Is Arabic a dead language? The reason Arabs don't speak MSA
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- čas přidán 22. 02. 2024
- A dead language is defined as a language with no native speakers.
This would make Modern Standard Arabic one. However, does this assertion make sense with regard to its historical development?
You can learn more about Sibawayh and the way Arabs were talking in the past here: ishrakat.com/article-desc_534...
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"Hidden Wonders" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
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"Galway" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
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#arabiclanguage #arabicalphabet #arabicdialects
This video took me forever to make. I would really appreciate your support with a little like ^0^. Thank you!
استغرق إعداد هذا الفيديو وقتًا طويلاً. سأقدر حقًا دعمكم بإعجاب بسيط ^0^. شكرًا لكم!
Excellent video! I was however having a bit of trouble following as the intonation as you read your script wasn't completely in sync with the animation. I don't know if others like me would prefer you talking to the camera like your previous videos.
Animation is hard indeed 😂 I'll do better next time :)
يعطيكِ العافية (in Levantine of course)
جامده (means solid/cool job in Egyptian)
دعم على فيديو ملئ بالمعلومات المغلوطة 😂
Arabic is " the most living " language. You don't understand Pre-Shakspearian English. We Arabs read and understand easily text as old as 1600 years ago !
True! these people are so jealous lol
Old English is dead because it has no native speakers. In the same way, no one speaks old Arabic as their mother tongue, it must be learned in schools.
@@samgyeopsal569actually half of my speech is like old arabic and there's some cities that still speak natove arabic plus quran uses old arabic which all of the arabs understand and read ,religious books as well as any modern day arabic book , all games , movies are translated to native arabic etc in short we can speak and understand old arabic without any effort 😂
@@samgyeopsal569 But There is no such thing as “Old Arabic”!
You're right bro
Standard Arabic (Fusha) is keeping the Arab world connected, it acts as the standard, dialects change but they always remain connected to Fusha as it is the language of all official things, government and academia, if countries start using their own dialects instead of Fusha in education and official things, gradually, we'll have 22 new languages which will become not mutually intelligible over time and we will lose the connection between us as Arabic countries, we should preserve Fusha and increase its usage.
That would be the western dream for that to achieve but it will never happen. Beside dialects is very limited. We cannot write asssy or articles in dialects too.
Only the educated people can speak Standard Arabic and it's not really used in conversations. There are millions who can not speak or understand Standard Arabic very well.
if i learn standard arabic would i be able to communicate with other arabic speakers?
@@mrmrhmi3947 Yes, pretty much everybody can understand Standard Arabic, but not everyone can speak it very well.
+People use their own dialects for daily conversations, so regular conversations in Fusha while understandable, they don't sound natural, it's like talking to someone in a very formal language.
News, public speeches, books, etc... are always in Fusha.
@@mrmrhmi3947 it's better to learn the Egyptian dialect because it's the most spoken and used.
لغةٌ بها الماضي السحيقُ تباهى
وبِها نبوءاتُ الزمانِ تَناهى
جهِد الأعارِبُ في بناءِ بِناها
فغدَت كصرحٍ لا يكادُ يُضاهى
by me
Classical Arabic is enduring.
لن يفهمو و لن يتذوقو معناها...
إن قرأت الابيات التي تفضلت بها على مسامع جدنا الذي عاش 2000 سنة قبل الآن كان سيفهمها لا محالة كما ان أخي الصغير يستطيع فهمها بسهولة... قد لا يستطيع كل الناس نظم أشعار بها فهذا طبيعي جدا.
تحياتي لك من المغرب.
صح لسانك/كِ
جميل ❤
❤❤❤
الله عليك
As a Mauritanian,many Gambian, Guinean, Senegalese and other Africans who come to Mauritania to study Quran only speak Standard Arabic and most people including me speak with them openly in it, or sometimes we manipulate the dialect and speak a more standard version of it, i don’t know from where comes the idea that it’s a « taboo » to speak SA to Arabs, at least in my country we can speak SA freely
Because nearly no one is exposed to Hassaniya so they will not understand a word you are saying when you tell them "لاهي نجيس شور المارصا اياك نشري مارو وديكة".
So you have to know Standard Arabic very well for anyone to understand you.
Compare that with Lebanese and Egyptians who know English more than Standard Arabic because they don't have to know enough Standard Arabic to speak it, everyone understands them anyway because their varieties are very well known.
As a Gambian,I can confirm this
@@luigi64gamer19 as a gambian, I do not confirm this 🤷
What about apartheid in Mauritania still in 21st century
@@SKBaliarsingh what are you talking about? there are literally four black people out of 6 running for president in the upcoming election and the current prime minister is black and we had a black president before the US and France did
As a North African the reason is simple.
MSA is just classical Arabic with modern technical words for the modern age.
Think of it as the Latin language in the roman empire. As Vulgar Latin became divided into multiple dialects and these dialects become their separate language ( French, Spanish, Italian etc..). Same thing happened for Arabic except that Arabic dialects didn’t diverge too much because of the Quran since it’s forbidden the literally translate the Quran ( only the meaning / interpretations are translated)
unlike Latin As Bible was translated from Hebrew / Latin / Greek to other languages.
Also we shouldn’t forget about the influence of the indigenous languages such as the Celtic influence on French compared to Italian and Spanish, Amazigh influence on local dialects spoken in north Africa and Aramaic influence on Levantine dialects spoken in the middle east.
The most influential language on France is the Franco-Germanic language, which is mostly West Germanic. The negation particle ne before verbs is even Germanic, that's why the French do not say non sais (pas), but ne sais (pas), even when the original positive pas, personne etc get reanalysed as the negative. But when I say je vois personne IT actually means I see someone, that's why they innovated quelqu'un.
@Krieger what are you talking about the ne is definitely from non/neque. nec...passus is a latin expression meaning not even a step. french is not a germanic language though it has some words of germanic origin. and je vois personne means I see no one, not I see someone. quelqu'un isn't any more invented than the english word someone.
@@calleha01 false. The negation of a verb in Latin is non + finite verb. It cannot be of neque or nec, especially because those a conjunctions.
@@SchmulKrieger that doesn't really matter though when it's not latin anymore and becomes french. whether it comes from nec or non doesn't matter because nec is just non + que. similarly passus is not a negation in latin but pas effectively functions as one in french.
there's also the fact that in catalan, which is a different language from french, you can say "no...pas" just like in french but the pas is not mandatory and simply means not at all.
صنع هذا الفيديو من قبل شخص يكره العرب و العروبة و لا علم له.
فعلا الفيديو كلخ اكاديب المستشرقين مشكلة كبيرة لما تحاول تفهم غير ثقافة خصوصا العربية بعيون ناس اعاجم تعلمو العربية في وقت متاخر بشكل ركيك للغاية و تجده يغلط اغلاط لا يقع فيها طفل
الهدف هو تنصير البربر في شمل افريقيا باعتقادهم ان باختفاء اللغه العربيه سيختفي الاسلام بالرغم من ان في افريقيا ملايين من المسلمين لا تتحدث العربيه بتاتا و في مصر مثلا ملايين من الاقباط النصاري الأرثذوكس التي لا تتكلم الا العربيه فهل هؤلاء الاقباط اسلمت علي مر ١٤٠٠ سنه بسبب تحدثهم بالعربيه
@@BD-cm7xc😂😂😂😂😂😂
صدقتوا والله
wow, and you wonder why people think arabs are bad? shame on you
It's worth mentioning that the Qur'an and the Hadith (Prophetic tradition) were transmitted orally before becoming in text form. So, Classical Arabic as it is in those texts was in fact spoken by the tribes of Arabia especially Quraysh tribe at least in the 6th century and later and the Arabs who migrated to other regions with the Islamic conquest certainly spoke it in those regions and taught it to others.
وَسِعْتُ كِتابَ الله لَفْظاً وغَــايـَـةً
***ومَا ضِقْتُ عَن آيٍ به وَعِظاتِ
***فكَيْف أضِيقُ اليومَ عن وصف آلة
***وتنسيق أسماءٍ لـمُخـتـرعَــاتِ
***أنا البَحْرُ فِي أحْشائِه الدُّر كَامِنٌ
***فهَل سَألوُا الغوّاصَ عَنْ صَدفَاتِي
Classical Arabic is the most beautiful, richest and the most precise language in the world ❤
Algerian here. Some reasons I see why people here do not speak MSA :
1- Older generations who lived through the french occupation or post french occupation period never got to learn it and it is hard for them to catch up. My own grandmother learned to read arabic for the first time at a late age, because she wanted to read quran, and it was difficult for her.
