghanistan, Central Asia (Uzbekistan). The literary form of the Arabic language is the official language of all Arab countries, one of the official and working languages ​​of the UN. The Maltese dialect of Arabic has a literary form different from LAL and is the only Arabic dialect that is considered independent language; in Malta, it has the status of a state. The total number of the Arabic-speaking population is currently, according to various sources, from 190 to 250 million people.

It is assumed that in the first centuries of our era, the Arabic language was a collection of closely related tribal dialects common in the central and northern regions of the Arabian Peninsula. Along with tribal and territorial dialects, a single form of poetic language developed. The works of tribal poets were composed and passed down orally from tribe to tribe and from generation to generation. At the same time, a single oral form of the sacred language of priests and soothsayers was formed. Subsequently, the processed oral forms of a single intertribal language became the basis for the formation of a literary and written pan-Arabic language.

The first written monument of the common Arabic language is the Koran, written down in the middle of the 7th century. AD The sacred nature of the text of the Qur'an determined the safety of all its language features without significant changes to date. In the 8th–9th centuries AD monuments of oral tribal poetry were also recorded. The literary form of the language during the 8th–10th centuries. AD improved in the written field in the scientific and educated circles of society. In connection with the consolidation of the Arab society, the formation of the Muslim community, the spread of Islam, the formation of the state, the administration and the army, a colloquial common Arabic language of the Koine type is also taking shape.

Along with the development of the standard literary form of the Arabic language, the direct descendants of the ancient tribal dialects continue to function in the Arabic-speaking environment. Distribution of the Arabs in the 7th–9th centuries on the non-Arab territories of Syria, Mesopotamia, Palestine, Egypt and North Africa, as well as on the territory of the Iberian Peninsula, Iran and Central Asia, leads to the formation of new local territorial dialects of the Arabic language, which are superimposed on the ancient tribal dialects.

Currently, Arabic dialects are classified according to two main parameters - social and territorial. According to their social characteristics, they are divided into nomadic and settled, and the latter, in turn, into urban and rural. Geographical division is superimposed on the social division of dialects. Geographically, modern Arabic dialects are divided into two large groups: eastern(Mashrik), consisting of four subgroups - Mesopotamian, Arabian, Central Arab and Egyptian-Sudanese - and western(Maghrebi, or North African). The "island" Arabic dialects of Central Asia also belong to the eastern group.

Medieval Arabic sources testify that the discrepancy between the literary Arabic language and its dialectally fragmented colloquial form already by the 10th century. observed in all Arabic-speaking territories. In the future, LAL becomes the language of the educated strata of society. The classical heritage of LAL is of world significance and is represented by a huge corpus of Arabic poetry, artistic, historical and geographical prose, translations of ancient scientific works and his own works on astronomy, mathematics, medicine and other exact and natural sciences, philosophy, theology, jurisprudence, linguistics. At present, the LAL functions in the religious sphere (and not only in the Arab, but throughout the Muslim world), in the means mass media, in the administrative and scientific-literary spheres of activity, in the field of education.

The oral-colloquial form (PARA), represented in each case by the local dialect, serves everyday areas of communication at all levels: family, industrial, trade, household and on the street; it has long been used in oral folk art (for example, texts of fairy tales 1001 nights, recorded in the 14th–16th centuries. in Egypt, are characterized by signs of oral colloquial speech of an urban type).

This coexistence of two structurally different forms of language, opposed as "high" and "low", in sociolinguistics is called diglossia. Unlike bilingualism (bilingualism), in a situation of diglossia, the choice of one of the forms of a language (and sometimes one of the two languages) is not determined by which of these forms or which of these languages ​​is better for achieving the immediate goals of interpersonal communication in a bilingual (or multilingual in the case of multilingualism) communication, but the subject of speech or the situation of communication: one form is used to talk about serious and sublime things and in official and solemn situations; the second - in all the rest, and not only educated, but also, to the best of their ability, by all strata of society (LAL is taught in all systems of public education). Diglossia is characteristic of the entire Arab world and is perceived as a problem, regarding the way to solve which there are different points of view.

A similar ratio existed for several centuries between Church Slavonic and Russian in Russia and exists in a number of other regions of the world; however, in the Arab world the situation is more complicated, if only because LAL serves not only as an "exalted" language, but also as a means of communication for people from various regions of the Arab world and its environment. In addition, the modern linguistic situation in the Arab world is characterized by complex dynamics. Political and economic integration in each of the Arab countries leads to the formation on the basis of a prestigious (most often capital) dialect of some local Koine, which serves as a means of communication between speakers of different dialects. Interstate communication, the strengthening of economic and cultural contacts between regions leads to the formation of more general forms of Koine - the so-called regional vernacular languages. Along with such a development “from below”, there is also a process of interaction between LAL and PARADISE, as a result of which the so-called “middle” or “third” language is formed, losing a number of grammatical features LAYA, but not having pronounced signs of any particular local dialect. Some regional phonetic features are also observed in the oral form of LAL.

Some writers, as an experiment, introduce direct speech of characters and dialogues in the local dialect into their works. Egyptian dramaturgy features a number of plays in the Egyptian dialect. Cinematography, some radio specials, television, given the audience, also refer to PARA.

The main territorial dialects of the Arabic language, such as Iraqi, Syro-Palestinian, Egyptian, dialects of the Arabian Peninsula and North Africa, have their own quite clearly pronounced signs at the phonetic-morphological and lexical levels. The degree of mutual understanding between speakers of different dialects is relative and subjective. As a rule, it intensifies with the contacts of neighboring dialects and weakens with the contacts of representatives of the opposite outskirts of the Arab world. Mutual understanding is also influenced by the conditions and topics of the conversation. Purely local or professional topics (national cuisine, local economy, life, customs, etc., i.e. everything that is characterized by the use of local vocabulary and expressions) weaken mutual understanding and require explanation. On the contrary, socio-political and cultural topics (which are largely based on general literary vocabulary and expressions) provide a higher degree of mutual understanding.

In the following, the article will focus mainly on LAL (in some cases simply called Arabic).

HISTORY OF THE ARABIC LANGUAGE AND ITS CULTURAL RELATIONS

The most important milestones in the history of the Arabic language are the emergence of Islam and the development of their own script (7th century AD). The first epigraphic (mainly on stone) monuments of the Arabic language are reports of the movements of fellow tribesmen, shepherds with herds of camels, as well as tombstones and dedicatory inscriptions. In the pre-Islamic period, such inscriptions used the Nabataean script (derived from Aramaic) or a variation of the South Arabian (Sabaean) script. In its final form, the Arabic script took shape on the basis of the Nabataean script during the period of writing the Koran (from the middle of the 7th century AD) and further development written culture. The Arabic script is a 28-letter system of signs representing only consonant phonemes. To indicate three long vowels, three consonant letters are used, called "alif, waw and ua. To indicate short vowels, doubling consonants, the absence of vowels, special superscript and subscript characters are used. The direction of writing is from right to left. Depending on the position in a word or phrase, many letters have different styles: isolated, initial, middle and final.Some pairs of letters form so-called ligatures in writing (fused styles like & from Latin-French et "and" or @ from English at "in"). varieties: Kufic script (ornamental and decorative), suls, ruk", nastalik, divani, maghribi, naskh. Naskh is used for typographical typesetting.

Period 8th–12th centuries in the history of the Arabic language is characterized by its unification, standardization, the development of literary and written genres and styles, the development of classical poetry, artistic and scientific prose. Arabic becomes the international language of literature and science in the Near and Middle East. The largest scientists of the medieval East create their works on it: al-Farabi (870-950) from Turkestan, Avicenna (Ibn Sina, 980-1037) from Bukhara, al-Biruni (973 - c. 1050) from Khorezm, Averroes (Ibn Rushd, 1126-1198), a native of Andalusia, and many others.

