A Semitic Language Spoken by Over Half a Billion People Worldwide: Arabic Now Ranks as the Fourth Most Spoken Language Globally
Arabic stands out not only due to its linguistic features but also for being the language of the Quran, which facilitates its widespread use and resilience in the face of extinction. The language has evolved through the ages, shaped by the Quran and Islam, going through various phases including compilation, documentation, and the establishment of grammar and morphology rules along with other linguistic and rhetorical sciences.
A Global Language
More than 550 million people speak Arabic across the globe. Approximately 300 million consider it their mother tongue, while another 250 million use it as a secondary language. This positions Arabic as the fourth most spoken language in the world after Chinese, English, and Spanish.
Arabic enjoys promising prospects for further proliferation, thanks in part to the attention it receives from a large segment of the global population who regard it as a religious language – more than two billion Muslims scattered around the world. This also gives the language a unique ability to withstand decline when many others face the threat of extinction. UNESCO predicts that half of the world's spoken languages may disappear by the end of the 21st century, noting that 40% of the global population does not receive education in their mother tongue.
The English language still surpasses all others in terms of spread, growing in popularity among younger generations who associate it with employment opportunities and quality of life. Furthermore, English accounts for 50% of scientific journals and periodicals worldwide. It remains the predominant language in technology, the internet, and social media, while Arabic has a lesser presence in the realm of information technology.
Arabic content on the internet does not exceed 1% according to a United Nations study, while English content constitutes 58%. The dominance of English poses a challenge to the performance of the Arabic language, as writers' abilities to maintain linguistic traditions that preserve Arabic style are diminishing.
The Origin of Semitic Languages
Arabic is part of what’s known as the Semitic language family, a term coined by Austrian theologian Schlottzer in the late 18th century during his 1781 research on ancient nations. He focused on Aramaic, Canaanite, Phoenician, Hebrew, Arabic, Yemeni, Babylonian, and Assyrian peoples, drawing inspiration from the Book of Genesis, the first of the five books of the Torah.
The term gained acceptance in academic circles worldwide, albeit not without criticism. Some argued that the categorization rested more on political, cultural, and geographical ties than on kinship and community bonds. For instance, Lydia and Elamites were considered Semitic due to their subjugation to Assyrian rule, while Canaanites were excluded. Esteemed German orientalist Karl Brockelmann considered this exclusion to be influenced by Israeli political and religious aspirations.
Regardless of the term's exact definition, scholars and researchers debate other significant issues in the history of Semitic or Eastern languages. Grouping these languages together suggests a common origin, though some researchers caution that cultural intermingling or colonial dominance could explain language spread. Nevertheless, it's possible to seek a common origin for the Semitic peoples and to pinpoint the homeland from which they originated.
Historians who specialize in language origins have various theories: some suggest that the Semitic cradle was Ethiopia; others believe it originated in North Africa or from the southern areas of Iraq or Canaan. Yet, many orientalists lean towards the Arabian Peninsula's southern part – specifically, the regions of Hijaz, Najd, and Yemen – as the birthplace of Semitic peoples.
Many Arabic researchers object to the term 'Semitic languages', viewing it as laced with biased Torah-based visions, and seek an alternative term. They find 'Arabism' a more well-founded term that refers to a precise historical reality indicating a single, specific homeland inhabited by an ancient nation with a unified language.
According to Abbas Mahmoud Al-Aqqad, it would be more accurate to describe the Semitic peoples with the term 'Arabic' and to refer to their languages as ancient Arabic. Others opt for the term 'Arabiyah', encompassing the traits and characteristics common to the languages of migrants from the Arabian Peninsula.
The shared traits among Semitic languages are more evident in Arabic than in others. Arabic developed to distinctively feature nouns and verbs, along with most derivations and augmentations. It nurtured within the bosom of its Semitic mother before branching out with its Chaldean, Aramaic, Phoenician, and Hebrew siblings.
These characteristics ensure the articulation and dissemination of the language, with a special emphasis on silent sounds and the formation of words from three consonants like 'خرج' (kh-r-j, 'left'), 'نزل' (n-z-l, 'descended'), and 'علم' (a-l-m, 'taught').
Experts in phonetics agree that vowels pose the greatest challenge to a language's spread. Learners find them difficult to adapt to, and their increased influence in a language heightens the complexity of learning it. The fewer vowels in Arabic and other Semitic languages make them more pliable for training and spreading.
This information alludes to the possibility of constructing a detailed scholarly history of the Arabic language, but Arab researchers have not exerted sufficient effort to explore documents that shed light on the origins of Arabic. The Arabic texts we have bear marks of maturity, affirming that they represent significant progress in a long literary journey that preceded them. So much so that French orientalist Ernest Renan expressed his admiration and astonishment at this feature, suggesting that the Arabic language was born fully developed.
The History of the Arabic Language
Based on available data and discoveries, the history of Arabic can be segmented into several stages:
First Stage: The birth of Arabic in the oldest Semitic homelands, specifically Hijaz and Yemen, although the earliest Akkadian artifacts date back before the 20th century BCE.
The oldest known Hebrew artifacts date to the 12th century BCE, Phoenician to the 10th, Aramaic to the 9th, but Arabic artifacts only go as far back as the 1st century BCE.
Second Stage: The epoch of extinct Arabic or the language of inscriptions, spoken by Arab tribes in North Hijaz near the Aramaeans. These dialects took on the Aramaic character and vanished prior to Islam.
Third Stage: The era of enduring Arabic, known now as Classical Arabic, originated in Hijaz and Najd, spreading to areas once inhabited by its Semitic siblings. Its exact inception remains obscure, and the documents that have reached us represent its maturity and consummation, including pre-Islamic literature dating back to the 5th century CE.
Fourth Stage: The age of Classical Arabic, which up till the 6th century CE featured divergent dialects reflecting aspects of nomadic life and alienation from civilization and urbanity.
With the revelation of the Quran in the dialect of the Quraysh tribe, Arabs recognized its eloquence and sought to emulate it by adopting Quraysh's dialect as the standard, leading to a unified literary language and various other regional dialects.
Fifth Stage: The period of spread and globalization, with Islamic conquests and conversions to Islam catalyzing the dispersion of Arab tribes and facilitating the wide adoption of Arabic, which came to outshine Persian, Syriac, Greek, Coptic, Berber, and Latin.
Sixth Stage: The time of compilation and documentation, when until the second Hijri century (8th century CE), Arabs depended on oral transmission for their literary heritage. This period saw a standardization in transmitting the language, crystallizing the concept of "linguistic attestation."
The Story Behind World Arabic Language Day
The United Nations and its agencies commemorate Arabic annually on December 18th. This didn't transpire overnight but was the fruit of nearly 60 years of consistent efforts.
On December 4, 1954, the UN General Assembly's ninth session passed Resolution 878, allowing limited written translation into Arabic with strict conditions. In 1960, UNESCO decided to adopt Arabic for regional conferences and essential document translations. Further resolutions in 1966 and 1968 expanded Arabic's use within UNESCO.
In September 1973, Arabic became a spoken language at UN General Assembly sessions. Later that year, on December 18th, the General Assembly passed Resolution 3190, integrating Arabic as one of the six official languages. Fast forward to October 2012, and the UNESCO Executive Council established December 18th as World Arabic Language Day, celebrated for the first time later that year.
In October 2013, the advisory body for the international plan for the development of Arabic culture, affiliated with UNESCO, recognized World Arabic Language Day as a core component of its annual program. In December 2023, UNESCO held special commemorations for Arabic's 50th anniversary as an official UN language and 11 years since the inception of World Arabic Language Day.