2- People in general will learn the language that is useful to them, and unfortunately, MSA isn't of much use in your random person's life. So most people stop at whataver little they studied in school but once they've become adults they lose touch with MSA, preferring to speak the dialect.
3- continuing with the last point, the only people who keep interacting with MSA are people who go in academia, but not all of them. Half of the universities here study in french, mainly ones which teach hard sciences. The other half, mainly the ones which teach soft sciences, study in arabic. So you can see why all these people who are studying maths, chemistry, biology, medecine... etc don't keep in touch with MSA compared to someone who studies law, sociology, psychology... etc.
4- Most students hate MSA because it is complicated. It's not that the vocabulary is too poetic or anything like that, but the rules of arabic do tend to be very hard. Even as someone who loves arabic, I recall scratching my head at the Iraab exercices my dad would give me, unable to make any sense of it. The Iraab is so intricate there is a book of almost 700 pages called "the story of Iraab" that details the rules of Iraab. That's without going into the types of embellishments and any other sides of MSA.
5- Maybe because it is so complicated, many arabic teachers aren't good at MSA. That's not a problem, in the early stages of school, when they just need to teach you to read and write. But once you delve into the difficult part, and your professor has no clue what they're talking about, or have such a little grasp of it that they absent mindedly teach you the rules with little to no explanation... well, it makes many kids hate arabic. I had the luck of having one phenomenal arabic teacher, but for that one teacher, I had like 10 others which were mediocre at best during my education.
Those are some of the reasons I observed in my life here in Algeria. Thanks for attending my ted talk lol.
😂 story of iraab 700 pages, I am dead
Thank you for sharing your insights, I mean your TED talk ;)
@user-ox1ul7bf4c did I bring back some core memories there bud 🤣
@nofridaynightplans lol you're very welcome, nice video by the way
What about Berber languages ?
I feel like a lot of these differences in dialect are overstated sometimes by foreigners. Italian has a lot of dialects that are not intelligible. Norwegian has a standard language that is only written, with tons of dialects that are unintelligible. I’m Egyptian, and I speak Egyptian, Levantine, and Standard prettt fluently. Whenever I meet an Iraqi or like an Algerian, our Arabic is just made more like MSA or very simplified and it’s fine. The news is in MSA and we just kind of understand it right away. Maybe it’s because I was born into it i dont know, but I always find it when people say Arabic is not one language or it’s a dead language kinda odd because my Spanish and Norwegian friends have WAY more trouble understanding some dialects compared to me understanding some of our dialects. Just my two cents :)
so if i learn MSA, can i understand most arabic dialects? or is it just easier for natives?
I agree, hence why I do say this statement is far-fetched at the end of the video. The examples I provide throughout also tend to indicate what you're saying is correct.
I am studying Japanese and whenever I speak, my Japanese friends do tell me I should not say certain things because it is "kakikotoba" (written Japanese) that never makes it to spoken conversation. I read a lot in Japanese. So I tend to formulate my thoughts as I would write them, which makes it unnatural sometimes.
That's what actually prompted me to make this video. Thank you for sharing your insights!
Your description of other languages is incorrect.
"Italian dialects" is a sociopolitical lens; every other linguist, organization and description of speech forms of Italy are correctly described as languages. Sicilian, Lombard, Ligurian, and Sardinian are not dialects of Italian as they do not descend from Italian, but from Classical Latin.
Norwegian dialects are on a spectrum and the written forms are an attempt to approach two different approximate koines of speech forms in Norway: Bokmal (book speech) which is based on a Danicized Norwegian language, and Nynorsk (New Norse) which is based on the more rural, less Danish influenced speech forms.
There is mutual unintelligibility but it is very marginal as compared to Arabic. It would be similar to rural Upper Egyptian Saidi speakers creating a separate urban variety in Luxor, separate from Cairene as Delta Egyptians often struggle to understand more conservative variants of Saidi.
Being able to understand and make oneself understood by neighbors with related language varieties is not always about linguistic similarity necessarily, as it is often about exposure and multilingualism.
It is impossible for an Egyptian speaker to know what كرمال or مجوي or مشوب means in Levantine without prior knowledge or some amount of exposure. Likewise, both a Levantine and Egyptian cannot know the proper use of ماذا/ما (if they even know what it means) without prior knowledge.
Compare that with a Romanian speaker who can probably guess what "Quid facis?" means in Latin (Romanian: ce faci?)
What's more is Egyptians often struggle to understand Sudanese, a variety more similar to Egyptian than Levantine but they are not exposed to it because cultural exchange between Egypt and Lebanon/Syria is much higher than between Egypt and Sudan.
All in all, all speech forms differ from one another in similar and different ways and the fact that this is even a topic of discussion tells us this is not a black and white issue.
I am a native Spanish speaker and I have no problem understanding the majority of what is said to me in Italian, Portuguese and Catalan.
@@liliqua1293 I have never heard an Egyptian not understand Sudanese. I don’t really have that much trouble with Sudanese as well. This case could be the same with any language though, such as English. If one spoke only Newfie English or Scotts, and never learned standard English, I bet you they would have an insanely hard time understanding southern English or rural Australian. I’m part of a group of Arabic speakers that meet once a week, and we have friends from Egypt, Syria, Sudan, Iraq, and even Tunisia. We have not once used MSA to speak, but only to read. We each use our own dialect, and substituted the words that might be specific for our dialects with more common standard words. Again, maybe because I’m born in it, I find it rather confusing that people think these are not all the same language. Cheers :)
As an Arabic speaker, as much as I’d like MSA to be actually spoken because it’s beautiful, I’m a realist 😅 so personally I always recommend learners to switch over to the dialect most relevant to their needs after learning some basic MSA if their goal is to communicate with Arabs.
But I get comments from Arabs sometimes saying you shouldn’t be teaching or promoting a dialect and that MSA is the only correct form of Arabic 😅
Thank you for your awesome video 😃
Thank you for your comment!
We need just to retake control of our lands from western vassals (called states) liberate Pales. Tine from western occupation/colonisation... then impose Arabic in the Technology R&D offices and industries, then for sure we make ourselves a superpower as we have been in the Ottoman Era.
The forced unification is a must.
What would you recommend if you wanna be understood by as much people as possible? Like for example, talking with arabs online, I have arab friends online and they say Egyptian is usually the norm for people who speak arabic as a second language, many are egyptian tho so I don't know if that's rlly true, I will likely learn egyptian anyways since the only arab school I know in my city was funded by an egyptian and most teachers are egyptian
@@UwU-xk5cx
Egyptian is indeed understood everywhere but it’s also not the only dialect universally understood. Levantine dialects and Hijazi are also pretty much understood everywhere.
In terms of resources availability, Egyptian definitely has the most resources. Considering that your local school is Egyptian I’d recommend you go for Egyptian 👍
It's similar to say, “Don’t learn English, but learn American or Australian.”
Although there is no separation between them, the three dialects agree in vocabulary and linguistic structure, one basis, and share general rules, grammatical rules, and morphology. However, the difference is only in pronunciation.
How to study some Arabic? I don't know what motivates you to say that, you are aware of what you are saying!!
It is not possible for any sane person to speak, or even impossible, to say what I said in Arabic.
very wrong all of us speak standard arabic and understand it
I see people claiming this but what I have found is that Arabs incorporate phrases of MSA depending on the context but most people can’t hold a full conversation in MSA and won’t. Most Arabs will admit that they will adjust their dialect before recurring to MSA. You might be able to read it but that doesn’t mean you can speak it as you can your native language. MSA is an imposed prestige language in the Arabic speaking countries, to the point that they will even talk down on their own dialect, which should probably be categorized as a language on its own. It’s honestly a fascinating phenomenon.
no you dont
Arabic is a dead language is really a hillarious, if not stupid statement.
Arabic is so much alive and will be alive forever until the end of time.
This is the craziest thing I've ever heard.