The next turning point in the development and modernization of the Arabic language was the turn of the 18th-19th centuries, when economic contacts between the Arab East and the West became more active. The development of printing, the emergence of the press and, accordingly, new genres of journalism, the emergence of a new fiction, dramaturgy and poetry become the most important factor in the development of the Arabic language and its adaptation to the new requirements of social, cultural and scientific life. The development of new media and communication in the 20th century. contributes to the further modernization of the Arabic language.

The cultural and historical influence of the Arabic language can be traced in many languages ​​of Asia and Africa. This was facilitated by the spread of Islam, as well as the high cultural status of the LAL, which has a developed system of general and special terminology for many areas of public, scientific and cultural life.

A considerable number of words of Arabic origin also exist in the Russian language, where they got, as a rule, through intermediary languages: Latin, Western European, Persian, Turkish. In addition to exoticisms like genie, jihad, vizier, qadi etc., Arabic in origin are some names of stars and constellations ( Aldebaran, Altair- from Arabic. " al=Dabaran, "al=Ta"ir), a number of scientific terms ( algebra, alcohol- via Spanish, number, zero- through European, from Arab. "zero"; algorithm- from the Latinized form of the name of the mathematician al-Khwarizmi), the name military rank admiral(borrowed into Russian from Dutch and descended from Arabic " amiru l=bahri"emir of the sea", and nothing remained of the "sea" in the form of a word, but as a result of the "folk etymology" that connected this word with the Latin admiror "to be amazed" and its derivatives in the Romance languages, a sound appeared d) and other words quite diverse in meaning.

In turn, already the early monuments of the Arabic language testify to a wide layer of cultural borrowings from the neighboring Semitic languages ​​of South Arabia, from the Aramaic languages ​​of Syria and Mesopotamia, from Middle Persian, Greek and Latin. Later, borrowings from Persian and Turkish appear. The modern period is characterized by active penetration into the Arabic vocabulary of Western European technical terminology. Despite the puristic activity of the Arabic language academies in many countries, new international scientific and technical terms penetrate into the modern Arabic language, tracings of standard phrases and phrases characteristic of the press and mass media are formed.

THE PLACE OF THE ARABIC LANGUAGE IN THE GENEALOGICAL CLASSIFICATION OF LANGUAGES

Arabic is part of the Semitic branch of the Afroasian (or Semitic-Hamitic; this widespread name is now considered obsolete) language macrofamily. According to the traditional classification, the Arabic language belongs to the South Semitic group of languages, combining it with the ancient epigraphic languages ​​of South Arabia and with the Ethio-Semitic languages ​​spoken in Ethiopia and Eritrea. At present, as a result of the discovery of new materials on ancient and modern Semitic languages, as well as the introduction of new methods into comparative historical Semitology, in particular the method of glottochronology ( cm. LANGUAGES OF THE WORLD), a more accurate classification of Semitic languages ​​has been developed, according to which the Arabic language with dialects represents an independent south-central group. With the ancient South Arabian languages ​​and with the languages ​​of Ethiopia (Geez, Tigre, Tigrinya), as well as with modern South Arabian (Mehri, Shahri, Socotri), the Arabic language is united by some grammatical features: word formation methods, forms of the so-called "broken" plural. numbers (it is also the plural of internal education: rasm"picture" - english"drawings", etc.), more complete phonological systems of consonants. At the same time, the South Semitic languages ​​differ from Arabic in some types of verbal conjugation. On the other hand, such grammatical features as the formation of suffix forms of plural. number of nouns male, types of conjugation of the stems of the perfect and imperfect, bring Arabic closer to the languages ​​of the north-central group, especially Aramaic.

In the first period of the comparative historical study of the Semitic languages ​​(18th-19th centuries), it was believed that the classical Arabic language represents the most archaic type of the Semitic language, which most fully preserved the phonetic features lost in other Semitic languages ​​(interdental, voiced and voiceless laryngeal, pharyngeal and uvular phonemes) and morphology (nominal case and verbal modal endings, a complete system of personal verb forms, a dual number characteristic of both the name and the verb). Later, opposing points of view appeared (put forward by some Italian and Czech Semitologists), according to which phonemes peculiar only to Arabic are innovations; innovations were also attributed to the forms of the "broken" plural. numbers and some other grammatical forms that are unique to Arabic. Modern comparative historical studies of the wider material of the Afroasian languages ​​confirm the Semitic and Afroasian character of these phonemes and forms.

At the same time, studies have shown that the Arabic phonological system also does not represent a complete Proto-Semitic system. The Arabic system is characterized by some reduction in the composition of phonemes and their phonetic changes, in particular, the palatalization of middle and back plosives:, in dialects: k > c; and also glottalization: q >".

The verbal system LAL also represents an already reconstructed Proto-Semitic system, characterized by the verbalization of the Proto-Semitic participle, turning into a perfect conjugation.

Phonetic-phonological and grammatical structure modern Arabic dialects are also characterized by a number of reductions, modifications and innovations.

STRUCTURAL CHARACTERISTICS OF THE BAR

Phonological system

LAL is represented by 34 phonemes; of which 28 are consonants and 6 are vowels. Vowels are characterized by opposition in quality a : i : u and by number ā : ī : ū . Consonants are characterized by oppositions in deafness / voicedness: t:d;s:z, according to velarization (emphaticity) – ; . With respect to simple plosives and spirants, there are three interdental correlates: . In turn, the interdental emphatic is the opposition to simple emphatic -.

During the history of LAL known to us, its phonetic system has undergone some changes compared to the period of the 8th-10th centuries. There was a loss of redundant differential features and, accordingly, a restructuring of oppositions: lateral emphatic simple emphatic; interdental emphatic . In the emphatic system, oppositions were formed according to deafness / voicedness -,. Palatalization Destroyed Binary Opposition g: k deafness/voicedness.

LAYA belongs to the so-called moroscaling languages ​​(along with, for example, Latin or Ancient Greek): the short syllable C (vowel) G (vowel) is equal to one sea; a long syllable SG is equal to two pestilences; the closed syllable CGS is equal to two mora. The classical system of versification is built on the principle of numeracy. The structure of the syllable in LAL is limited by a number of rules: there is a ban on an open syllable (i.e., starting with a vowel; those Arabic words that begin with a vowel in Russian transmission, in Arabic have an initial consonant - a glottal stop ", called in Arabic" "ayn"; the very name of the letter begins with Ain), to the confluence of consonants at the beginning and end of a syllable. Thus, only syllables of the structure SG/SG and SGS are possible. In the case of the formation of an overlong syllable, it is phonetically transformed into an ordinary long, for example yaql=u"he says", but with the loss of the final vowel, the theoretically resulting verbal word form loses longitude, i.e. * lam yaqul > lam yaqul"He didn't say, he didn't say." The stress in LAL is weak, falls on the third mora from the end of the word and moves accordingly if a clitic (a form, often pronominal, without independent stress) is added to the end of the word, for example, "book", but kitābū=humā"the book of two".

It is widely believed that in LAL (and in general in Semitic languages) consonants and vowels are functionally opposed: lexical meaning is assigned to consonants, and grammatical meaning is assigned to vowels. This statement is not entirely correct; The LAL grammatical system has a large inventory of affixes, consisting not only of vowels, but also of consonants. Wed, for example: the indicator of women. kind = t; indicators of the dual and suffix (as opposed to "broken") plural. numbers = ani/ayni and = ūna/ina; personal prefixes and suffixes of the verb conjugation; doubling root consonants in a number of forms is also used to convey grammatical meanings.

At the same time, with a synchronous (i.e., irrespective of its historical development) description of Arabic grammar in verbal stems and derived stems of verbal names, it is indeed possible to single out a root consisting only of consonants, usually three (the so-called three-consonant root: ktb"write", qtl"kill", " lm"know", etc.). In non-derivative primary nominal and verbal stems, in a number of cases it is possible to establish a historical root vowel. The last category of words also includes pronouns, prepositions, particles, and some other invariable words.

