-the Arabic script is derived from Aramaic) spoken by the Neo-Assyrians) & Nabataean (old northern Arabic )Scripts ,it has been used since the 4th century AD, but the earliest document (an inscription in Arabic ) dates from 512 AD.
- The Aramaic language has fewer consonants than Arabic, so during the 7th century new Arabic letters were created by adding dots to existing letters in order to avoid ambiguities. Further diacritics indicating short vowels were introduced, but are only generally used to ensure the Qur'an was read aloud without mistakes.
-the languages are written with Arabic script:
Arabic –Farsi –Kashmiri –Kurdish –Urdu- Malay
-Arabic script has also been used to write Turkish-Hebrew – Somali-Swahili-Berber-Portuguese-Spanish and Serbo-Croat.
-in the 20th century in particular, the stylistic influence of French and English is evident, much scientific, medical and Technical vocabulary has been borrowed from French and English.
-Arabic uses an alphabetic system normally employing symbols for only consonants and long vowels There is a fairly close match between the written symbols and their phonemic, or linguistic function.
-Short vowels are typically not written even though much morphological and grammatical meaning is signaled by vowels Because only roots and stems of an inflected word are written the reader has to infer its particular meaning from content.
- When vowels are symbolized, as in children’s books or learners' manuals, super- and subscript diacritics are used. Writing is written from right to left.
*Dialects:
The dialects of Arabic are so many and so deviated from each other and from The classical language that some people consider them separate languages , There are over 30 different varieties of colloquial Arabic...
The main dialects of Arabic are:-
1-Egyptian (Misery): the most widely spoken of all Dialects, thanks to the popularity of Egyptian-made films and TV shows, Its use in cultural & media affairs has led to familiarization with this dialect in sedentary and urban settings an over the Arab world.
Egyptian has a homogenous mix of ancient Egyptian, Turkish. Greek. French,Italian, Armenian, and English effects in its composition. It is also characterized by the loss of, softening or change of some heavy consonants such as Qaph and also the pronunciation of 'g" as in go unlike classical Arabic and all other dialects Varieties include Saiidi(dialects of upper Egyptian people), Port-Saiidian(in Port Said), Alexandrian. Fellahini(in countryside), and Cairene.
2-Western (Maghreby): This is the dialect of most of the countries from and west of Libya(Morocco –Tunisia-Algeria), Though the language may differ substantially from country to country, the main features are similar. These dialects are very fast spoken,enthusiastic on the use of consonant and heavily BOITOW from French, Intelligibility with Eastern and Egyptian is non-existent.
3-Levantine (Shamy): Spoken in Lebanon. Syria, and Jordan. Varieties are striking especially between urban and mountainous settings, These languages are very close to the original form of Arabic but are also affected by Aramaic and in the mountains by Nabataean. Urban dialects are usually understandable to most non-Maghreby's.
4-Gulf (Khalijy): Spoken all over Arabia, Local dialects that deviate substantially are Yemeni, Nejdy, and Kuwaiti. Although most of the vocabulary is Arabic many letters are changed in these dialects including the "k' (turns into a ch) and the heavy “D” that turns into sort of a ”Z”.
External effects are mainly from Farsi and Southern Arabic (extinct languages of Yemen). Intelligibility with Eastern dialects is possible only with urban varieties.
5-African and Pidgin (Sudany): In most of Sudan a form of Arabic with changed letter sounds is spoken and is well understood by most other Arabs if spoken slowly. However, in Southern Sudan and Mauritania as well as the whole of Somalia, Djibouti, and the Comoros local languages are widely spoken. In these settings a pidgin trade Arabic is used as a Lingua Franca alongside the native Swahili or Bantu.
6-Maltese: A very deviant dialect. Maltese is often classified as an independent language. It bears similarity To Arabic only in 50% of its vocabulary and is written in Roman letters.