Thank you , otherwise how we are reading quran and hadith that about 1500 year old and poems that predate Islam
Arabic is the language of the akhirah and will never die
@@Mo911 Quranic Arabic will never die indeed. Quranic Arabic and dialects are not the same. Dialects will probably die or have very few speakers in the future because those groups speak that dialect only. Foreigners and non Arabs are not learning Lebanese, Moroccan, Iraqi, Sudanese dialects. The only people who learn those dialects are their own people. Why would millions of foreigners learn Lebanese or Moroccan? Dialects are based on nationalism and culture and that is not sustainable on a global scale. Dialects are not sharing languages such as Spanish and English that are not based on culture, race or nationalism. The dialect speakers really should all use Egyptian language or use Fusha and let the other stuff die.
@@Salim-wr2wkIt's the opposite actually I have met with many foreigners who have learnt a bit of MSA and visited Morocco only to be upset that what they learned is not spoken by locals and instead they try all over again
@@anonymousmena8404 foreigners are not learning Moroccan and the language will not grow as a result. English and Spanish are sharing languages and one of the reasons they continue to grow no matter the race, ethnicity, culture or religion. Nationalism is killing dialects.
Yo as a iraqi i wanna say tbh Arabic is weird not in the way you think but like there's alot of dialects we still Understand each other even how huge the gap is which is pretty awesome 😎
The main problem with MSA is the stubborn refusal of the Arabic scholarly community, and by extension the general Arabic-speaking public, to engage with it as an artificially standardized liturgical language. People lament the local "slang" as perverse deviations from classical Arabic, without realizing that these so-called slangs are now fully realized, and in many cases mutually unintelligible, dialects, often as different from FuSHa as modern Romance languages are from Latin. Due to religious and Arab nationalist constraints, Arabic speakers insist that they cannot acknowledge Egyptian or Moroccan or Iraqi or anything else as languages, lest they further diverge from this semi-mythical classical form.
This unfortunately creates an illusory image of homogeneity that the potential student of Arabic language falls into every time, without fail. Some of us determine fairly early on that what people are speaking has very little to do with that is recited in a mosque or a news report, but some people study MSA for *years* before going abroad to use what they've learned, only to be devastated when they can't understand anything. It's frankly infuriating to still see schools teaching MSA to people who aren't learning for religious or scholarly purposes, knowing that these people will be unable to communicate their needs in the slightest once they get to their destinations.
However, similarly, you cannot simply learn a dialect in order to have a complete knowledge of Arabic, since basically everything is *written* in MSA. Without learning MSA, you're a functional illiterate. Much like the situation in the Chinese world, as mentioned, it is necessary to not only learn a spoken dialect, but also the formal, written Arabic in order to fully participate in language within the Arab world. This is, of course, the primary burden on the student and the main reason that learning Arabic is such a daunting task, particularly given the relative dearth of learning resources for dialects (again because people refuse to recognize them as 'real languages'), and the enormously expansive vocabulary of written Arabic. Most distressingly, you have to learn them both as essentially separate subjects, which means that you can't read MSA books in order to expand your spoken dialectical vocabulary, since in many cases the spoken and written vocabularies are completely different, or at best require a great deal of cross-checking, since people will laugh at you and refuse to engage if you sound like a lost academic or a sheikh who wandered too far away from the mosque.
Thank you for saying this. This video has a lot of inaccuracies that helped stoke Pan-Arabist and more specifically Arab Muslim supremacist sentiment in the comments with the whole "technically the language isn't dead" conclusion.
Although, I will say in response to your comment that the idea that *everything* is written in MSA is often overstated.
I think it's more useful to split colloquial Arabic and MSA not in the two domains of written vs spoken, but of literary vs popular culture.
I think the misconception comes from trying to explain what "literary language" means in layman terms which would be "written language".
The reason being that aside from most books, news reports, technical manuals, political speeches, and religious materials, everything else (songs, film, film transcripts, talk shows, social media, some magazines, online forums, ads/billboards, etc.) is almost exclusively in our native varieties.
Of course, like many things, it depends on the country, the region, and many other factors. With one pole being places like Egypt, Iraq, Tunisia where there is a plethora of content in the native variety (Egypt has written material in a myriad of content, even websites and children's books; Tunisian has a surprising amount of written novels and Iraqi interestingly features a lot of written religious material). And the other pole being places like Saudi Arabia, Yemen, and Mauritania where various factors depending on the country/region like a low literacy rate, many different Arabic varieties or non-Arabic languages spoken in a single area, and institutional barriers from religious and political groups.
Not sure why my comment was deleted.
But I outlined how the concept of MSA being "a written language" is just a rewording of MSA being a literary language. We write and read in our native varieties all the time.
We write and read MSA for most literature, technical content, and religious materials but nearly everything else we write (songs, transcripts, ads/billboards, most poetry, some websites and books, etc.) is in our native varieties, e.g. Egyptian, Tunisian, Iraqi, etc.
@liliqua1293 Yes, exactly. It's not even a lingua franca in the sense that people sometimes refer to it, I.e. a common language that Arabic speakers use across dialects, because outside of academia/religion basically no one 'speaks' MSA. This can be a problem if, for example, one speaks Egyptian but goes to UAE or Tunisia. Tunisian is basically unintelligible to an Egyptian speaker, while Palestinian or Jordanian are extremely similar, and these differences vary according to original national languages (Coptic, Berber, etc.) as well as basic tribal and geographic distances.
If anything, Egyptian used to be a lingua franca, in the time when Egypt dominated the media, but I don't think that's the case anymore since a lot of the Toyoor El-Jannah and other baby stuff is now in Jordian dialect.
it's not artificial
@yahya_elistinsary It's definitely not a conlang, an artificially constructed language, but it has been artificially preserved and standardized as the Arab world's dialects, which are basically languages, continue to evolve rapidly. But this actually isn't unusual. A lot of societies have preserved parent languages as liturgical (religious) speech and academic media. Latin is the most famous case, but there are numerous other examples. "Artificial" isn't an insult; it just means that academics have made an effort to preserve fuSHa in a certain way while spoken Arabic continues to change.
I studied MSA growing up, i used to get frustrated whenever i hear arabic in dialects, but now i love it even though it is harder to learn, i is fun to learn different dialects with all of their culture as well.
I’m still unsure to which dialects i wanna learn though, haha all of them sound beautiful in their own way.
But i also realized i still have a lot to learn about MSA….
Learning arabic is confusing sometimes, but i love it! Anyway great video 🎉
I don't know what level you have reached or whether your experience can be generalized!
it is an easy etymological language with logical rules and a charming figurative language,
I hope You can understand what that means !
and hope you have an inspiring teacher.
I advise you to learn the Egyptian dialect, as it is the easiest and all Arabs understand it
Before having watched the video, I already sort of came to the conclusion that the Arabic language was kind of like the Latin language. Once Arabic spread really far, dialectal divergence happened. However, unlike the dialects of Latin being called different respective languages, the Arabic dialects still called themselves Arabic despite the differences.
The difference here, majority of Arab can still read Arabic from the era predate Islam 1500 years. Can you say the same about Latin or other languages?
False comparison between Latin and Arabic.
Italian, Spanish or French are not considered a dialect of Latin, instead they are considered a separate language of their own that they evolved from Latin.
However, Arabic has remained the same with help of Quran as reference. So, there is no other equivalent in any other language.
@@Mo911the majority of Arabs can’t read ancient texts, only the educated or the ones who hold an interest in those topics. God, even the average literacy rate in the Arab world is around 73%. Just by that you can’t claim “the majority of Arabs” can understand ancient texts, that’s a full blown lie.
@@DZeuf calling a language a dialect or vice versa is the matter of politics and in case of Arabic the matter of religion.
I once asked an Arab linguist this question: how come Persian Sibawayh, a non-native speaker of the Arabic language, prepared the first formal and analytical Arabic grammar in his five volumes Al-Kitab? He explained that Islam conquered many lands that enjoyed their own well established languages such as Persians or others. As the Arabic is a complicated language especially without E'rab and Tashkil, it has been very complicated for a non-native to pick up that language. As pragmatic as Persians are, one of them decided to write the grammer of this language to assist non-natives in learning it. Amazing story!
The tomb of Sibawayh which is located in Shiraz, Iran is visited by Arab scholars of the Arabic language.
Arab also use to write with dots on the letter so it would be hard for non Arabic speakers to.read ب and differentiate from ث and ت and ن. So the dot was added to easy reading arabic, because native use to deduce the letter with ease. grammar books , dots and accent marks are made to make it easy for none arab to read quran. Because the objective is to recite it as it was recited 1500 ish years ago
Dear, Sibawayh is not the first to write a grammar book for the language,
you ignore many historical facts, for example, you forgot settlement. In fact, the Arabs had their own neighborhoods or entire cities in the conquered countries.