According to lexico-grammatical criteria, three main categories of words are distinguished in LAL: name, verb and particles. Within the name, adjectives are distinguished according to some morphological and syntactic features; according to lexical - pronouns and numerals. Nominal parts of speech are characterized by categories of gender (masculine and feminine), number (singular, dual and plural), case (there are only three cases in Arabic - nominative, genitive and accusative, and each of them has one of three qualitatively different vowels as its indicator - u, i and a respectively), state (definite - with the article " al, which, depending on the phonetic neighborhood, can appear in various forms, and indefinite), categories of diminutive and comparative superlatives.

The verb is characterized by systems of aspectual-temporal forms, voice (also for derivative participles), persons, numbers, gender, as well as a system of syntactically determined forms, conditionally called moods. In addition, the verb in LAL is characterized by a special lexical and grammatical category of action characteristics in terms of its intensity, direction, causality, etc. This category has ten bases called "breeds" or "extended bases" (i.e., in addition to the original primary base, or "breed", there are nine more derivatives); For example, " alima(breed I) "he knew" allama(II) "he taught", " a ="lama(IV) "he informed, let know", " ista"lama(X) "he asked for information for himself", etc. From the same extended stems, the corresponding verbal names (or participles) are formed " alim =(I) "knowing, learned", mu ="allim=(II) "teacher", etc.

The grammatical ways of word and form formation in LAL are divided into “external”, i.e. affixes, which do not affect the stem and root of the word, and "internal", traditionally called "internal inflection" (alternation of phonemes), changing the stem of the word. In many cases, external flexion is combined with internal.

According to the traditional morphological classification, Arabic is defined as an inflectional language with elements of fusion and agglutination. According to the traditional syntactic classification - as a synthetic type language In the second half of the 20th century. Russian Semitologists and linguists prefer to characterize the method of internal inflection as an agglutinative way of connecting a discontinuous consonantal root with a discontinuous vocal affix - “diffix” (in mixed cases - confix, transfix, etc.) This is where the concept of “discontinuous” morpheme arises (cf. above example with "broken plural"). Accordingly, the typological characteristic of LAL changes towards the agglutinative technique of combining morphemes.

The main types of non-predicative phrases are represented in LAL by attributive and genitive combinations with the order of words "definable - definition". In an attributive phrase, the definition, as a rule, fully agrees with the one defined by gender, number, case and state: "new teacher". In a genitive phrase, the first name (defined) does not take the prepositive article " al = and loses some of the endings (indicator of an indefinite state =n, part of the dual and suffix ending plural): kitabul = mu"allimati"teacher's book" (a certain state for both the first and second members of the phrase); or: kitabu mu"allimatin"a book of (some) teacher" (an indefinite state for both members of the phrase). (Vin. case) “His son returned weeping (crying)” or.

SCIENTIFIC STUDY OF THE ARABIC LANGUAGE

In the history of the study of the Arabic language, first of all, one should single out the Arabic grammatical tradition proper, represented in the period of its greatest prosperity (8th-14th centuries) by several schools. Arabic linguistics during this period perceives some ideas and concepts of the ancient and Indian grammatical traditions, however, the features of the Arabic language attract the attention of the earliest Arabic philologists. An original system of concepts, terms and methods of describing linguistic facts is being developed. Especially significant development in the national Arabic tradition was lexicography.

In turn, the Arabic grammatical tradition exerts its influence on Western Arabic linguistics, which has been developing since the 16th-18th centuries. in Western Europe (first in Spain and Holland, and then in other countries). Despite the fact that European Arabic studies, as well as later, from the 19th century, and Russian (the first Arabic grammar in Russian was published in 1827), begins to study the facts of the Arabic language in line with new general linguistic trends (neogrammatism, comparative historical linguistics and typology) , the influence of the Arabic grammatical tradition is manifested in many works, especially in the descriptive grammars of classical Arabic, throughout the 20th century. However, along with the study of LAL in the 20th century. Western and Russian Arabic linguistics turns to the study of Arabic dialects, as a result of which a special direction is formed - Arabic dialectology.

The typological originality of the LAL grammatical system, the structure of the root and the word, special grammatical ways are of great interest for the structural-typological direction in general linguistics. The lexical richness of the Arabic language, a large number of written monuments and the data of modern Arabic dialects present great opportunities for the further development of comparative historical Semitology and Afroasian linguistics.

Literature:

Krachkovsky I.Yu. Essays on the history of Russian Arabic studies. M. - L., 1950
Zvegintsev V.A. History of Arabic Linguistics. M., 1958
Zavadovsky Yu.N. Arabic dialects of the Maghreb. M., 1962
Russian-Arabic Dictionary. Comp. V.M.Borisov, ed. V.M. Belkin. M., 1967
Gabuchan G.I. Article theory and problems of Arabic syntax. M., 1972
Khrakovsky V.S. Essays on General and Arabic Syntax. M., 1973
Belkin V.M. Arabic lexicology. M., 1975
Baranov Kh.K. Arabic-Russian Dictionary, 5th ed. M., 1976
Mishkurov E.N. Fundamentals of Theoretical Grammar of Modern Arabic, ch. 1–2. M., 1978 –1979
Essays on the history of Arab culture in the 5th–15th centuries. M., 1982
Yushmanov N.V. Grammar of Literary Arabic, ed. 3. M., 1985
Linguistic encyclopedic Dictionary . M., 1990
Sharbatov G.Sh. Arabic Literary Language, Modern Arabic Dialects and Regional Spoken Languages. - In the book: Languages ​​of Asia and Africa, vol. 4, book. 1. M., 1991
Grande B.M. Arabic Grammar Course in Comparative Historical Lighting, 2nd ed. M., 1998
Shagal V.E. Arab countries: language and society. M., 1998
Belova A.G. Essays on the history of the Arabic language. M., 1999



Arabs write from right to left - I know almost everything about this. However, only these interesting facts regarding this very unusual, rich and very popular language are not limited. Much more can be said about him.

1. Arabic belongs to the Semitic branch of the Afroasian group. Today it is one of the most common and, its importance is gradually increasing. According to various estimates, from 250 to 350 million people live in the world who speak this language. It is state in 26 countries of the world in the East and in Africa. Also, to one degree or another, this language is familiar to numerous followers of Islam around the world.

2. There are 5 groups of Arabic dialects. Speakers of individual dialects related to different groups, can hardly understand each other, and more often they do not understand at all. The most common of them is Egyptian, since it is in Egypt that the largest number Arabic speakers (about 70 million). At the same time, there is a single literary or standard language.

3. Standard Arabic is one of the 6 official languages ​​of the UN. It publishes a huge amount of printed matter. It is the language of literature and business communication. And thanks to the ubiquity of the Internet, the differences between individual dialects and the literary language are gradually being erased.

4. The oldest work written in Arabic (classical Arabic literary language) is the Quran. Many cases are known when people successfully studied Arabic precisely for the purpose of reading the Holy Book in the original language. There are also many other remarkable literary monuments. For example, the tales of "A Thousand and One Nights", the ruby ​​of Omar Khayyam and much more.

5. As Modern Literary Arabic continues to evolve, the number of differences between it and Classical Arabic gradually increases. This changes not only vocabulary, but also grammar.

6. There is an opinion that Arabic is one of the richest languages, containing a huge number of concepts that are very difficult to translate into other languages. It should be noted that the Arabs were historically reluctant to borrow other people's words, preferring to create their own. Fortunately, the word-formation possibilities of this language are really huge. However, much depends on the dialect. So, in the Egyptian dialect there are a lot of borrowings from French.

