Arabic language - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Arabic (العربية
al-'arabiyyah, or less formally
'arabi) is the largest member of the
Semitic branch of the
Afro-Asiatic language family (classification: South Central Semitic) and is closely related to
Hebrew and
Aramaic.
| Spoken in: | Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Gaza Strip, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Malta, Mauritania, Morocco, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates, West Bank, Western Sahara (SADR), Yemen by a majority, and in many other countries as a minority language. |
| Total speakers: | 206 million (Ethnologue, native speakers of all dialects); 286 million (population of Arab countries, CIA World Factbook, 2004 est.), excluding Arab minorities in other countries and bilingual speakers |
| Ranking: | 5 (by first language) |
| Genetic classification: | Afro-Asiatic
Semitic
Central
South
Arabic |
The major groups are:
- Egyptian Arabic (Egypt) Considered the most widely understood and used "second dialect"
- Maghreb Arabic (Tunisian, Algerian, Moroccan Arabic, and western Libyan)
- Levantine Arabic (Western Syrian, Lebanese, Palestinian, and western Jordanian, Cypriot Maronite Arabic)
- Iraqi Arabic or Gulf Arabic (Iraqi, Eastern Syrian, Kuwaiti, Saudi Arabian, Gulf coast from Iraq to Oman including much of Saudi Arabia's Eastern Province, and minorities on the other side)
Turkish (
Türkçe), also known as
Osmanlı, is a
Turkic language spoken natively in Cyprus, Bulgaria, and by some 50 million speakers in
Turkey, as well as by several million immigrants in the
European Union. There is some degree of mutual intelligibility with outher western
Turkic languages such as
Azeri,
Turkmen, and
Uzbek; if these are included the number of speakers may exceed 200 million.
| Spoken in: | Turkey, Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, Bulgaria, Austria, Greece, Germany, Iran, Republic of Macedonia, Moldova, Netherlands (1% cutoff) |
| Region: | Turkey, Cyprus, Balkans |
| Total speakers: | 51 million native, 72 million total |
| Ranking: | 22 (native) |
| Genetic classification: | Altaic
Turkic
Southern
Turkish
Turkish |