Finally, the spread of the language is the best evidence of how easy it is. You can imagine that I have a dictionary of the Akkadian dialect, and more than 90% of the vocabulary is still in use to this day. Do you not understand what an etymological language means, which is easier than that parsing? Imagine that I presented to you a sentence: “Aren’t you able to distinguish the subject?” Or the effect, this is the parsing
This rambling is harder to decipher than Enigma coding@@RyhanMuhammad-bb2xh
I watched a lot of Arabic programs and they speak they speak Modern Spoken Arabic and I understand it well enough to know what's being said 😁👌💯
Since I started learning the Fus'ha Arabic I always thought regarding this question. I am thankful to you for sharing this important knowledge. I am a beginner in Arabic so may you please give me suggestion regarding Arabic.
بارك الله فيك
I have a lot of videos about Arabic learning. Don't hesitate to check them out! All the best in your learning endeavour :)
Really great video. You've made a lot of progress! Keep up the good work.
Really good video! I liked the animation! Props to you for the good work.
Thanks for the video but you forgot the most important reason people avoid speaking MSA. It's reserved for reciting the Quran and for important announcements. If someone suddenly starts speaking MSA to me, I would think he's about to give a government decree or something
that is not the reason, muslims are not jews.
@@yahya_elistinsaryThat is completely out of context. Do you read the Quran in a dialect or in MSA? That's what I meant
@@ntluck1592 the quran is not in msa its in clasical liturgical/quraishi arabic
0:19 can u plz tell me here I can read thos magazine about chess in Maghrib? I was reading about medevil chess in Moorish sspain and Abbasid and I have intrest on reading about Arabs developing medevil chess and introducing it to Europe. Plz answer me. Thank you💖💖
Thank you for your comment! I may have to disappoint you. Everything in this video was made by me, the animation, the drawings and these newspaper articles as well (not the public domain paintings of course). I just retrieved a template for that one! Really sorry!
@@nofridaynightplans I am not disappointed i'm amazed by ur work, it's magnificent
@@phoenixk4328 Thank you! I appreciate the support :) I hope you find the info you're looking for!
There’s no way you unironically called Al Andalus “moorish spain”
اللغة الفصحى هي لهجة (قريش) والتي نزل القرآن بها فاعتمدها العرب كلغة وسيطة بينهم واعتمدوها في دراسة العلوم بكل أنواعها، وطبعًا بقية اللهجات غير لغة (قريش) تعتبر عربية أصيلة وهي متداولة بيننا ومتوارثة منذ ما قبل الإسلام (أكثر من 1500 سنة)، باختصار كانت العرب تتحدث باللهجات مسبقًا وهي ليست ظاهرة حديثة
The amount of ignorance in the comments is terrifying. And all of this is because of their intense reverence for the Arabic language.
Massive denial among Arabs to not learn Masri instead.
Arabic spread during a time when communication technology wasn't widespread so it was inevitable that Arabic dialects from Morocco to Iraq would evolve and change.
My dear friend, the issue is not that simple.
You can imagine that the Arabs used to send infants to the desert to acquire the pure Arabic from the Bedouins who did not mix much with foreigners.
This was before Islam, let alone the complex educational system after Islam.
Finally, I thank and appreciate your diligence, even if it would be better to ask the language people, as this will enhance the spread of correct information, not false information.
Have a good day 💗
Interesting analysis! It's fascinating how languages evolve and diverge over time, especially in such a diverse region like the Arab world. The complexities of Arabic dialects and the standard form shed light on the dynamic nature of language. And hey, if laughter is the best medicine, maybe we should all strive to master the art of linguistic wit! 😄
Would you say noth african are arab because some I speak to say they are arab and other say they are not
great work
You raised a very important issue. I completely agree with you that Arabs do not use classical Arabic in their daily conversations, and that they mock those who speak it in the street. This is very unfortunate and indicates a cultural decline, but comparing the Arabic language to the Chinese language, for example, or anything. Another language is unrealistic, and I also see that the report completely neglected the role of the Islamic religion in preserving the language, and that the Qur’an is the main reason for preserving this language, as well as the Prophet’s hadith and the books of Islamic jurisprudence and the Prophet’s biography, all of which cannot be written or understood. Without the classical Arabic language, the classical Arabic language is also the official language of all Arab countries, the language of study, the language of books and references, and the language of the printed press. Without adopting the classical language, there will be great chaos and confusion, and we should not forget the reason for Western colonialism in the cultural and intellectual decline of the Arab peoples. And what we see now in the reality of the Arab peoples, the classical Arabic language is an expression of a great Islamic civilization, a great history and culture, and the classical Arabic language does not necessarily belong to the Arabs alone, it belongs to the civilization and culture of all Muslims in the world, and the language of the Qur’an is considered the highest level of rhetoric. For the Arabic language, and he is the one who preserved it from disappearing
Classical Arabic is the language of a great human civilization extending over many centuries, and I believe that it will remain as long as the Qur’an is the official book for Muslims, despite the backwardness and cultural decline that we see now for Muslims and Arabs. Their situation may change at a future stage for the better. All peoples go through stages of delay. And decline, and stages of progress and prosperity
Very good summary. Ignore the Arab/muslim nationalists.
1:14 not exactly most people are familiar with Egyptian levantine and gulf dialects (the eastern part of the Arab world)
But not Moroccan
4:42 Sinitic languages are not "Chinese dialects", please stop repeating propaganda
I like to think of Fusha as being similar to Latin (back in the day). It’s the language used for a lot of academic writing, poetry, religious writing but not spoken as much. Fusha and Latin also share an advantage where if you know the language, you can read texts from 1000 years or more.
و ماذا عن القرآن و هو يضبطها
و اللغة تحفظه من ان ينسى
آمنوا بالله و رسوله قبل أن يكون عمركم نفذ .
What is this trend that tries to divide?.. So you think we stopped speaking MSA? Our TV shows ARE in MSA, our newspapers are in MSA, even kids' shows are in MSA. Dialects are just dialects, they are some form of modified MSA to be easy on the tong. We limit the words we choose and we even add foreign words to the mix without breaking the grammatical structure. The arabic vocabulary is HUGE, there are many words "that appear" to be used for the same thing. Each dialect may choose only one word for that thing. And also, this is why we say MSA is hard, because you can't just pick any word if there is one that is more accurate. The vocabulary is huge for a reason. Moreover, we can easily understand each other when we choose COMMON words or when we know which words the other uses. For us, we need MSA to even understand the others dialects. For that reason our media uses for the most part MSA and it is the first thing we learn as kids. Heck, we pass 12 years learning every basic stuff in MSA. Therefore, you only need to learn MSA if you want to travel to arab countries, unless you will visit only one arab country in your life, in this case, you only need their dialect (and still, MSA is also important to hear and read the news in that country)
nice video
Thank you for the support! ^0^
Arabic will always stay alive and relevant till the day of judgement as it is the beautiful language in which Quran was revealed so as Quran is internal so is Arabic inshallah
So will Latin and Sanskrit.
Languages don't simplify itself over time. That's a myth from non-linguists. For example Standard German is mostly taken from Middle German dialects, which were mostly intelligible to Upper German dialects in the Middle Ages, both form the High German dialects. It is my native language, I really cannot speak real dialect, except the Standard, which is considered a dialect. I speak Standard colloquially and formally.
But German didn't got simpler, it reduced syllables or the vowel changes led to vanishing some vowels or inflections such as the instrumental case in German, which is preserved in the Dative case. since the ending of the instrumental was -u in singular and -ûn/-ûm (or -ôn/-ôm) in plural, they got -e in singular and -(e)n in Plural, which is identical with the dative case.
The instrumental is contained in many place names in Germany ending in -(e)n, such as München or Affoltern (at the Monks' and at the Apple Trees') and was used as instrumentalis localis. Sure, things can get more analytical, but it can also have innovations to synthetical use, such as the future tenses in the Romance languages were once analytic, but got synthesised as one conjugation.
I don't speak German. But this tendency does appear in many languages. All new French verbs belong to the first verb form (the simplest), past subjonctives are completely ignored by most people, the proper agreement with "avoir" is often not understood at all, hence dropped, and the most complex relative pronouns, including dont tend to disappear. Japanese has also got simpler.
German may be an exception for now.
