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Ethnologue > Web version > Country index > Asia > Saudi Arabia > Arabic, Standard

Arabic, Standard

A language of Saudi Arabia

ISO 639-3: arb

Population	206,000,000 L1 speakers of all Arabic varieties (Wiesenfeld 1999).
Region	Middle East, North Africa. Also in Algeria, Bahrain, Chad, Comoros, Djibouti, Egypt, Eritrea, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Oman, Palestinian West Bank and Gaza, Qatar, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Tanzania, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates, Yemen.
Alternate names	Al-’Arabiyya, Al-Fusha, Literary Arabic
Dialects	Modern Standard Arabic (Modern Literary Arabic), Classical Arabic (Koranic Arabic, Quranic Arabic). Preserves the ancient grammar.
Classification	Afro-Asiatic, Semitic, Central, South, Arabic A member of macrolanguage Arabic [ara] (Saudi Arabia).
Language use	National language. 246,000,000 L2 speakers of all Arabic varieties (Wiesenfeld 1999). Not a L1. Used for education, official purposes, written materials, and formal speeches. Classical Arabic is used for religion and ceremonial purposes, having archaic vocabulary. Modern Standard Arabic is a modernized variety of Classical Arabic. In most Arab countries only the well-educated have adequate proficiency in Standard Arabic, while over 100,500,000 do not.
Language development	Fully developed. Bible: 1984–1991.
Writing system	Arabic script.
Comments	VSO.

Also spoken in:

Algeria

Language name	Arabic, Standard
Language use	Official language. Used for written materials, formal speeches. Not a L1 language, but taught in schools.

Bahrain

Language name	Arabic, Standard
Region	Middle East, North Africa.
Language use	National language. Used for education, official purposes.

Chad

Language name	Arabic, Standard
Language use	Official language.

Comoros

Language name	Arabic, Standard
Region	Widespread.
Language use	Official language. Not a L1.

Djibouti

Language name	Arabic, Standard
Language use	Official language.

Egypt

Language name	Arabic, Standard
Region	Middle East, North Africa.
Language use	Official language. Not a L1. Used for nearly all written materials and formal speeches. Taught in schools.

Eritrea

Language name	Arabic, Standard
Region	Middle East, North Africa.
Language use	Official language. Some schools.

Iraq

Language name	Arabic, Standard
Region	Middle East, North Africa.
Language use	National language. Used for education, official purposes.

Israel

Language name	Arabic, Standard
Region	Middle East, North Africa.
Language use	National language. Used for education and communication among Arabic-speaking countries.

Jordan

Language name	Arabic, Standard
Region	Middle East, North Africa.
Language use	Official language. Used for education, official purposes, communication among Arabic-speaking countries. Education officials promoting this variety among students. Regional varieties have been used in classrooms, but this is changing.

Kuwait

Language name	Arabic, Standard
Region	Middle East, North Africa.
Language use	Official language. Used for education, official purposes.

Lebanon

Language name	Arabic, Standard
Region	Middle East, North Africa.
Language use	Official language. Used for education, official purposes, communication among Arabic speaking countries.

Libya

Language name	Arabic, Standard
Language use	National language. Used for nearly all written materials, formal speeches. Not L1, but taught in schools.

Morocco

Language name	Arabic, Standard
Language use	Official language. Used for education, official purposes, communication among Arabic speaking countries.

Oman

Language name	Arabic, Standard
Region	Middle East, North Africa.
Language use	Official language. Used for education, official purposes, formal speeches.

Palestinian West Bank and Gaza

Language name	Arabic, Standard
Region	Middle East, North Africa.
Language use	National language. Used for education, official purpose, formal speeches.

Qatar

Language name	Arabic, Standard
Region	Middle East, North Africa.
Language use	Official language. Used for education, official purposes, formal speeches.

Somalia

Language name	Arabic, Standard
Language use	National language. Most Somalis have very limited or no proficiency in Arabic.

Sudan

Language name	Arabic, Standard
Region	Middle East, North Africa.
Language use	Official language. Used for written materials and formal speeches. Not L1, but taught in schools. Little known and used in the Southern Sudan.
Comments	Not intelligible with Sudanese Spoken Arabic [apd] or Sudanese Creole Arabic [pga].

Syria

Language name	Arabic, Standard
Region	Middle East, North Africa.
Language use	Official language. Used for education, official purposes, formal speeches.

Tanzania

Language name	Arabic, Standard
Region	Middle East, North Africa.

Tunisia

Language name	Arabic, Standard
Language use	Official language. Used for written materials and formal speeches. Not a L1, but taught in schools.

United Arab Emirates

Language name	Arabic, Standard
Region	Middle East, North Africa.
Language use	Official language. Used for education, official purposes, formal speeches.

Yemen

Language name	Arabic, Standard
Language use	National language. Used for education, official purposes, formal speeches.

Entries from the SIL Bibliography about this language:

Academic Publications

ABUSHUSH, Dawd Adem; ASHKABA, John Abraha; AWED, Sulus Beyed; DAVIS, Patricia M.; GHEBREMEDHIN, Tesfai Bariagaber; HAMMADU, Osman; HOATSON, Kristen; HOATSON, Todd; IDRIS, Saleh Mahmud; MOHAMMED, Ibrahim; OKBATSION, Solomon Berhane; OSMAN ALI, Mohammed; TEKRURAY, Daniel Teclemariam; WALTER, Stephen L., authors. 2005. Eritrea national reading survey, September 2002.

HOLLENBACH, Barbara E.; PIKE, Kenneth L., authors. 1964. "Conflated field structures in Potawatomi and in Arabic."

Vernacular Publications

Modern standard Arabic for southern Sudan: Alphabet book. 1983.

Modern standard Arabic for southern Sudan: Alphabet story book. 1983.