Modern Standard Arabic

Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) or Modern Written Arabic (MWA) is the variety of standardized, literary Arabic that developed in the Arab world in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and in some usages also the variety of spoken Arabic that approximates this written standard. MSA is the language used in literature, academia, print, mass media, and law and legislation, though it is generally not spoken as a first language, similar to Contemporary Latin. There are also no agreed set of linguistic criteria which distinguish CA from MSA; They consider the two forms to be two historical periods of one language. When the distinction is made, they do refer to MSA as (), meaning "Contemporary Fuṣḥā" or "Modern Fuṣḥā", and to CA as (), meaning "Hereditary Fuṣḥā" or "Historical Fuṣḥā".

Emergence of Modern Standard Arabic

Napoleon's invasion of Egypt and Syria (1798–1801) is generally considered to be the starting point of the modern period of the Arabic language, when the intensity of contacts between the Western world and Arabic culture increased. Napoleon introduced a printing press in Egypt in 1798; it briefly disappeared after the French departure in 1801, but Muhammad Ali Pasha, who also sent students to Italy, France, and England to study military and applied sciences in 1809, reintroduced it a few years later in Boulaq, Cairo.

Literary Arabic (MSA) is the official language of the Arab League, an official language of every Arab League country, and the only form of Arabic taught in schools at all stages. Additionally, all Muslims recite prayers in the language as do some religious minorities, notably some Christian denominations and Druze, as it is considered the literary language. Translated versions of the Bible which are used in Arabic-speaking countries are mostly written in MSA, aside from Classical Arabic. Revised editions of numerous literary texts from Umayyad and Abbasid times are also written in MSA.

The sociolinguistic situation of Arabic in modern times provides a prime example of the linguistic phenomenon of diglossiathe use of two distinct varieties of the same language, usually in different social contexts. This diglossic situation facilitates code-switching in which a speaker switches back and forth between the two dialects of the language, sometimes even within the same sentence. People speak MSA as a third language if they speak other languages native to a country as their first language and colloquial Arabic dialects as their second language. Modern Standard Arabic is also spoken by people of Arab descent outside the Arab world when speakers of different dialects communicate with each other. As there is a prestige or standard dialect of vernacular Arabic, speakers of standard colloquial dialects code-switch between these particular dialects and MSA.

Classical Arabic is considered normative; a few contemporary authors attempt (with varying degrees of success) to follow the syntactic and grammatical norms laid down by classical grammarians (such as Sibawayh) and to use the vocabulary defined in classical dictionaries (such as the Lisan al-Arab, ). However, the exigencies of modernity have led to the adoption of numerous terms which would have been mysterious to a classical author, whether taken from other languages (e. g. film) or coined from existing lexical resources (e. g. hātif  "caller" > "telephone"). Structural influence from foreign languages or from the vernaculars has also affected Modern Standard Arabic: For example, MSA texts sometimes use the format "A, B, C and D" when listing things, whereas Classical Arabic prefers "A and B and C and D", and subject-initial sentences may be more common in MSA than in Classical Arabic. For these reasons, Modern Standard Arabic is generally treated separately in non-Arab sources. Speakers of Modern Standard Arabic do not always observe the intricate rules of Classical Arabic grammar. Modern Standard Arabic principally differs from Classical Arabic in three areas: lexicon, stylistics, and certain innovations on the periphery that are not strictly regulated by the classical authorities. On the whole, Modern Standard Arabic is not homogeneous; there are authors who write in a style very close to the classical models and others who try to create new stylistic patterns. Add to this regional differences in vocabulary depending upon the influence of the local Arabic varieties and the influences of foreign languages, such as French in Africa and Lebanon or English in Egypt, Jordan, and other countries.

As MSA is a revised and simplified form of Classical Arabic, MSA in terms of lexicon omitted the obsolete words used in Classical Arabic. As diglossia is involved, various Arabic dialects freely borrow words from MSA. This situation is similar to Romance languages, wherein scores of words were borrowed directly from formal Latin (most literate Romance speakers were also literate in Latin); educated speakers of standard colloquial dialects speak in this kind of communication.

Reading aloud in MSA for various reasons is becoming increasingly simpler, using less strict rules compared to CA. Notably, the inflection is omitted, making it closer to spoken varieties of Arabic. It depends on the speaker's knowledge and attitude to the grammar of Classical Arabic, as well as the region and the intended audience.

Pronunciation of native words, loanwords, and foreign names in MSA is loose. Names can be pronounced or even spelled differently in different regions and by different speakers. Pronunciation also depends on the person's education, linguistic knowledge, and abilities. There may be sounds used which are missing in Classical Arabic but exist in colloquial varieties, such as the consonants , , (often realized as +) (which may or may not be written with special letters) and the vowels , (both short and long). There are no special letters in Arabic to distinguish between and pairs but the sounds o and e (short and long) exist in the colloquial varieties of Arabic and some foreign words in MSA.

