4 Interesting Facts About Arabic That You Probably Didn’t Know
Arabic Language is gaining grounds on several social media platforms and is quickly
becoming essential to the world of business. Of course, Arabic is known to be a rich language but that doesn’t mean that learning Arabic language has to be all that serious!
Here are few fun facts about Arabic that will encourage you to know more!
1. Arabic Language is inherently cursive
You probably know by now that Arabic Language has a few different rules in writing when
compared to most western languages. For one, Arabic is written from the right to the left.
Not only that, but written Arabic is inherently cursive. That means that you can’t form
coherent words and sentences from separated Arabic letters. Rather, the letters are conjoined to the ones before and after them. All except a few letters including the letter “waw” و. It’s also worth mentioning that the letter و can be used on its own to mean “and”.
2. Arabic Language is breathtakingly complex!
If you consider the following example, it may seem like it’s the repetition of the same word
several times consecutively. However, on closer inspection, you can learn that only two of
those five repetition of the "من" share the same meaning, while each of the others carry an entirely different meaning!
مَنْ مَنَّ مِنْ مَنٍّ مَنَّ اللهُ عليهِ
Depending on the diacritics, the word can be a question word, a verb in the past tense with
meaning “to give”, or a noun with the meaning “gifts”.
The phrase roughly translates to: whoever gives from an offering/gift is rewarded by God’s
gracious gifts.
3. Spoken Arabic isn’t the same everywhere… It has dialects
While the formal Arabic Language is the same everywhere, the spoken form is going to vary
significantly from one region to the other. For instance, the Arabic spoken in the streets in Egypt is different that that spoken in Saudi Arabia or Jordan. Here are the broad classifications of Arabian dialects. Just keep in mind that within each main category, variations are still possible… it can even vary within the same country!
Levantine Arabic: spoken by over 30 million native tongues in Syria, Lebanon, Palestine and Jordan
Gulf Arabic: spoken by around 7 million native tongues in the Gulf region.
Egyptian Arabic: also known as the colloquial Arabic or Masri مصري in relation to Egypt’s name in the Arabic Language (مصر)
4. Friendship has layers in Arabic language
You know how there are certain words that you can use to express your bond with someone
especial? Like bro, mate, or homie. The issue is that, sometimes, you feel like the word is too
generalised or generic and doesn’t do justice to describe your friendship. Maybe you’ll even
end up having to use adjectives to add emphasis. Like saying "best friends". Maybe it’s quite
the opposite and you feel like the word is too strong for casual companionship. Well, when using the Arabic Language, you’ll never feel at loss when trying to express a very certain type of bond between you and one of your friends.
Sadiq صديق The basic or generic word for friendship.
Samer سامر A friend with whom you share nighttime talks.
Anees أنيس A friend with whom you find warmth and amiability.
Nagee نجي A friend who can understand your silence.
Nadeem نديم A friend with whom you can enjoy a drink.
Rafeeq رفيق A companion on a journey or path.
Sahib صاحب A close friend.
Khalil خليل An even closer friend!
Zameel زميل A colleague in education or work.
Tirb تِرب A peer of the same age.
Jalees جليس A friend whom you hang out with often.
Safi صفي a friend that you chose over all others.
So here is yet another encouraging reason to start learning Arabic Language… you’ll be able
to tell your friend that you chose their friendship over all else in only a single word!
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