facts about arabic

Interesting facts about Arabic

1. Arabic script is the third most widely used script in the world, after the Latin and Chinese scripts.

2. Arabic language is actually abjad, meaning they are not alphabets, rather all the letters of Arabic are consonants (letters that produce sound). They are non vowel letters.

3 .Arabic is an ancient Semitic language believed to be over 2000 years old!

4. Arabic is a rich language. The Arabs have over 1000 words just for describing the camel, and over 60 different words for love! The amazing part is that every word has its own shade of meaning. Two words may be similar but they both will have slightly different implications in meaning.

5. Arabic is extremely concise. A sentence of three words in English can be said in just five letters in Arabic. For e.g., “He gave him” is أعطاه in Arabic.

6. Arabic is spoken in 25 countries. Predominantly among the native speakers in the Middle East and North Africa.

7. Arabic builds words from basic roots. For any given word, it can be broken down to mainly three root letters. Different words, with the same root letters, will play around the same meanings. For example; the word كتاب, meaning ‘book,’ comes from the root letters ك-ت-ب, meaning  ‘to write.’ Many more words come from the same root letters like كاتب (writer), مكتبة (bookstore/library) or كتابة (essay). Hope you get the idea.

8. Arabic has many dialects. Despite being the same language, it is spoken by people in different regions in completely different ways to the point that a person from one region may not be able to understand the other!

arabic letters

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