@@nofridaynightplans the issue is with French that due to their pronunciation rules almost all forms sound the same. I noticed this myself. What I find strange is that when elder people say things like »je vois personne« they means that they see someone, why younger people think the person doesn't see anyone. Same with pas which means step or similar is not a negative. Je (le) sais pas - actually I know something. 🤔 That's confusing also when you read elder texts where often only »ne« is used for negating the finite verb: je ne le sais, not je (ne) le sais pas.
@@SchmulKrieger Apologies, but I didn't understand anything. 'Je vois personne' means I see someone? How could this be? I see someone is 'Je vois quelqu'un'.
@@nofridaynightplans yes, nowadays. But in elder French je vois personne means I see someone. Because the words are not the negation themselves, only »ne« negates the finite verb in elder French.
Or to make an example in English: I do see person ≠ I do not see person, if person is the actual pronoun someone.
@@SchmulKrieger So when you say "elder people", you actually mean centuries ago? I am actually interested in this 'personne' example. Would you care to share some references as I couldn't find any.
Also, what do you mean by 'pas' is not used for negation? If you say, '- Certains invités sont-ils venus? - Pas un seul.', 'pas' is used to negate 'un seul' ('not one'.)
I Don't Think That Arabic language Will Die , Even if All Arabs Die Tomorrow People Will Still Speak it Because of Qur'an
Arabs don't speak MSA but enough of media and even cartoons that people adore as kids are all in MSA and therefore understood. If a person focuses just on one dialect, they will have trouble associating the way other dialects developed from Classical Arabic.
Asking my Saudi friend to help me translate a Spongebob episode that is in MSA convinced me that at least comprehension of MSA is required to have the native experience since Spongebob was the most popular cartoon in the Middle East.
Some original Arabic cartoons use a dialect not MSA
Marhaban! Ana min al Younan ! Ana adrusu al lougata alarabiya li mudati arbaa sanawat.All the teachers here in Greece teach us MSA.we are used to MSA but what about dilects? We have an answer: if it is the right thing to spend so many years to learn fusha and then what? My lady teacher is from Filistin we understand a lot or words but when we try to talk we always turn it to fusha......
Don't worry every Arab speaking person can understand Fusaha, if you are foreigner its excepted to speak Fusaha but as local if you speak Fusaha they will make jokes of you mostly they think you are pretending to be an intellectual.
@@AhmedJigga Thank you very much !!
Once you speak Fusha.. you can easily divert to any dialect.. because dialects are mostly chosing different parts of the wide Fusha
@@jadhussein8412 The most difficult for me is when i hear words i know but i can mot understand the meaning because in they don t pronounce some letters like "souk" the market and especially in the verbs....
In the Levant, Syriac/Aramaic is the substrate of the dialects there
I am so happy to see 32K views on this video. I hope it reaches 100K.
That’s so nice of you to say Tasneem. I truly appreciate your support ☺️
Arabic fusha users in poet in duels was the enjoyment and bless back then they were so damn poetic people 😊
I'm an Algerian native, I meet plenty of Arabs while gaming and while I can understand them just fine. an issue arises when I speak maghribi/Daraja, so I have to speak Fusha/MSA, which feels a little awkward, because that's more of a formal language, it's like going to New York sounding like Shakespear.
so even with fellow Arab speakers, we just fall back on English.
what a shame, to fall back on that creole. Speaking a culture's language is to pay reverence to that culture. We should not pay reverence to western culture . اتستبدلون الذي هو ادنى بالذي هو خير
I have been from Morocco to Iraq to every Arab country. With standard Arabic everyone understood me and communicated with me. From it I was able over time to pick some of the dialects like Iraqi which speak well and now Moroccan with my new wife
Ferguson talks about a linguistic phenomenon called diglossia where a clear line is drawn between the spoken form of language (low variety) and its written form (high variety). Arabic with other few languages fall into this category. The two varieties of Arabic have distinctly different functions; the Darijas used in speaking and Fusha used in reading and writing. In fact standard Arabic (HL) has no native speakers and known only by those who learnt it at school so that so you may have members of the same family who know it and others who don't .
wonderful video
Thank you!
Long live TAMAZIGHT
I believe that every country should consider its spoken dialect as a separate language from standard Arabic. Furthermore, these dialects should be further developed by establishing grammar rules, expanding vocabulary, and keeping them up-to-date,
The fear that we might lose the Arabic language is dissipating. In this modern era of artificial intelligence, there is no need for concern. Technology allows us to preserve and enhance languages, ensuring their continuity and relevance.
@abdelmalek013
That is a very naive comment. Just because technology could preserve a formal register does not mean that this language would actually "survive". That's like saying because technology could preserve Latin, then Latin should survive. The point is this: if next to no one can produce a coherent 5-page essay in Standard Arabic bar a few thousand journalists and language teachers, then a language is for all intents and purposes dead.
And the "standard Arabic" I hear even on today's Arabic-language news stations is abysmally poor. The diction and syntax are those of amateurs. There is no intellectual life to speak of in the Arabic-speaking world. It is dark and depressing.
@@paulthomas281well put
I didn't mean to be too blunt. But I do assert this. Standard Arabic is dead, and no one cares. Now, Egyptian "Arabic", no of course not. But the common widespread language of Egypt in 2024 is NOT Arabic, nor does it have to be.@@jafroni6479
languages evolve everyday but in case of classical arabic all the rules and the vocabs are well recorded by the early language and religion scholars and its still used commonly in media and academic education etc
Yes, things are recorded. But was as far as the notion of MSA being used today ... No it is not. Media "standard Arabic" is amateurish. It does not rival by any stretch of the imagination the French of France2, Radio-Canada or TV5 Monde.@@dontaskme9459
The language is not dead, it is still alive and functioning.
You really ought to attend a mosque meeting, they speak standard Arabic more than the dialects.
As a non-Arab who has almost exclusively studied fusha it is not true that they’re going to make fun of you or even laugh
If someone from their region spoke fusha instead of their native dialect in a non-formal context then that would be perceived as weird but there is still a lot of prestige attributed to fusha and it’s still essential since virtually nothing is written in dialect
I have nothing against dialects, since as you pointed out they are not a new or more recent phenomenon, but I fully support the preservation of msa Arabic no matter how artificial it may seem. I am not Muslim but there’s no reason not to maintain a standardized version of the language which grants its speakers access to over 1000 years of knowledge
Another entirely secular reason to support fusha is that it is resistant to influence from colonial languages like French and English
I hate learning a language to learn 90% of its vocabulary related to technology is an English loan word. Fusha attempts to offer more Arabic-derived alternatives like هاتف or حاسوب
No reason to passively accept influence from perhaps the most degenerate and destructive empires to exist into their language
It’s entirely possible and beneficial to arbitrarily designate prestige to a specific version of an antiquated language in a self-aware way for these reasons
كلامك صحيح، الحفاظ على العربية الفصحى أمر مهم، أولا لأنها لغة الدين والتراث الممتد على قرون، وهذه ثروة عظيمة لا ينبغي أن يُضيّع الطريق إليها، ولأنها أيضا تمتلك من القوة البيانية والتعبيرية ما لا تقاربها فيه لغة أخرى. ولأنها اللغة الموحِّدة لجميع العرب شرقا وغربا، بل ولجميع متعلمي العربية أيضا، بخلاف اللهجات الكثيرة، والتي تتطور وتتغير أسرع من تغير اللغة العربية الفصحى الثابتة على هيئتها العامة، بخلاف بعض اللغات الأخرى كالإنجليزية التي لا يفهم متحدثها اليوم ما كتبه أهلها قبل أربعة وخمسة قرون، أما العربية فإنها وإن استجدت فيها بعض الألفاظ والمصطلحات فإننا لو قرأنا كتابا ألفه صاحبه قبل عشرة قرون مثلا لاستطعنا قراءته وفهمه بلا صعوبة.
فلذلك أقول إن علينا نحن معشر العرب خاصة أن نزاحم العامية بالفصحى قدر المستطاع، قد لا نستطيع في حديثنا اليومي، لكن يسعنا في مواضع أخرى، مثلا في الكتابة وفي التعليم لأي علم وفي الخطب وفي الأخبار وفي الكتب وغيرها من مواضع، وإنه ليحزنني أن أرى كتابا كتب بالعامية أو معلما يشرح بالعامية أو خطيبا يخطب بها، أو نشرة أخبار بها، فإن العامية لغة تخاطب ومحادثة بين الأشخاص، وليست لغة علم وثقافة، بل الفصحى كذلك، ولذلك يجب أن نكرمها ونستعملها قدر الإمكان، ونحافظ عليها مما يفسدها، خاصة المفردات الأعجمية الدخيلة. أما العامية فيجب أن نعطيها قدرها ولا نجاوز بها إلى فوق حدها وموضعها اللائق بها.
