al-ʻarabiyyah
Native Speakers: 315 million (all varieties); L2 Speakers: 270 million
Middle East, North Africa
Official: Algeria, Bahrain, Chad, Comoros, Djibouti, Egypt, Eritrea, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Niger, Oman, Palestinian Territories, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates, Western Sahara, Yemen
Afro-Asiatic, Semitic
Modern Standard Arabic (Literary Arabic) is an inflectional language, although the colloquial varieties tend to utilize less inflections. It generally follows a verb-subject-object (VSO) word order, and a highly complex and unusual morphology. Nouns possess three grammatical cases, three numbers, two genders, and three states. Nouns and adjectives are marked for case, number, gender, and state. Verbs are marked for person, gender, and number, and are conjugated in either past or non-past and include two voices and six moods.
Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) is the standard, formal variety of the language (also known as “Literary Arabic”) and diverges significantly from regional colloquial dialects and varieties. Major regional varieties include: Egyptian Arabic, Levantine Arabic, Maghrebi Arabic, Mesopotamian Arabic, Gulf Arabic, as well as dozens of other dialects and sub-dialects.
Arabic script, written right-to-left
According to a Pew Research study in 2016, Arabic is the fastest growing foreign language in the United States, growing by 29 percent between 2010 and 2014. As of 2016, there are more than 1.2 million speakers of Arabic in the United States, with the largest populations concentrated in California, Michigan, New York, Texas, Illinois, and New Jersey.
At Latitude Prime, we offer Arabic translation, Arabic interpretation, and Arabic localization services in numerous specialized subject areas and multiple dialects. Whether you need to translate a computer software user manual into Arabic, need a Moroccan Arabic interpreter for an international business negotiation, or want to localize your website into Modern Standard Arabic to market your products or services in the Middle East, Latitude Prime has the customized language solution to meet all of your Arabic language needs.