7. At the same time, a lot of modern concepts and names from Arabic (Arabisms) came to other languages. These are words such as "algebra", "algorithm", "Aldebaran", "giraffe", "coffee", "syrup" and many others.

8. The Arabic language has simply had a huge impact on the modern one. Not surprising, because a significant part of the Iberian Peninsula has long been under the rule of the Arabs. At least 10% of the words in modern Spanish come from Arabic. In addition, a noticeable influence was exerted on grammar and phonetics.

9. Arabic writing is a special topic. The alphabet of this language includes 28 letters, which allow you not only to compose words, but to create entire written drawings and patterns. Needless to say, Arabic calligraphy is a whole area of ​​decorative art, the origin of which has long been disputed by scientists. But so far everything remains only at the level of hypotheses.

10. There are no capital letters in Arabic, punctuation marks are also written from right to left, and underlining is used instead of underlining. The Arabic script was formed in Arabia, in the III-IV centuries. AD It is interesting that Arabs who study Western languages ​​often make the same mistake - they forget to put capital letters.

11. Arabic is considered one of the most difficult languages ​​to learn. This is facilitated by an unusual writing, in which it is difficult to separate one letter from another, as well as a very complex grammar. The matter is not limited to cramming alone, you need to radically change your way of thinking and work hard on pronunciation.

[ ] - insignificant or extremely small population groups

Regions Arabic world official status

Algeria Algeria,
Bahrain Bahrain,
Djibouti Djibouti,
Egypt Egypt,
Israel Israel,
Jordan Jordan,
Iraq Iraq,
Yemen Yemen,
Qatar Qatar,
Comoros Comoros,
Kuwait Kuwait,
Lebanon Lebanon,
Libya Libya,
Mauritania Mauritania,
Morocco Morocco,
UAE UAE,
Oman Oman,
Eritrea Eritrea,
Saudi Arabia Saudi Arabia ,
Syria Syria,
Somalia Somalia,
Sudan Sudan,
Tunisia Tunisia,
Chad Chad,
SADR SADR
() ,
State of Palestine State of Palestine
(partially recognized state),
Somaliland Somaliland
(unrecognized state).
Organizations:

Regulatory organization Arabic Language Academy in Cairo [d] and Arabic Language Academy in Damascus Total number of speakers from 260 to 323 million Rating 5 Status safe [d] Classification Semitic family West Semitic branch Central Semitic group Arabian subgroup Writing Arabic alphabet Language codes GOST 7.75–97 ara 050 ISO 639-1 ar ISO 639-2 ara ISO 639-3 ara Ethnologue ara Linguasphere 12-AAC IETF ar Glottolog See also: Project:Linguistics

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Subtitles

Dialects

Modern colloquial Arabic falls into 5 groups of dialects that are actually separate languages ​​from a linguistic point of view:

• Maghreb group of dialects
• Egyptian-Sudanese Arabic
• Syro-Mesopotamian Arabic
• Arabian dialect group
• Central Asian group of dialects

The Maghreb language belongs to the western group, the rest - to the eastern group of Arabic languages ​​​​and dialects. (See Problem “language or dialect”); It is preferable to use the term “dialect” established in Arabic studies ( Arab. لهجة ‎)

The literary language (in Western Arabic studies the term English is used. Modern Standard Arabic - modern standard Arabic) is one. Literary Arabic combines vocabulary for many things in modern world or science, but at the same time in some Arab countries is rarely used in colloquial speech.

The place of the Arabic language in the Semitic language group

Classical Arabic differs little from Old Arabic. Many Semitic roots are also found in Arabic. There has been a tendency in Semitic studies in the past to regard Classical Arabic as the most archaic of the Semitic languages. However, over time, through comparison with other Afroasiatic languages, it has been found that much of Classical Arabic is not so original.

Story

Over the centuries, the language was constantly changing, which, however, had little effect on writing, because short vowels, except in the Koran, are not written in the text.

Classical (High) Arabic is not the native language of the Arabs today. However, even today, with a modified vocabulary, it is used in almost all newspapers and books, with the exception of Tunisia, Morocco and partly Algeria, where Arabic shares the role of a literary language with French. In scientific and technical literature in other Arab countries, in places where the necessary vocabulary is not available, English is often used.

Vocabulary

The vocabulary of the modern Arabic literary language is characterized by the fact that its main part is originally Arabic. “The Arabs highly value the word-formation possibilities of their language, seeing in the richness and clarity of word-formation paradigms the key to adapting the Arabic literary language to the current state of society. Moreover, it should be noted that in modern nomination processes, models with a high generalization rate are the most active. So, recently the vocabulary of the Arabic literary language has been significantly replenished due to derivative names formed by adding the suffix ية- ‎, which forms a derivative series with the meaning of generalized abstract qualities and properties: استقلالية ‎ independence; حركية ‎ dynamism, dynamics; شمولية ‎ maximalism; totalitarianism; اشكلالية ‎ - problem, etc.” . Some of the vocabulary is general Semitic and only a small foreign language, such as the words: "television" - تليفزيون ‎, دكتورة ‎ the title of doctor, سكرتير ‎ secretary, فيلم ‎ film. The total number of loanwords from European languages ​​is small, accounting for about one percent of the vocabulary.

For the Arabic literary language, four large synchronous slices of vocabulary development are distinguished: the pre-Islamic dictionary of the communal-tribal system (end of the 7th - and beginning of the 8th centuries); expansion of the vocabulary associated with the origin, development and prosperity of the medieval Arabic-speaking civilization (until the 12th century); a period of stagnation and a reduction in the range of use of the Arabic literary language (XIII-XVIII centuries) and the beginning of the modern period (from the middle of the XIX century).

Synonymy, polysemy of words and homonymy have been widely developed in the Arabic language. The main methods of word formation are: morphological - according to word-formation models and formulas, syntactic and semantic.

Despite the fact that the vocabulary is very rich, it is often not standardized enough and is often overloaded with the linguistic past. For example, there is no word that exactly matches the word nation. The word (أمة ‎, ummah) denoting in the past, and in a religious context to this day, “a community of believers (Muslims)”; or, for example, "nationality" (جنسية ‎, jinsiya) in general means "sexual belonging", for example "sex life" sounds like (حياة الجنسية ‎, haya: t al-jinsiyya). The word "nationalism" (قومية ‎, kaumiya) comes originally from vocabulary nomads kaum and means "tribe" in the sense of "nomadic tribe".

In a similar way, very old and very modern concepts are often intertwined in one word, without the slightest contact in terms of word origin. There are also loanwords from Aramaic, Greek, and many modern terms from English.

Phonetics

Phonetically, literary Arabic is characterized by a widely developed system of consonant phonemes, especially guttural, emphatic and interdental.

“In the phonetic sections of grammatical works, either only the articulations of Arabic sounds were described, or also their combinatorial change. The Indian system of classification of sounds, based on the place of articulation and other articulatory features, had a significant influence on the Arabs. The technique of comparing sounds in articulatory and functional relations was used. Avicenna introduced the concept of correlation to establish relationships between sounds. Gemination cases were qualified as the result of complete progressive or regressive contact assimilation. Partial and distant assimilation was described. Questions were studied about the interaction of consonants and vowels, about the replacement of consonants, about metathesis, about the loss of hamza, about elision, about the emergence of a connecting vowel, about palatalization, velarization, about sound symbolism.

Pronunciation

Efforts are underway in many Arab countries to bring the pronunciation closer to standard Arabic. The basis is the citation norm (ar. tilāwa تلاوة ‎) of the Koran. This style of pronunciation is usually used only in a religious context.

It can be stated with certainty that the original pronunciation of High Arabic is not exactly known. For example, there is no consensus on the pronunciation of the ending un indefinite nouns ( kitabun etc. kitab). There are arguments in favor of two options, and since there were no vowels (vowels) in the ancient handwritten script, it is impossible to say with certainty how it was pronounced.