I also studied exclusively Fusha. But I am glad to see some people got positive experiences speaking it. I experienced the laughs first hand, no later than two months ago again.
Regarding speaking MSA, I am with you. I actually never felt like it was artifitial speaking it. But as a non-native speaker, my experience greatly differs from natives.
All your points are valid though.
Thank you for sharing your insights.
شكرا جزيلا على تعليقك، رغما أنه ليس موجها إليّ. لست ناطقة أصلا بالعربية ولا أتقن أي لهجة بالتحديد. ولكني أشاركك الرأي وذلك مهما كانت اللغة، قدر الاستطاع يفضل الحفاظ على اللغة مما يفسدها. رغما ذلك، وللأسف الشديد، وحسب ما أراه في حياتي اليومية، هذا ميل نادرٌ، لو كان موجودا إطلاقا. معظم الناس لا يعودون يقرأؤن. والأسلوب الفصيح لا يمكن إتقانه بدون القراءة واسعة النطاق.
هناك تعليق آخر يشدد على أنه لا يوجد حاليا برنامج يُقدّم بأساليب فصيحة وسلسة وجميلة وغير خاطئة.
وذلك يدلل على عمق المشكلة. وكما قلت، لا يقتصر الأمر على العربية بل يوجد في كل اللغات. لذلك أشجع كل واحد منا على الحفاظ على كنوز اللغات في حياتهم الشخصية إذا رَأَوْا قيمة في ذلك، لأن التغير يبدأ أولا بالذات.
@@nofridaynightplans الفيديو الخاص بك رائع ولغتك العربية فصيحة جميلة .... من خواص لعتنا انها ليست خاصة وهي للجميع واي شخص يتكلم بها يمكن ان نقول انه عربي ليس نسبه لانفسناا انما افتخارا بتكلم لسانه بهذه اللغة .... انا متأسف لما حصل لك أعتقد انه يجب عليك ان تصرح ان اللة العربية ليستك لغتك الام حتى تتفادى المشاكل لانه نستعملها فقط للشعر والاعلام والدراسة اما في حياتنا اليومية احيانا نستعملها لنهجو الناس فالهجاء بالفصحى اقوى وابلغ ... وهناك منا من يستعملها للنكات فيمكن ان يكون الامر اختلط على الناس فظنوا انك انت من تمزح .... اتمنى لك النجاح وانصحك برؤية اللغة العربية في القرءان فانها من اروع ماقد تسمعه من اللغة العربية واحيانا اقول انه هته اللغة نزلت من عند الله فانها اروع من ان يكون البشر هم من اخترعها سأبدا بمتابعة قناتك واصل سأكون من متتبعيك من الجزائر
Here we are. You brought colonisation. Like if Arabic became so widely spoken without colonisation.
You're talking about technology and then call west worst ever. You're so delusional 😂
You overstated the differences between Arabic dailects, i speak Levantine dailect but understand my Moroccan friends clearly when they speak 🙂
The most stupid and ill-analysed video in the topic.
Taking the same example, if an Iraqi travels to morocco neither of them will speak his own dialect. Both will lean toward Fus’ha. But the majority of both dialects is common between them.
Well, was Fus’ha ever been used. Of course, it is an Arabic dialect by itself part of Hijaz (the western coast of nowadays KSA) dated thousands of years old. The only reason it was standardised is that it’s the dialect of Quran (the Muslims’ holy book)
Fus’ha is used in education, news, books, official documents and many more. So it’s very far from dead.
For as long as there's Islam, there's the Quran, there will be the most comprehensive, rich and expressive language that is Arabic. And that's pretty much ALWAYS.
That was the case with Christianity too, The Catholic Church used to exclusively preach in the Latin language up until the 1960s when Latin mass was abolished. Islam is about 600 years behind Christianity in its development. 600 years ago (AD 1400) there wasn’t even the Protestant reformation, which happened in AD 1517.
@@greasher926 I'm assuming you believe God has sent these prophets and scriptures, 600 years or 6 million years have no bearing as long as it's from the Almighty God.
@@greasher926 They used to preach Latin but how many actually could read it? That's the difference. As for your Protestant comparison, you gotta remember when Christianity was embraced by Constantine is really when it began properly (so the difference in years is reduced).
@@us.nyc.10011there will a time where (Classical) Arabic is just a liturgical language. It's inevitable.
@@zurgmuckerberg for what you said to be true, means there will be no Muslims, no islam and no Quran and most importantly the verse that clearly state that would never happen by the grace of God, in that case, your claim would undoubtedly never be true.
Let alone that dialects might change from city to city
Whaaaat 😦 sounds like a language
@@AlEnzi They are languages but Arabs will claim there is only one
@@andred7684 They are not languages, André. Arabs can understand each other easily. Every language has dialects
How is Aramaic/Syriac; not mentioned even once in this video?
I was surprised too, it shows the whole levant as Greek speaking before the spread of Arabic, while in reality, Greek was the language of government, and some chrurches only. People spoke Syriac, Aramaic and Arabic. Both Syriac and Aramaic languages are Semitic languages, very similar to Arabic.
@@El7r1MEI'd even take it further and say Aramaic and Phoenician are Ancient Arabic dialects that any Classical Arabic speaker could easily comprehend its text without a dictionary, only their spoken accent will require sometime for them to get familiar with. Of course, that would only be the case if they're written with the modern Arabic script. My uncle once was reading a Phoenician Arabic dictionary and asking me the meaning of each word as he read. Not a single word I couldn't recognize in the pages he read. Some were even words not of classical Arabic but our local dialect and I am not even from the levant.
One example is the famous "iloi iloi lama sabachthani" phrase in Arabic would be " ilahi ilahi lima sabaktani"
Thank you for this video. Is there any possibility that you could make this video more focussed on the Arabic language? Too much information delivered too fast, and including other languages into the topic in detailed form does not help to make the video easier to follow. One eventually gets the point and thank you for trying to explain the issue, a bit more focus would have made the video even better.
I really appreciate that you took the time to write a constructive comment, which is unfortunately not the case for the sizeable part of this comment section.
I understand your points. But I really wanted to compare with other languages to determine whether this phenomenon of diglossia existed in other languages, one way or another. Despite this, I’ll make sure to improve in the upcoming videos.
Thank you for your comment :)
@@nofridaynightplans Am really glad you found the feedback useful, I had concerns I was maybe a bit too harsh. Comparing the development to that in other languages is a good point and necessary. But with experience we all become even better at making videos. Maybe if you had spoken a bit slower, then it would have been easier to understand, but this would have made the video longer.....which is the dilemma I have with my videos...
Most adult Arabs are able to understand various Arabic dialects, MSA and Old Arabic due to exposure. For example an average Iraqi or Saudi could easily understand the Syrian and Egyptian dialects on top of MSA, and Old Arabic from religious texts. Arab countries are all interconnected linguistically, and Old Arabic is the most sacred variation of Arabic in all Arab countries, it is the axis which all other variations go around. Europe which claims to be the most united group of countries in the world can only dream of having such a model.
schools in the Arabic world are teaching MSA as a compulsory language it has also been made optional in Islamic world who are even more eager to learn it than the Arabic speakers themselves and amazingly are becoming more fluent❤ especially in reading and memorizing the Quran for us it is a beautiful blessed language and just to correct you there isnt this much struggle between dialects may be at the beginning but at the end we reach a common ground language and although Maghreby Algerian Tunisian dialects are the hardest to understand but it is worth mentioning the most successful Arab TV anchors are from there
from Algeria eastwards everyone understands one another just fine
When it comes to who can understand who, it is only Moritania, Morrocow, Algeria and Libya that have this distinct umprella of dialects.
The rest can eventually understand each other.
I think it clearly depends on the level of foreign lexicon used. You can clearly see it in some videos online comparing dialects. A Palestinian does struggle to understand an Iraqi when the lexicon used differs too much from the common foundation. Conversely, when a Moroccan uses mostly the shared lexicon, albeit keeping the accent and grammartical structure of their dialect, you can perfectly understand them. It's not a black and white situation :)
@@nofridaynightplans
True. Also, great video. I did not thought that you would read my comment! Sorry if it came off as rude.
