Communicating in Arabic – Which Dialect do you need? - Creative Word

The Arabic language is a pluricentric language (or polycentric language), meaning that there are numerous standard forms which exist, often corresponding to different regions, and countries.

This multitude of dialects can cause problems when businesses, or individuals, need to translate, interpret, and localise content for websites, social media posts, marketing materials, or any type of communication with an Arabic audience.

A professional English to Arabic translation company can advise how best to approach the varied dialects, and which one is best suited to your needs, but the guide below will help give you an overall picture of the main Arabic dialects, where they are used, and the primary factors which have influenced the dialects over centuries.

 

Modern Standard Arabic

Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) is the formal branch of the Arabic language. It is generally used in formal speech, and writing.

MSA is the official language for just under 30 countries around the world, and is one of the six languages of the United Nations.

Modern Standard Arabic shouldn’t be confused with Classic Arabic, the language of the Quran, which is no longer used in everyday speech but has survived since the 7th century.

When learning Arabic, MSA is the dialect you are likely to be taught, and although you’ll be able to read newspapers, books, and other formal written communications, it is unlikely that you’ll be able to understand all the different spoken dialects listed below.

 

Egyptian Arabic

Egyptian Arabic is the dialect of Arabic spoken by more than 60 million people in Egypt.

It is the most widely spoken Arabic dialect, and was influenced by the Coptic language which was the language of Egypt before the Arab conquest.

However, there are more recent Western influences such as French, Italian and English, which have, over time, come to create the Egyptian form of Arabic that is used today.

The Egyptian dialogue is possibly one of the most easily recognised, and universally understood, due to the influence of the Egyptian media industry upon the Arab film business.

Egyptian Arabic is also one of the most studied Arabic languages, and due to its popularity, makes it a good choice for Arabic language students to study.

 

Levantine Arabic

The Levantine dialect is spoken by approximately 20 million people that reside in the Eastern Mediterranean. However, Levantine Arabic is only used for everyday speech, with MSA used as the predominant written form of Arabic.

The Levantine version of Arabic has distinct differences in lexical, phonological, and grammatical features to that of other Arabic dialects, due to the basis of the Aramaic language which has merged with Arabic over time to create today’s Levantine dialect.

 

Gulf Arabic

Gulf Arabic is most commonly used in Eastern Arabia, but there are around 36 million speakers of it spread across the Arab world, from Kuwait, and the United Arab Emirates, to parts of Iraq and Iran.

While Gulf Arabic is not officially a dialect of the Arabic language, it is used to collectively describe the dialects spoken by people in a wide geographical location. There are differences in grammar, accents, and vocabulary between different countries, but these are generally minimal, and do not affect speakers ability to understand one another.

However, this difference becomes greater with distance, so there is a possibility that two native-speakers of Gulf Arabic may not fully understand each other.

 

Maghrebi Arabic

Maghrebi Arabic has over 70 million speakers throughout Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, Libya, and Western Sahara.

As with Gulf Arabic, this form of the Arabic language also has differences based around geographical locations such as, Algerian Arabic, or Moroccan Arabic.

It is also significantly different to the spoken form of Modern Standard Arabic due in part to European influences such as, French and English.

However, in recent years these words have begun to be replaced by their corresponding word from MSA.

 

Mesopotamian Arabic

Mesopotamian Arabic (sometimes known as Iraqi Arabic) is spoken by over 15 million people.

It is a creole version of Arabic, resulting from the amalgamation of languages from Syria, Iran and Turkey, and from the shift from Aramaic to Arabic.

Other historical influences such as, Persian, Farsi, and Akkadian can be traced within Mesopotamian Arabic.

 

Other dialects of the Arabic language include, Sudanese (spoken by around 20 million people), Peninsular (spoken in the Arabian Peninsula in countries like Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates), Maghrebi (from the Maghreb region of Northwest Africa), Maltese, Hassaniya, Yemeni, and Hijazi.

If you are looking to expand your business into an Arabic market it is vital that your website, marketing materials, design layout, and so on, are localised for each region and differing Arabic dialects.

If you require advice on English to Arabic translation, localisation or interpretation, please contact Creative Word, experts in the Arabic language, and we’ll be more than happy to help.