Writing

Arabic is written from right to left. Moreover, in Arabic, unlike languages ​​with Latin or Cyrillic graphics, there are no capital letters, so proper names are written like any other word, as well as the first word in a sentence.

Anthroponymy

Swadesh list for Arabic
№	Arab	Russian
1	أنا	I
2	أنت	you
3	هو	is he
4	نحن	we
5	أنتم	you
6	هم	they
7	هذا	this, this
8	ذلك	that, then
9	هنا	here
10	هناك	there
11	من	who (ex. local)
12	ما	what (ex. place)
13	أين	where (ex. places)
14	متى	when (ex. place)
15	كيف	how (ex. place)
16	لا,ما	not (ما - negation with the verb Prov.)
17	كل	all, all, all, all
18	كثير	many, numerous
19	بعض	some
20	قليل	small, few (ex. قبل قليل - some time ago)
21	آخر	other, different
22	واحد	one
23	اثنان	two
24	ثلاثة	three
25	أربعة	four
26	خمسة	five
27	عظيم,كبير	big, great
28	طويل	long, long, tall
29	عريض, واسع	wide
30	سميك	thick
31	ثقيل	heavy
32	صغير	little
33	قصير	short, short, undersized
34	ضيق	narrow
35	رقيق	thin
36	امرأة	female
37	رجل	the male
38	رجل, إنسان	Human
39	طفل	child, child
40	زوجة	wife
41	زوج	husband
42	أم,والدة	mother
43	والد, أب	father
44	حيوان	beast, animal
45	سمك	fish
46	طائر	bird, bird
47	كلب	dog, dog
48	قملة	louse
49	ثعبان	snake
50	دودة	worm
51	شجرة	wood
52	غابة	forest
53	عصا	stick, rod
54	فاكهة	fruit
55	بذرة	seed, seeds
56	ورق	sheet
57	جذر	root
58	قشرة	bark
59	زهرة	flower
60	عشب	grass
61	حبل	rope
62	جلد	leather
63	لحم	meat
64	دم, دماء	blood
65	عظم	bone
66	دهن	fat
67	بيضة	egg
68	قرن	horn
69	ذيل	tail
70	قلم	pen (writing utensil)
71	شعر	hair
72	رأس	head
73	الأذن	ear
74	عين	eye, eye
75	أنف	nose
76	فم	mouth
77	سن	tooth
78	لغة	language (adverb, dialect)
79	مسمار	nail
80	قدم	foot
81	ساق	leg
82	ركبة	knee
83	يد	hand
84	جناح	wing
85	معدة	belly, belly
86	في الداخل	entrails, intestines
87	عنق	neck
88	ظهر	back
89	صدر	breast
90	قلب	a heart
91	كبد	liver
92	شرب	drink
93	أكل	eat, eat
94	عض	bite
95	مص	suck
96	بصق	spit
97	تقيؤ	tear, vomit
98	ضرب	beat, hit
99	تنفس	breathe
100	ضحك	laugh

Arabic names are traditionally written in direct order.

Grammar

Arab scholars usually divided grammar into syntax, morphology and phonetics and paid considerable attention to the issues of word formation, and in connection with it etymology, thanks to which in the 11th century. the root theory reached a high level. Syntax and morphology are the most original parts of Arabic grammar, having no sources in either Greek or Indian works and focused on the specifics of the Arabic language.

The task of syntax was the structural-semantic analysis of the sentence. It postulated a subject-predicate relationship between two names or between a name and a verb. The sentences were small/elementary and large, forming a hierarchy; nominal, verbal and adverbial sentences - depending on which word is at the beginning of the sentence, and, accordingly, different types of subjects and predicates. Secondary members of the sentence were singled out and classified in detail (up to five types of additions, circumstances of different types, “applications”). There were cases of formal and virtual implementation of inflections. The concept of an implied member was introduced to explain the construction. Relations of coordination, control and contiguity were also analyzed.

In morphology, parts of speech and features of their formation that were not syntactically determined were considered. This included such issues as parts of speech (name, verb and particles up to 27 types), root structure, names and their multidimensional classification for various reasons (explicit names - nouns, adjectives, hidden names - personal pronouns, general names - demonstrative and relative pronouns, etc.), verbs (with a detailed classification of their forms and meanings), two-case and three-case names, the formation of relative names, the formation of composites, the formation of forms of number and gender, the formation of deminatives, changes in the form of a word due to the presence of weak root consonants , pausal forms, etc. The question of masdar was also discussed here.

Particularly great successes were achieved in phonetics (Khalil ibn Ahmad; Abu Ali ibn Sina - Avicenna, 980-1037; Sibaveyhi).

The Arabic language is characterized by highly developed inflection. (The inflection and similarity of the inflection of the Semitic and Indo-European languages ​​has been called into question by some researchers of the languages. The inflection of the Indo-European languages ​​is a different phenomenon from the inflection of the Semitic languages, since it implies a stronger interaction of inflection with the root. The Arabic language is characterized by agglutination. Some scientists, in particular, A. A. Reformatsky, they believe that the fusion of Semitic languages ​​is a special form of agglutination, since the fusion of a Semitic word is a predictable process and follows relatively strict formulas that Arabic authors like to represent using the three-letter root فعل with the meaning make, and the vowels themselves forming a fusion, as a rule, are independent of the root. A similar, but not analogous, phenomenon is seen in a number of non-Semitic languages, in particular Germanic. Such are, for example, pairs of words of the singular and plural in English, like foot - feet, tooth - teeth, or changes in root vowels in irregular verbs English or so-called strong verbs German language, but in the Germanic languages ​​there is no regularity in the reproduction of the so-called fusion formulas. Most words in Arabic can be traced back to the original form of the verb, which usually consists of three or four (rarely two or five) consonants of the root.

Although the root is indivisible for the speaker's mind, some familiarity with the analysis of the root is useful for facilitating the memorization of such an extensive root word as Arabic is endowed with, and for the feasible interpretation of unfamiliar roots when reading without a dictionary.

Root of the word

The Arabic root is most often three-letter, less often two- or four-letter, and even less often five-letter; but already for a four-letter root, a requirement is set that it contains at least one of the smooth consonants (vox memoriae (memory): مُرْ بِنَفْلٍ).

According to the well-known Russian Arabist S. S. Meisel, the number of triconsonant roots in the modern Arabic literary language is 82% of the total number of the Arabic root word.

Not any consonants can participate in the composition of the root: some of them are compatible in the same root (more precisely, in the same cell; see below: b), others are incompatible.

Incompatible:

1. Glottal: غ ع خ ح (if ع and ء are compatible)
2. Non-laryngeal:

ب and فم

ت and ث

ث and س ص ض ط ظ

ج and ف ق ك

خ and ظقك

د and ذ

ذ and ص ض ط ظ

ر and ل

ز and ض ص ظ

س and ص ض

ش and ضل

ص and ض ط ظ

ض and ط ظ

ط and ظك

ظ and غق

غ and ق ك

ق and ك غ

ل and ن

This feature of the composition of the Arabic root somewhat facilitates the task of the reader of the manuscript without dots; for example, the spelling حعڡر ‎ should be جَعْفَر ‎

It should be noted that the translation of the cases الرَّفْعُ, الجَرُّ and النَّصْبُ is very conditional, since the genitive and accusative cases of the Arabic language include such names that, when translated, can be in any of the remaining three cases of the Russian language:

Zayd cut the rope with a knife ( instrumental case).

تَكَلَّمْنَا عَنْ اَلدِّرَاسَةِ - الجَرُّ We talked about studying (prepositional case).

قُلْ لِمُحَمَّدٍ - الجَرُّ Say to Muhammad (dative).

قَاوَمَ اَلشَّعْبُ اَلْمُسْتَعْمِرِينَ - اَلنَّصْبُ The people fought against the colonizers (active case).

