6 Things You Didn’t Know About Arabic

For the majority of people, Arabic is an utter mystery (and let’s be honest, even for people who know the language, it’s still puzzling). Unfortunately, in our current political climate, Arabic tends to be associated with other negative connotations. In spite of this, Arabic is one of the richest languages in the world, full of poetics and history. If you are even the slightest bit interested in learning about a breathtakingly beautiful language, keep on scrolling.

Arabic is one of the hardest languages to learn.

As someone who has spent over two years learning the nuances of the language, I can attest that Arabic is brutally hard to learn, especially as a native English speaker. The disclosed level of difficulty is there for many reasons, ranging from the expansive dialects to the need to learn both colloquial Arabic and Modern Standard Arabic and the fact that 90% of Arabic words are irregular. Let’s not forget about getting accustomed to writing from right to left and the insane sounds you have to learn how to scrape from the back of your throat.

The length of the learning process varies depending on how you are acquiring the knowledge and the frequency of study. If you are learning Arabic in an average college setting, it takes about 8.3-10 years to reach an intermediate level, while if you are immersed in the culture, chances are it will be a much shorter time period. In other words, it takes up to 88 weeks to learn Arabic. Compare that to Spanish which takes about 23 weeks to reach the same level of fluency.

Unlike English, Arabic can have hundreds of different words that define a single term.

The English language consists of over 100,000 words. While that may seem like a lot, Arabic has been estimated to have anywhere from 90-500 million words. To anyone interested in learning Arabic, seeing such a large number is daunting.

This is one of the hardest challenges for language-learners. There are over a dozen ways to say “love” and hundreds of ways to say, surprisingly, “camel”. For instance, ‘Al-Harib’ refers to a female camel that walks ahead of the others by a great distance so that it appears to be fleeing. It makes choosing the correct word hard, right?

It is one of the only Semitic languages in use.

A Semitic language is one that consists of a root system at the core of its language. In English, and other Germanic languages, there are so-called root words, but semantic languages build their words around roots. Today, there are only a few semantic languages in use: Arabic, Hebrew, and other minor Middle Eastern languages.  

Essentially, every Arabic word has a three-letter root and depending on the different grammatical forms, Arabic speakers can manipulate the root to form other words. For instance, the root “K T B” means “to write”. Depending on what form you insert into the root, you can change the meaning. If you add an alif after the first letter, you get “KATB”, or “writer”. If you add an “m” in front of the root, you get “MKTB”, or “desk”. Notice, all the above words have relation to the main root “to write”. Confusing, I know.

Arabic is ancient.

The modern version of Arabic was officially created in the 600s AD during the time of the Prophet Muhammad. It was during this period in which the Qur’an was being written down, leading to the codification of the classical Arabic spoken throughout the world today.

But the language has been existence for over 1,500 years. There has been documentation of early forms of Arabic within pre-Islamic nomadic eras. In other words, Arabic has a very old linguistically history.

Many English words come from Arabic.

There are many common words in English that have been “borrowed” from Arabic. Algebra, algorithm, alcohol, and alkaline are all derived from Arabic—in Arabic “al” is the pronoun “the”. Giraffe, chai, coffee, cotton, tariff, lemon, and magazine are just a few other words on that list that originally stem from Arabic backgrounds.

Not only does English get numerous words from Arabic, but our number system is also based on the Arabic numerals. According to British Counsel,  the “x” in math comes from the Arabic word for “thing” (shay). Later, Spain began to pronounce “shay” as “xay”, which lead to the use of x for the unknown number, or thing, in mathematical equations.

And last but not least, Arabic has some of the most beautiful ways to express love.

Although it may not sound like it, Arabic is one of the most romantic languages. Due to the complexity and poetic nature, there are many heartbreakingly beautiful phrases to express your love to another. Here are but a few:

To’burny (تقبرني)- you bury me (literally, “I would rather have you bury me than lose you”)

Dayeb Feek ( دايب فيك )-I melt in you (okay, currently melting)

Ya Aadame (يا عظامي)- my bones (meaning, “you are the thing that keeps me whole and living”)

If you take anything from this article, just know that Arabic, despite its complexities, it utterly beautiful.

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