We’ve already told you about the perks of learning Arabic. It can boost your career, help you meet new people, and add new places to your travel bucket list. Indeed, Arabic is an ancient language that’s been around for thousands of years. On the other hand, millions of folks from all around the world speak the language today. Moreover, you’ll find that people from all over the Middle East speak around 30 varieties of the language. What’s more, the language can be placed into four areas of language family origin. We will discussing about the Arabic dialects and their families below:
Egyptian Arabic
The first area where the language started is North Africa, for it was there that the Afro-Asiatic language family started. Thus, out of that family, the Egyptian dialect became the most widely used language of this region.
Arabic arrived in North Africa as a result of the 7th century A.D. Muslim conquest of the area. Before that, the people of Egypt spoke the Coptic language. Of note, there was a time when Coptic influenced other languages such as French, Italian, Turkish, Greek and English.
What’s more is that there are over 90 million people living in Egypt today. With that many people, it’s shocking to learn that the people of Egypt speak languages other than Egyptian Arabic. Yet, most people living in Arabic speaking countries understand the dialect. This is likely due to Egypt’s nearly 100 year rule of the film and media trade in the region. In fact, even big U.S. film companies like Disney dub or subtitle their films in Egyptian Arabic.
All of this leads to the question, “Is Egyptian Arabic hard to learn?” Well, as it is the most widely understood dialect, it’s easy to learn. As a result, we would advise any student of Arabic to learn it.
Omani Arabic
The second dialect is Persian Arabic. It comes from the Indo-Iranian language branch. Omani Arabic is just one of those dialects that came out of this family. Also, it is one of the oldest forms of the language. Still, people from places like Bhutan, the Maldives, Nepal, and other South Asian countries once spoke Omani Arabic. Yet, only a few of those living in Oman’s Al Hajar Mountains and coastal regions speak the language today. The rest of Oman speaks Gulf Arabic. By the way, Omani Arabic was also was once spoken in Kenya and Tanzania.
Levantine Arabic
Coming in at number three is Aramaic which stems from the Northwest Semitic branch of the Afro-Asiatic language family tree. The language includes Phoenician, Hebrew, and other regional languages of Canaan. What’s more, many other languages have borrowed from their letter system, as well.
A major language of sacred study and worship, it is around 3,000 years old. As a result, it was once the language of today’s Levant region, as well as, Kuwait, Turkey and Iran. Still, over time, the language became known as Jordanian Arabic. In fact, today it is the official language of Jordan, though people from the Levant, Iraq, Iran, Turkey and Palestine also speak it, as well.
In the end, it’s still not as famous as the Egyptian dialect, but, this could be because Jordanian Arabic is also a bit harder to learn. This is mostly true of its grammar rules as well as learning how to pronounce the letters of its alphabet.
Moroccan Arabic
Finally, we have Moroccan Arabic. This dialect comes from the same family as the Romance languages of Spanish and French. In day to day Moroccan life you’ll find people using this language on Moroccan TV, in Moroccan films, daily papers and the like. However, the Moroccan dialect is not the most widely used language in the country. In fact, only about half of the country speaks it. The other half speaks the Berber language – the official language of the country.
So, what’s the gist of all of this? Well, if you want to learn Arabic and you’re not sure what dialect to study, we suggest you start with Egyptian Arabic. As it’s more widespread and easy to learn, it seems the most likely choice among the Arabic dialects. Therefore, if you’re still not sure where you want to study or travel in the Middle East, your best bet is to study Egyptian Arabic.
Now you’re probably wondering what the best way to learn Egyptian Arabic is. Why, of course, that would be through the Kaleela Arabic language learning app. Whether it’s the Egyptian dialect, Levantine Arabic or MSA, be sure that Kaleela an easy and most fitting way to learn Arabic today. Download it now from kaleela.com and found out why we say…
Kaleela – Learn Arabic the Right way!