The signs by which the case is recognized are different and they depend on the morphological features of the name.

Noun

A noun in Arabic has such morphological concepts as gender, number - singular, dual (very rarely used in dialects) and plural, case and state, as well as the categories of definiteness, indefiniteness and neutral status.

Genus. There are only two genders in Arabic: masculine and feminine. Names with the characteristic ending [atun] are often feminine. In general, the belonging of a name to a particular genus is associated with a meaning, for example, with a sign of gender.

For example, the noun أُمٌّ ["ummun]-(mother), despite its ending, is feminine. For many nouns denoting the name of a profession or occupation, the feminine gender is formed simply by adding the endings [-atun] to the corresponding masculine name. For example:

طَالِبٌ [ student]

طَالِبَةٌ [ student]

To pass on the graduation letter femaleﺓ [t̄’ marbӯṭa ], a letter that is not in the alphabet, is used. It is a graphic variant of the usual ت [t], which is called [t̄ ’], or “stretched t”. Connecting the ends of the “stretched t” with each other, we get ﺓ [t̄’ marbutṭa]. In Semitic languages, [t] is one of the main indicators of gender. When agreeing with names, ت is used in verbs, and ﺓ in names. [t̄’ marbutụa] is written only at the end of a word and can have two styles: without connection - ﺓ ‎ and when connected on the right - ﺔ ‎.

Verb

The verb is characterized by a high development of verb forms, called breeds: a single system of conjugation of all verbs; a developed system of temporary forms (three simple and three complex tenses); two pledges (real and passive); five

Geographically, the Arab world covers the region from the Atlantic Ocean near the northern part East Africa to the Arabian Sea. A wide strip of the planet, including territory throughout North Africa, a large cluster in Southwest Asia and the Arabian Peninsula, is connected by Arabic.

A Semitic language related to Hebrew, spoken by citizens of the member states of the Arab States, founded in 1945 to represent the interests of the Arab people and achieve political unification of the Arab countries.

The political boundaries of the Arab world have historically deviated, leaving Arabs as minorities in the non-Arab countries of the Sahel and the Horn of Africa and the Middle Eastern countries (Cyprus, Turkey and Iran). At the same time, non-Arab minorities remained in Arab countries. However, the core geography of the sea, deserts, and mountains provide strong natural boundaries for the region.

Kingdom of Bahrain

• the capital is Manama;
• the official language is Arabic.

Located in the Persian Gulf in the Bahrain archipelago, in southwestern Asia. The state is governed as a constitutional monarchy, since 2002 under the leadership of the Sunni king Hamad ibn Isa Al-Khalifa, whose family has all the major political and military posts in the government. The gap between the Shia majority and the Sunni population led to long-term tensions, which periodically escalated into civil disobedience.

Bahrain is one of the first countries in the Persian Gulf where oil was discovered (production started in 1932) and an oil refinery was built. The energy sector remains the backbone of the kingdom's economy, accounting for a significant share of government revenue, but the share of GDP is also declining due to earlier efforts to diversify the economy away from hydrocarbons.

Failing to reach production levels like Kuwait or Saudi Arabia, Bahrain was forced to diversify its economy. This led to the kingdom becoming one of the main financial centers in the region. Transport links are being modernized, and work is underway to expand Bahrain International Airport, which is expected to enhance the country's status as a transit and logistics hub.

Iraq

• capital - Baghdad;
• official languages ​​are Arabic and Kurdish.

Once the land of great civilizations, Iraq, located in western Asia, in modern history became a field for competing forces with high level sectarian violence following the US-initiated overthrow of President Saddam Hussein in 2003. The Shia-led governments that have held power ever since have struggled to maintain order, but the country has had only brief respite.

Archaeological Sites of Samarra, Iraq

Chaos and violence prevent the recovery of an economy ravaged by decades of conflict and sanctions. Iran is the third largest country in the world in terms of crude oil reserves. The economy is expected to grow slightly in 2019, but much depends on the rise and fall in oil production and the economic impact of the Islamic State (IS) insurgency. The budget deficit is constantly growing.

The main ethnic groups are Arabs and Kurds. Others are Assyrians, Turkmens, Shabakis, Yezidis, Armenians, Mandaeans, Circassians and Cavlias.

• capital - Doha;
• the official language is Arabic.

Since gaining independence in 1971, Qatar has quickly become a regional and international leader. Economic, political and Cultural Center Middle East. With a relatively small local population and significant natural gas revenues, Qatar has the world's highest GDP per capita (averaging around US$100,000).

Until 2010, the country was mostly known internationally as the home of the Al Jazeera media network, but that all changed when Qatar won the bid to host the 2022 FIFA World Cup in December 2010.

Numerous large billboard infrastructures continue to expand the construction industry. By focusing on extensive international investment, sufficient spending on significant infrastructure projects, labor migration issues, and state involvement in foreign and regional affairs, Qatar has made a name for itself in the international arena.

Qatar's significant oil and natural gas reserves underpin rapid economic growth.

The country is the world's fourth largest producer of dry natural gas and the largest producer of liquefied natural gas, making hydrocarbon revenues the bulk of national income.

Although the fall in world energy prices affected export earnings, last years hard diversification of the economy led to dividends, and in 2015 non-hydrocarbon growth reached 7.7% compared to a 0.1% decline for hydrocarbon growth over the same period. The country's financial sector continues to develop; Islamic banking in particular has seen significant progress.

Jordan

• capital - Amman;
• the official language is Arabic.

The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan is located in the heart of the Middle East, in a region often referred to as the Levant. Jordan's significance stems from its strategic location - at the crossroads of what Christians, Jews and Muslims call the Holy Land.

It shares land borders with Israel, Palestine, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Syria. In the south it has access to the Red Sea through the Arabian Gulf. Jordan has few natural resources, but has played an important role in the power struggle in the Middle East. Key US ally. One of two Arab countries (together with Egypt) that has a peace agreement with Israel.

• the capital is Sana'a;
• language is Arabic.

Despite its ancient roots as a crossroads between Africa, the Middle East and Asia, the modern Republic of Yemen is a relatively young state. It was founded in 1990 as a result of the merger of North Yemen (officially the Yemeni Arab Republic) and South Yemen (officially the People's Democratic Republic of Yemen).

Yemen is the poorest country in the Middle East. The ongoing conflict in the country has caused a catastrophic humanitarian crisis. As of 2019, about 17 million Yemenis (60 percent of total strength population) in need of any humanitarian assistance, 7 million are severely food insecure.

(El Kuwait; Arabic).

Kuwait is a small country located in southwestern Asia, in the upper part of the Persian Gulf region, surrounded by powerful neighbors: Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Iran. The strategic position and huge oil reserves make Kuwait one of the richest countries in the world (5th place in GDP per capita). US ally.

A conservative state (sheikhship) with a Sunni Muslim majority, Kuwait stands out from other monarchies in the Persian Gulf region for being the most open political system. As a member of the Cooperation Council for the Arab States of the Gulf and the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, Kuwait is arguably the most politically dynamic in the region, with tensions remaining between parliament and the cabinet, controlled by the Al-Sabah ruling family. The government is facing growing opposition calls for radical political reform.

Continuing efforts to diversify the economy and reduce dependence on oil revenues, Kuwait is increasing momentum in several major infrastructure projects, which should contribute to the further integration of the country into the world economy.

To visit the country is necessary.

(Beirut; Arabic).

With a high level of literacy and a traditional commodity culture, Lebanon has always been an important trading center in the Middle East. Located on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea, between Israel and Syria, Lebanon is the smallest country in the Middle East. But, despite its compact size, throughout its history it has played an important role in regional politics and security. Shia Muslims, Sunni Muslims, Christians and Druze represent the main populations in a country that has always been a refuge for the region's minorities.

