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Classical Arabic language

ConfusedKuri

Active Member
What do you mean when you talk about classical Arabic language? The Arabic that's spoke nowadays or that of the Qu'ran o_O?
 
That's absolutely not true in my parts of the world... the MAJORITY of Muslims cannot speak Arabic; rather they only know Qur'anic surahs and ayats and also enough for prayers... but in speaking Classical or Modern Arabic, hardly.

Most of the Muslims here are either from India or Pakistan, and then from Iran, Afghanistan, Jordan, Egypt, Indonesia, or even Tunisia (like my good friend of mine).
 
Qu'ranic Arabic

As far as I know, no one speaks it...

But you can learn how to recite some parts of the Qur'an through your local madrassah (children's Islamic school)... if you're young enough. :D Just go to your local mosque and I am sure that they can give you the appropriate resources!
 

Peace

Quran & Sunnah
O that is Fusha I think, it is hardly spoken by anyone these days.

On the contrary, Fusha or the classical Arabic is the language we study at schools, universities... and the language used in administrations...It is spoken by all Arabs officially. But in our daily interacations we speak dialect. Arabs who are literated and educated speak fusha very easily and can understand the Quran very easily.
 

Alulu

Member
Classical Arabic or "fusha" is nowadays spoken more then ever if you ask me.
It is however not the "living language" (loghat al-hay) that Arabs speak daily, on the street, with their/our children etc. This is evident because Classical Arabic is the language of the Quran about 1400 years ago. And just as every spoken language changes overtime spoken Arabic did as well. Do bear in mind that the spoken dialect differ from region to region in the Arabic world or country to country because of geographical locations, history and language spoken before Arabic appeared. So in their spoken Arabic north African still use some berber words, french of even Spanish in Morocco. Lebanese also use some French words (colonnee) and even Assyrian ones I have been told by Libanese friends. And of course the verious Arabic dialects differ from each other and some are closer to Classical Arabic then others. Moroccans are known for having a dialect that is pretty hard to understand for Egyptians, Libanese or Iraqi's (non-moroccans basically). Whereas Egyptian dialect is well-known because of the fact that all the films and soaps etc are made there and the rest of the Arab world hear their dialect quite frequently and get used to it.

However, with the appearance of satellite TV, internet and more education in the Arab world Classical Arabic is more widespread because it is used by official media and the language we write and/or read books in.
So on news channels such as Al Jazeera, Al Arabiyya etc they speak classical Arabic as do the people they invite to discuss political issues in their programms. And most of these people are well educated so do not have any problem to speak Classical Arabic. However, if you did not study you will have a hard time to keep up speaking Classical Arabic because it is a very detailed language and not spoken in every day life. I would say that if you finished your secondary school as an Arab you understand all Classical Arabic perfectly and can speak it to a certain extent if you just practice it enough. If not you have to get used to it if your forced to speak it after some time just like someone who speaks French needs to get used to speaking it if he did not speak it for the last 10 years.
 
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