Phonology

Consonants

{| class="wikitable" style="text-align: center;"

|+ Modern Standard Arabic consonant phonemes

! colspan="2" rowspan="2" |

! rowspan="2" | Labial

! rowspan="2" | Dental

! colspan="2" | Alveolar

! rowspan="2" | Palato- alveolar

! rowspan="2" | Palatal

! rowspan="2" | Velar

! rowspan="2" | Uvular

! rowspan="2" | Pharyngeal

! rowspan="2" | Glottal

|- style="font-size: 80%;"

! plain

! emphatic

! colspan="2" | Nasal

! rowspan="2" | Stop

! style="text-align: left; font-size: 80%;" | voiceless

! style="text-align: left; font-size: 80%;" | voiced

| colspan="3" |

! rowspan="2" | Fricative

! style="text-align: left; font-size: 80%;" | voiceless

| colspan="2" | ~

! style="text-align: left; font-size: 80%;" | voiced

| colspan="2" | ~

! colspan="2" | Trill

! colspan="2" | Approximant

Vowels

Modern Standard Arabic, like Classical Arabic before it, has three pairs of long and short vowels: , , and :

{| class="wikitable" style="text-align: center;"

|+ Modern Standard Arabic vowel phonemes

! rowspan="2" |

! colspan="2" |Short

! colspan="2" |Long

! Front

! Back

! Front

! Back

! Close

| rowspan="2" |

!Mid

|()*

! Open

| colspan="2" |

* Although not part of Standard Arabic phonology, the vowels and are perceived as separate phonemes in most of modern Arabic dialects, and they are used when speaking Modern Standard Arabic in foreign words and when speaking with a colloquial tone.

Across North Africa and West Asia, short may be realized as before or adjacent to emphatic consonants and , , , depending on the accent.
Short can also have different realizations, i.e. , sometimes with a different value for each length, short and long, and sometimes with two different values.
In Egypt close vowels have different values: short initial or medial ,  ← instead of .
In some dialects and become and , respectively.
Allophones of and include and before or adjacent to emphatic consonants and , , and and elsewhere.
Allophones of include ~ before or adjacent to emphatic consonants and , , , .
Allophones of include ~~ before or adjacent to emphatic consonants and , , , .
Unstressed final long are most often shortened or reduced:  → ,  → ,  → .
Although not part of Standard Arabic phonology, the vowels and are perceived as separate phonemes in most Mashriqi Arabic dialects and they can be used when speaking Modern Standard Arabic in foreign words and when speaking with a colloquial tone.

Differences between Modern Standard Arabic and Classical Arabic

While there are differences between Modern Standard Arabic and Classical Arabic, Arabic speakers tend to find these differences unimportant, and generally refer to both by the same name: Fuṣḥā Arabic or (), meaning "the most eloquent Arabic". When the distinction is made, they do refer to MSA as (), meaning "Contemporary Fuṣḥā" or "Modern Fuṣḥā", and to CA as (), meaning "Hereditary Fuṣḥā" or "Historical Fuṣḥā".

Differences in pronunciation

For some speakers MSA can include sounds not present in CA, like , , , and , which occur in loanwords.

Regional variants

MSA is loosely uniform across the Middle East as it is based on the convention of Arabic speakers rather than being a regulated language (that is, despite the number of academies regulating Arabic). It can be thought of as being in a continuum between CA (the regulated language described in grammar books) and the spoken vernaculars while leaning much more to CA in its written form than its spoken form.

Regional variations exist due to influence from the spoken vernaculars. TV hosts who read prepared MSA scripts, for example in Al Jazeera, are ordered to give up national or ethnic pronunciations by changing their pronunciation of certain phonemes (e.g. the realization of the Classical ' as by Egyptians), though other traits may show the speaker's region, such as the stress and the precise values of vowels and the pronunciations of other consonants. People who speak MSA also mix vernacular and Classical in pronunciation, words, and grammatical forms. Classical–vernacular mixing in formal writing can also be found (e.g., in some Egyptian newspaper editorials); other works are written with Modern-Standard–vernacular mixing, including entertainment news.

Speakers

According to Ethnologue, there are nearly 335 million (more precisely 334,765,000) users of Modern Standard Arabic in the world, but no native speakers. They add "In most Arab countries, only the well-educated have adequate proficiency in Modern Standard Arabic." People who are literate in Modern Standard Arabic are primarily found in countries of the Arab League, where it is compulsory in most schools. People who are literate in the language are usually more so passively, as they mostly use the language in reading and writing, not in speaking. In Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia, French is the language of higher education in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), while in the Gulf region it is English.

! No.

! Country

! Total speakers

| 1 || || (2023)

| 2 || || (2023)

| 9 || || (2023) especially in Gulf countries where foreign workers make up more than three-quarters of the population and where English has become the lingua franca of commerce, media, and education. Content in Modern Standard Arabic is also under-represented online and in literature.

According to the 2017 Arab Youth Survey done by polling firm PSB Insights, 24% of respondents (young urban Arabs aged 18 to 24) in non-GCC countries agreed with the statement "On a daily basis, I use English more than Arabic." In GCC countries the fraction was 56%. The New York Times reported that most Arab students of Northwestern University in Qatar and Georgetown University in Qatar did not have "professional proficiency" in Modern Standard Arabic, partly also due to a different local form of Arabic, Gulf Arabic, being the medium of instruction in state schools in the Gulf.

Grammar

Sample

thumb|"What does the Wikimedia Foundation do" narrated in MSA

{| class="wikitable"

! align="left" | Phrase

! align="left" | English translation

! align="left" | IPA

! align="left" | Romanization (ALA-LC)