After years of political turmoil, Lebanon has regained its former reputation as the "Switzerland of the Middle East" and is emerging as an important international destination for both leisure and business. Pristine natural beauties, beautiful mountain and sea resorts, excellent weather, great food, European architecture, exciting nightlife, casinos, international hotels attract wealthy travelers from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar and the UAE.

If you plan to visit the country and stay there for more than 30 days, then you must.

(Abu Dhabi; Arabic).

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) - a federation of seven emirates - is one of the most important economic centers of the Middle East. Before oil was discovered in the 1950s, the UAE's economy depended on fishing and pearling. The UAE has diversified and has become a regional trade and tourism hub. UAE companies have invested heavily in foreign countries.

Despite traditional conservatism, the UAE is one of the most liberal countries in the Persian Gulf. However, politically they remain an authoritarian state. Federal absolute monarchy. The two most famous emirates are cosmopolitan Dubai and oil-rich Abu Dhabi.

In recent years, both have played a key role in managing trade and investment between the region and the rest of the world. Lesser known emirates are Umm Al Quwain, Ajman, Sharjah, Ras Al Khaimah and Fujairah. Although recently they are also becoming important shopping centers.

Relations with neighboring Iran remain strained due to the ongoing territorial dispute over the Persian Gulf islands. The UAE was one of three countries that recognized Taliban rule in Afghanistan.

Oman

(Muscat; Arabic).

Located in the southeastern part of the Arabian Peninsula, Oman is the only member of the Cooperation Council for the Arab States of the Gulf located outside the Gulf itself (at the mouth of the Persian Gulf in the southeastern corner of the Arabian Peninsula). Using its strategic position, it has invested in infrastructure with the aim of becoming a global logistics hub.

The country has less hydrocarbon reserves than the neighboring Arab states of the Persian Gulf, and efforts to diversify the sultanate have been made, driving economic growth. The long-term development strategy, Oman Vision 2020, emphasizes industrialization, privatization and omanization. Logistics, tourism, mining, fisheries and industrial production are identified as potential future economic drivers and are the focus of development under the 2040 vision.

The oldest independent state in the Arab world, Oman is one of the most traditional countries in the region. Oman has not been immune to political dissent in the region. Protests in 2011 demanding reforms were broken up by police, and the following year the government began cracking down on online criticism.

Those wishing to travel to the country must.

Saudi Arabia

(Riyadh; Arabic).

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is one of the main players in the Arab world. Authority is built on geographic size, prestige as the birthplace of Islam, and the colossus' status as an oil producer. It is distinguished by the support of the puritanical version of Sunni Islam, which welcomes severe punishments, executions (public beheadings), and the oppression of women. it just doesn't come out.

State of Palestine

• the capital is Ramallah;
• language is Arabic.

Sovereign de jure state in the Middle East. the West Bank - bordering Israel and Jordan - and the Gaza Strip - bordering Israel and Egypt - with East Jerusalem as the designated capital, although the administrative center is located in Ramallah. The Palestinians seek self-determination but have achieved only limited control over their territories. The economy is fragmented and subject to Israeli restrictions. A significant part of the population depends on international food aid.

The Palestinian population - about ten or eleven million people - is divided between historical Palestine and the diaspora in neighboring Arab countries. Efforts to establish a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza on the Mediterranean coast have been thwarted by ongoing conflict with Israel and disputes over the status of diaspora Palestinians.

The war that followed the Israeli declaration of independence in 1948 saw the former British Mandate of Palestine divided among Israel, Trans-Jordan and Egypt. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fled or were forced to leave their homeland during the war - the Palestinian Exodus, which they call the "Nakba" ("catastrophe").

Syria

The capital is Damascus.

Once the center of the Islamic Caliphate, Syria occupied territory that had been invaded for centuries, from the Romans and Mongols to the Crusaders and the Turks. A country of fertile plains, high mountains, and deserts, home to various ethnic and religious groups, including Kurds, Armenians, Assyrians, Christians, Druze, Alawite Shiites, and Arab Sunnis, the latter of which make up the majority of the Muslim population.

Modern Syria gained independence from France in 1946, but has experienced periods of political instability due to the conflicting interests of these various groups.
Since 2011 political power, which had been in the hands of a small elite, was contested in a violent civil conflict, initially sparked by the Arab Spring, which turned into a complex war involving regional and international powers.

Algeria's national commitment to pan-Arabism and the Arab world in the Middle East and North Africa has led to an active role in the region. He joined the League of Arab States (LAS) immediately after the declaration of national independence in 1962.

To leave for Algeria is necessary.

Djibouti

• the capital is Djibouti;
• languages ​​- Arabic, French.

Located on the northeast coast of Africa, in the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, Djibouti - officially the Republic of Djibouti - is washed by the Gulf of Aden in the east, bordering Eritrea, Ethiopia and Somalia.

Due to its geographic location, Djibouti is of significant geopolitical interest, controlling access to and access to the main waterway - the Red Sea and one of the busiest shipping routes in the world, the Suez Canal. Djibouti was under the protectorate of France (first a colony, then an overseas territory) until 1977. Supports foreign military presence: In 2002, the United States of America established the largest American military base in Africa (Camp Lemonnier) in Djibouti.

The seaport is the main source of the economy, providing the largest source of income and employment. As for metals and minerals, there are some deposits of gold, granite, limestone and marble. Djibouti is also looking to harness its significant geothermal resources to meet domestic energy demand.

• capital - Cairo;
• language is Arabic.

Famed for its ancient civilization, Egypt, the largest Arab country, plays a central role in Middle Eastern politics and in the modern era. Egypt's major cities and almost all agricultural activity are concentrated along the banks and the Nile Delta. Most of the country is occupied by deserts.

The economy is highly dependent on Agriculture, tourism and remittances of Egyptians working abroad, mainly in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf countries. However, rapid population growth and limited arable land drain the resources of the country and the economy, and political instability often paralyzes government efforts to resolve problems.

Egypt's great past and the fact that it was one of the first countries in the Middle East to open up to the Western world after Napoleon's invasion gives it the right to claim the role of intellectual and cultural leader in the region. Al-Azhar Mosque ( The Mosque of the Most Radiant) in Cairo is a symbol of Islamic Egypt and highly revered in the Sunni Muslim world.

The Saharan Arab Democratic Republic (SADR), declared by the Polisario Front in 1976, is now recognized by many governments and is a full member of the African Union. A buffer strip with land mines and fortifications runs along the length disputed territory and separates the western part in Morocco from the eastern area controlled by the Polisario Front.

In addition to phosphate reserves and rich fishing grounds off the coast, Western Sahara is believed to have offshore oil fields.

Libya

• the capital is Tripoli;
• language is Arabic.

Libya, located in North Africa, in the Maghreb region, a mostly desert, oil-rich country with ancient history. It is washed in the north by the Mediterranean Sea, borders on Egypt, Sudan, Chad, Niger, Algeria and Tunisia. In modern history, it is known for the 42-year rule of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi and the chaos that followed his overthrow in 2011 as a result of an armed insurgency with the assistance of Western military intervention. In recent years, Libya has been a key springboard for migrants heading to Europe.

There are serious concerns about the growth of Islamist militancy. The Libyan economy continues to shrink. Inflow of direct foreign investment almost stopped, unemployment rose sharply. The current account deficit was almost half of GDP in 2017, while exports fell sharply. Crude oil production has been declining since 2013. In the next few years, the economy may recover, but this is largely dependent on a stable government and improved security.

To travel to Libya, foreigners need

arabskylanguagesto (Arab. اللغة العربية‎‎, al-luga al-ʿarabiyya) - Refers to the Semitic branch of the Afroasian family of languages. One of the most basic languages ​​of religion and literature in the world. The language of the greatest book of the Islamic world KORAN and a monument of medieval Arabic literature "Tales of the Thousand and One Nights" (الف ليلة وليلة‎‎ alf laila wa-laila), united by the story of King Shahriyar and his wife named Shahrazad (Scheherazade, Scheherazade). All of us familiar numbers from 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9 have Arabic. These figures originated in India (no later than the 5th century), and became known to Europe in the 10th-13th centuries. based on Arabic writings (hence the name).