Your video has inspired me to create a personality test on which dialect is best suited for you, wish me luck lol XD
I didn't find it rude at all :) All the best in your endeavour ^0^
Very useful and informative video.... also terrifying.....
Greek & Latin are not original langs in there 2:56 . But the video is very useful. The information and theories are completely correct. Thank you very much.
This is not an exhaustive list. Never intended it to be. But Greek and Latin were used there at some point in time.
Thank you for your comment !
@@nofridaynightplans well i guess greek was used mainly in egypt like we in egypt use alot of greek words unknowingly
be careful, you are stressing some words incorrectly, like "characteristics" or "intelegable"
Excellent!!!
The majority of phonological phenomena in Arabian Peninsula dialects have documented presence since the advent of Islam, such as transforming "jeem" into "Ya’", or converting "Alef" into "’ain", or using "Am" as a definite article instead of "Al"
Very well-made video and props to you for your effort. However, the Levantine region spoke Arameic and not greek. Also, why don’t you list your sources? Thank you.
Thank you for your nice comment. As I said, it’s not meant to be an exhaustive list but to illustrate several languages were spoken there before.
I don’t understand your question about sources. What sources are you referring to?
@@nofridaynightplans I understand. I’m referring to the sources where you gathered the information from for your video.
I've been studying Arabic for about 15 years. This video is based on both my experiences and the many things I've read over the years. I don't have any specific sources to provide you with in the present instance.
When I do, like for the video about the Arabic script, or Women and the Japanese language, I always list the references used in the description.
Actually no. I should have added the article about Sibawayh. Gonna list it before the night ends.
Thanks for the input!
@@nofridaynightplans you’re welcome. And thank you for taking the time to respond. Keep up the good work 👍🏻🙏
It's illogical question and stupid even to think about it. Because it's the only language that is meant to last and can't be ever dead as long as human beings exist.
Im Egyptian and failed several times in arabic exam at high school, same as alot of my family its nnot a language its a nightmare
If you fail it that doesnt mean its nightmare it means that your brain doesnt work corrctly😊
Information: When we dub series, cartoons, and anime from abroad, we dub them in( fusha) Arabic.
Arabs had many accents ( for every tribe ) , after islam came those accents were mixed in a unique way in every country . So MSA wasn't the way all people spoke before the prophet PBUH .
You not mention it in the video The biggest influence to the the levantine Arabic Aramaic
This is not meant to give any exhaustive list. I say “such as’
People are always encouraged to seek deeper knowledge by themselves. This video is not about the origins of Levantine😅
Thank you for your comment!
During my school years, I read my textbooks in MSA, listened to my teacher speaking MSA, did my homework in MSA, watched the news in MSA, watched every single cartoon in MSA, even Japanese animes are dubbed in MSA, and listened to songs by Kazim Al Saher in MSA. I renewed my license in MSA, applied for a visa to another Arabic country in MSA, read books by Egyptian, Algerian, Iraqi, and Yemeni authors written in MSA, Read newspapers and magazines in MSA. On Friday, I go to pray in the Masjid, and the ceremony is preached in MSA. Sometimes I dream in MSA, and share updates and thoughts on social media platforms in MSA.
And then some random non arabic speaking youtuber: aRaBic iS a dEaD LaNgUagE!
when you say in your description "A dead language is defined as a language with no native speakers.
This would make Modern Standard Arabic one. " do you really know anything about Arabic or just did a quick google search on what lazy western scholarship think?
Arabic is the soul of our culture. It does not die. We love it. It extends all over the world even if you don't notice.
By the way! you have america's got talent? we have the same show but for poetry written in MSA! and it is very popular. look it up..
lol dead language ... wtf
we all know what خ
stands for @@ayudroid3568 😂
@@youtubeexpert2441 if someone wants to have a normal conversation with anyone from the street msa will be useless and too highbrow outside of academia.
We have French-style double negation in Catalan as well; French is not the only romance language ;)
oh and what you call chinese dialects are actually languages
Thank you for your input. It is true that Romance languages often tend to be limited to the 5 main ones. But it shouldn't be so, indeed.
ok...i was about to say it's sum trash mid informations out of a western...but am impressed you did got things right! it's just, the question that you said "was MSA ever spoken", yes it used to be, but wayy before Islam ofc!
and during islam and untill some point i n the golden age after that the dialect differnce of the less educated became to great i guess.
the prophet peace be upon him didn't speak the exact standard arabic "that we study in schools" it used to have a slight dialectic difference, in pronunciation and such thing, as mentioned in the video, no language gets simplified over the time @@yahya_elistinsary
@@abdocard in most Hadiths narrated in the religious tradition the prophet (PBUH) actually did speak the standard Arabic "that we study in school". We even studied some of the Hadith at school and understood it with our elementary school language level.
@@subfreak1621 those are the hadiths, prophet peace be upon him is illiterate, those hadiths were being proofed, who said it's the exact way it was said ? Allah yahdeek
@@abdocard Are you trying to say the Hadiths are fake? Or what are you saying? Hadiths are the most authentic tradition ever transmitted in history after Quran. The illiteracy of the prophet pbuh doesn't mean he didn't talk. He spoke and his sayings where transmitted first orally then through books after printing became a thing. He didn't need the ability to read or write in order to just talk.
It’s not hard to learn it sounds but when master it you will love it 😊
do you want to learn the pure arabic so learn it from the quraan
I'm Tunisian and i speak in MSA in my daily life as much as i can and i don't care about the opinion of others !
Nice endeavour!
Nice video! Out of curiosity... if languages tend to simplify, then how did they get so complex to begin with? Surely Arabic and Latin didn't just spring into existence as highly complicated languages.
It's simply not true. I don't think the maker of this video knows what they are talking about at all. I think I'll just not watch it.
These languages were actually less complex than their ancestor languages. Put simply, having fewer speakers allows creating morphology rules to invent new concepts. When you grow in speakers and interact with other populations, morphology becomes harder to enforce and instead the language simplifies, adopts loan words, etc. Then syntax becomes more important than morphology. There's lots of content on this subject.
Funny enough, I originally had a part about this in the video but removed it because it was getting too long 😅 Looks like I should have kept it.
My understanding is that, as they evolve, languages tend to require rules that may become more complex as they are put into written form by a small number of people. However, the more the languages spread and interact with others, the more people speak its non standardised form, the form it simplifies (this is very much like the concept of "linguistic reduction" introduced in the video).
Thank you for your comment.
@@nofridaynightplans Written rules have nothing to do with it. We're talking about spoken languages here. Most languages don't have a written form at all. The vast majority of people in historical times were illiterate and so their ways of speaking evolved without reference to written rules at all.
The reduction that you are talking about is the omission of sounds, like "cannot" becoming "can't". That does not, in general, simplify the grammar of the language, which is what the OP is asking about. Changing "cannot" to "can't" does not make the grammar of English simpler. On the contrary, it makes it _more complicated_ - which answers the OP's question of how languages can become more complex over time - because instead of just having to learn a single word - "not" - that negates any sentence you put it in, you have to learn a bunch of rules about how different words are contracted, with "have" plus "not" becoming "haven't", "can" plus "not" becoming "can't", and "will" plus "not" rather bizarrely becoming "won't". There's no regularity there, so you just have to learn these contractions by rote. So, far from reduction leading to languages becoming grammatically simpler, it can - and often will - make them grammatically more complicated.
K Singh, commenting above, has it right. Linguistic innovations that make languages more complicated spread more easily in small language communities. It is difficult for a complicated new feature to spread throughout a large language community. Larger language communities also tend to involve the incorporation of peoples who previously spoke other languages, so they are learning the language as a second or third language and therefore learn it imperfectly, failing to master the more complicated features.
You should consider taking a course in historical linguistics before trying to make another video on the subject.
You could treat that as an empirical observation, which needs explanation. Of course I would not venture to explain this observation, but I certainly believe it is true. Arabic certainly follows this pattern. The matter with Arabic is not merely simplification rather than degeneration. All of the spoken dialects are degenerate ugly forms compared to the majesty of classical Arabic (Not MSA). Yes classical Arabic should have been spoken by actual living people, otherwise no known event or series of events would have sufficient power to consolidate it out of many spoken dialects. If that is true and I surely believe it is, then one would confront the question of how could that singular language arise?