The number of speakers of Arabic and its variants is 420 million people (as of 2000). The official language of all Arab countries is Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Western Sahara, Jordan, Iraq, Yemen, Qatar, Comoros, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, UAE, Oman, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Sudan, Tunisia. It also has official status in Djibouti, Chad, Eritrea, Mali, Senegal. It is spoken by the national minority of Israel, Iran and France. The Maltese dialect of Arabic has a literary written form that is different from Standard Arabic (see below) and is the only Arabic dialect that is considered a language in its own right and has the status of an official language. Arabic is the official and working language of several international organizations - the UN General Assembly and some other UN bodies, the League of Arab States, which unites more than 22 Arab and friendly non-Arab countries (created March 22 1945 and since then this day is celebrated arab day), the African Union, which unites 53 African states.

Arabic in broad sense words are the union of a large number of different oral forms (dialects) that have been formed over the past one and a half thousand years.

The first epigraphic (mainly on stone) monuments Arabic- these are messages about the movement of fellow tribesmen, shepherds with herds of camels, as well as tombstones and dedicatory inscriptions. AT pre-Islamic period such inscriptions used the Nabataean script (descending from Aramaic) or a variation of the South Arabian (Mabean) script. During this period, an expressive poetic language existed in the Arabian Peninsula, transmitted only orally. On this poetic language rests in part Koran. And to this day, he brought us a picture of how a text of only consonants might look, subsequently supplemented by vowels located above and below the text. In its final form, the Arabic script took shape on the basis of the Nabataean script in mid 7th c. AD. during the period of the records of the Koran (the first written monument of the common Arabic language).

Period 8-12 centuries. in history Arabic characterized by its unification, standardization, the development of literary and written genres and styles, the development of classical poetry, artistic and scientific prose. Arabic becomes the international language of literature and science in the Near and Middle East. The largest scientists of the medieval East create their works on it: al-Farabi (870-950) from Tupkestan, Avicenna (Ibn Sina, 980-1037) from Bukhara, al-Biruni (973-ca. 1050) from Khorezm, Averroes (Ibn Rushd, 1126-1198), a native of Andalusia.

The next period in development and modernization Arabic became turn of the 18th-19th centuries., when the economic contacts of the Arab East with the West intensified. The development of printing, the emergence of the press and, accordingly, new genres of journalism, the emergence of new fiction, drama and poetry are becoming the most important factor in the development Arabic and its adaptation to the new requirements of social, cultural and scientific life. The development of new media and communication in the 20th century contribute to further modernization Arabic.

Modern period characterized by active penetration into the Arabic vocabulary of Western European technical terminology. Despite the purist activities of Arabic language academies in many countries, in modern Arabic new international scientific and technical terms penetrate, tracing papers of standard phrases and turns characteristic of the press and mass media are formed.

Modern colloquial Arabic is divided into 5 groups of dialects, which are actually separate languages ​​from a linguistic point of view:

Maghreb group of dialects (these are countries located west of Egypt: from west to east: Mauritania, Western Sahara, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya. Translated from Arabic, Al-Maghrib is “the country where the sun sets” or “West” .

Egyptian-Sudanese group of dialects;

Syro-Mesopotamian group of dialects;

Arabian group of dialects;

Central Asian group of dialects;

The first belongs to the western group, the rest - to the eastern group of Arabic languages ​​/ dialects.

But the concepts spoken Arabic"(PARADISE) does not exist, but use the concept of "Arabic Literary Language" ( ALA). ALA is the language of communication and writing, radio and television broadcasts are conducted in it, newspapers are published, books are printed (in Tunisia, Morocco and Algeria, along with French), it is the language of the intelligentsia. Without it, it is impossible to imagine the life of a civilized Arab society. Often, Arabs from different countries in a conversation between themselves switch to ALA in order to avoid misunderstandings. ALA grammar is based on formulas. With some effort, Arabic writing can be studied, and ALA grammar is simpler and more logical than many Western languages, especially the Finno-Ugric family of languages: Finnish, Hungarian). For students you should know that the main advantage ALA is that it is understandable in any Arab country. In which Arab country you would not be, you will always be able to explain yourself. A person who speaks ALA or any dialect of Arabic is highly respected by native speakers.

ALA in its ideal form is practically not used in speech in everyday life or family, between friends or in informal situations; this area is almost exclusively reserved for the local dialect. ALA remains predominantly a written language, oral speech can be considered as a variant Spoken Standard Arabic(PARADISE) (one of the Arabic names عامية المثقفين ʻāmmiyat al- "muthaqqafīn lit. "educated dialect"). The term itself has not yet settled in Arabic studies. This variety is a grammatically simplified version of ALA with some elements of local dialects. Colloquial standard it is more common in the countries of the Persian Gulf and the Levant (the dialects of the Levant are themselves very close to ALA), but sometimes the speech of educated Egyptians and the inhabitants of the Maghreb is also called that. Some special broadcasts, television, cinematography, given the audience, refer to PARADISE.

Cultural and historical influence Arabic found in many Asian and African languages. This was facilitated by the spread of Islam and the high cultural status of ALA.

The question is which option ALA or dialect) is more preferable for study by foreigners does not have a clear answer. Depending on the specific needs and applied purpose of training, everyone decides this issue individually. In Russia, the teaching of Arabic mainly begins with the literary language.

P.S. Classical By and large, it does not differ much from Old Arabic. When comparing the roots of the Semitic languages, it is clear that they are all the same with classical Arabic. Therefore, Arabic occupies a central place among all Semitic languages. For a long time, many Semitologists regarded Classical Arabic as the original Semitic language. Only over time, through comparison with other Afroasiatic languages, has it been established that much of Classical Arabic is not as original as was thought.

On the features of writing. Based on the Arabic alphabet. Arabic is written from right to left. Moreover, in Arabic, unlike languages ​​with Latin and Cyrillic graphics, there are no capital letters - therefore, proper names are written with a small letter, as well as the first word in a sentence. Punctuation marks are written upside down, that is, from left to right. Instead underlining, cursive or detente Arabs usually use underlining. Fractional word wrapping to another line is not allowed; empty space in a string is eliminated by stretching the letter. In cursive writing, an unwritten word ends with a turn upwards. The Arabic alphabet evolved from the Phoenician alphabet, incorporating all of its letters and adding to them letters that reflect specifically Arabic sounds. These are letters - sa, ha, zal, dad, za, gayn.

Interesting Facts. There are a considerable number of Arabic words in the Russian language, where they got through intermediary languages: Latin, Western European, Persian, Turkish. In addition to exoticisms like jinn, jihad, vizier, qadi, some names are Arabic in origin stars and constellations: Aldebaran, Altair; a range of scientific terms: algebra and alcohol through spanish, number and zero(sifr, Arabic - zero) through European, algorithm from the Latinized form of the name of the mathematician al-Khwarizmi, the name of the military rank admiral from Dutch and descendant to Arabic emir of the seaamiriI=bahri), and from seas there was nothing left in the form of a word, but a sound appeared d as a result of the "folk etymology" that connected this word with Latin admirer(be amazed).

Most of us love coffee. One way to prepare it is Turkish coffee. They boil it in cezve, other name Turk. Word cezve Arabic origin: Tur. Cezve from Arabic جذوة . Traditionally made of forged copper.

P.S. We ask for an apology from the experts in the field of language for the simplified presentation of some questions of the origin of the language, its development and characteristics. It is written for a "non-linguistic" audience showing an interest in foreign languages.