So which dialect is the most widely understood?
Probably Egyptian and the Gulf dialects. Since both of these are the most prevalent in Arabic Popular Culture.
Egyptian because of their media in the 1940s to the 1990s now they lost their media privileges. I noticed that Jordanians and Palestinians speak a close dialect to Egyptians.
@@BD-cm7xc Which one out of the two do you think sounds more beautiful?
So when angels decide to use The Language Of The Angels to actually co.municate, they grow as silent as the wise?
Languages do not tend to simplify.
Russian is developing evocative case again (different than the one it used to have)
Today at work, I was saying the time has passed in my levintine accent, my Egyptian friend and Algerian understood me while they use a different synonym for pass.
Pass, مرق، عدا، جاز
Any Arabic speaker would be able to speak other dialect if exposed to it. That's why Egyptian is the most understood.
The only really significant reason mentioned behind the MSA not being spoken, is the mockery and nitpicking to those who speak. But that only comes when spoken among immature uneducated people who only feel their ignorance of their own language being exposed when spoken and therefore feel the speaker being a pretentious intellectual.
On the other hand, it comes as a life saver when we speak with Arabs from the farthest regions of Arabia and other foreigners who know the language. We don't even need to speak MSA fully to understand each other, just limiting the heavy dialect elements in our speech is enough to communicate with ease. Since for the most part all dialects do use the same basic Arabic words and principls only differing in pronunciation accent and terminologies that normally differ from one region to another
The video also underestimated how often the language is used on daily basis. We use it in prayer, on the TV, on official documents, on websites and social media, on CZcams videos and social media for the most part or at minimum a version of MSA with some light dialect mixed in.
Cymraeg/Welsh or Gaidhlig resp. Gaelige are good examples in GB, or (the dying) Frisian languages in Germany or Raetoromanic in Swizerland. All these languages have a written "standard form" but are only spoken in their regional dialects, just like Arabic.
Very interesting examples! Thank you for sharing.
MSA is Quraysh dialect which is already a selective mix from all penensula dialects and thats before islam. so naturlly after Islam people kept their dialect along side quraysh one "MSA" and after the expanding they spread both but their local dialect got effected while the 'MSA' didn't cause its connected with the Quran and that's a strong refrence. till this day we have dialect and accents from pre islamic time still spoken like 'كشكشه' and 'كسكسه" ( changing the 'k" sound to ch or tseh).
As long as the Qur’an exists and is preserved, the Arabic language will remain alive. An Arab who lives in the far East can understand an Arab in the far West. This is because the Arabic language and its rules were established on the basis of the Qur’an.
I learned three foreign languages: German, English, and Swedish, and I discovered that the Arabic language is the most flexible language and capable of expression, especially poetry, which is unparalleled in any other language.
I kind of find it odd when foreigner speak about Arabic as if it's a group language while for example japanese has a similar more complicated dialect and it's just a smal country, for example the difference in kansai and Kanto dilect is not only the sounds which is not comparable the structure of words and the sentence very different, I am from sudan and I speak japanese, and difference between Sudanese and Egyptian us far less than the japanese dialects, the same with English dialects across the globe Australian English is harder to understand but that doesn't make a different language.
The fusha is the main intellectual language that is used by educated people and in books and news. It's the most formal form of the language, and japanese have the same aspects of formality.
If you scroll through the comments, you'll see that the difference between kakikotoba and hanashikotoba in Japanese is what prompted me to make this video.
It appears very few people understand the content of the video. Probably because they comment without having watched it. And if you read academic articles about MSA, you'll see linguists regard it as a dead language because there are no native speakers. Does this make sense though? That's the point of the video.
Anyways, thanks for the insight.
Can Arabs help me!
Im reading a book by Naguib Mahfouz in Arabic.
I want to know how accurately you speak all the case endings. It's really hard to figure out what Arabs keep and what they drop. Everybody seems to be a bit different. I understand arabic grammar very well. But when reading i am paralysed by the pronunciation of the case endings - the grammatical components
BUT..i have no idea how Arabs read Arabic fast AND pronounce all the case endings. Sometimes you cant pronounce the case endings until you have figured out what the sentence means. Are Arabs some sort of language genius or something 😂😂
So this quote from "همس الجنون" .. obviously there are no vowels in the book. I have put them all in myself.
Would Arabs pronounce ALL the vowel endings i have written here? I just dont know how they can do it so fast😂
ما الجنونُ
انه فيما يبدو حالةً غامضةً كالحياةِ و كالموت. تستطيعُ ان تعرفُ الشيءَ الكثيرَ عنها اذا انت نظرت اليها من الخارجِ ، اما الباطنُ ، اما الجوهرُ ، سرٌ مغلق. و صاحبُنا يعرفُ الآن انه نزل ضيفا بعضَ الوقت بالخانقة و يذكرُ - الآن ايضا - ماضيَ حياتِه كما يذكرُه العقلاءُ جميعا و كما يعرفُ حاضرَه. اما تلك الفترةَ القصيرةَ - قصيرةً كانت و الحمدُ للهِ - يقفُ وعيُه حيالَ ذكرياتِه ذاهلا حائرا لا يدري من امرِها شيئا تطمئنُ اليه النفسُ.
Well, it's very rare to find Arabs who can read it with the correct case endings, I am able to read it correctly (I have hard times from time to time), but that is because I have put a lot of effort over the years plus a lot of passive effort listening to Arabic since I was a kid.
Being able to read with all the correct case endings is not a really useful skill (that didn't stop me from trying to acquire it 😂), and most people think that it's very pretentious. It doesn't need a genius you will get there with practice, though I don't recommend it.
Also there are some incorrect case endings in your text, you did a great job, most of it is correct.
I will post the corrections in a separate comment.
كان من الواجب رفع كلمتي «حالةٌ» و «غامضةٌ» لأنهما خبر «إنه» و نعت للخبر. و كان عليك أن تنصب كلمة «تعرف» بعد آداة النصب «أنْ» لتصبحَ «تعرفَ» و ستعتاد عليها مع الوقت لا تقلق. و أخيرًا كان عليك أن ترفع كلمتي «الفترةُ» و «القصيرةُ»، في جملة «أما تلك الفترةُ القصيرةُ».
أتمنى لك وقتًا سعيدًا مع العربية، أحسنت عملًا.
It's Abu al-Aswad ad-Du'ali that is considered to be the Father of Arabic grammar not Sibawayh
I know 4 languages. Of those languages, Arabic is the most lively language ever❤️ العربية❤️
You missed one important factor, though you hinted to it in the spread of Islam, which brought the Quran to those regions far from Arabia, and the Quran is in Arabic, thus it has, and will continue to, preserved the Arabic language for eternity.
Small correction, French isn't the only Romance language with double negation! There are plenty more like Catalan, Occitan, Aragonese, Arpitan...
Yes, people did say that. I appreciate that the 5 main Romance languages aren’t the only ones. And it’s unfortunate they aren’t given more importance.
Thank you for your comment!
@@nofridaynightplans thank you for this comment and understandment ♥️
Spanish too
If you're a non Arabic speaker, I recommend learning Egyptian Arabic. It's easier and any Arab understands it because there's over 50 Arabic accents.. and too many dialects
so..
but I don't like Egypt, I like Palestine
@@user-vs6xj2qe2g well I didn't say like the country or don't, I said you can learn their accent to gain access to other countries. Or one can choose whatever they wish
@@Fares.SA37-4 You can learn MSA and have acces to all those countries as well and you can read the newspaper maybe a book and understand forms if you need to fill in some.
@@yahya_elistinsary if he want to have a normal conversation with anyone from the street msa will be useless and too highbrow outside of academia.
@@user-vs6xj2qe2g learn Palestinian or Levantine then. probably the most common and influential dialect now at least on arabic social media.
According to geography, climate, trade caravan routes, and the poetic poems left by the ancient Arabs before Islam, which described their reality... sufficient data to show that it is the only pure language free of impurities.In addition to a very important step that did not happen with any language, which was the fact that some scholars collected the language from the various tribes and wrote it down after the advent of Islam and the beginning of the arrival of non-Arabs to the Arabian Peninsula.
from the title you understand that you don't wanna take your "knowledge" from someone who is an intruder to the culture. in the arab world if you don't understand standard arabic you're considered an ignorant all the books are written in standard arabic
Iam an arabic native and i can read and understand an arabic text back to 2000 years ago only standard arabic