Learning Arabic

Learn Arabic and discover new places!Studying Arabic abroad is a great adventure! While a challenging language, there are many rewards to those who learn Arabic. Arabic is the official language of 26 countries, the third most of any language after English and French, which are primarily located in North Africa and the Middle East. With more than 280 million native speakers it is the largest of the Semetic languages. With so many different dialects, it is almost questioned whether Arabic can be considered one language, however, Modern Standard Arabic is familiar to most speakers.


Steeped in history, the earliest surviving texts of ancient Arabian are the Hasaean inscriptions from Saudi Arabia dating back to the 8th century BCE. Arabic is studied the world over by Muslims since it is the language of the Qur’an. The Qur’an had a large impact on Arabic helping consolidate the language and being the best example of classical Arabic from which the Modern Standard version has developed. Arabic has a rich history in poetry and theatre as well as being, for many generations, the language of the most advanced philosophy and mathematical discussions. In Western society Arabic fiction is best known for the stories of One Thousand and One Nights from which the adventures of Sinbad are drawn.


Studying Arabic Abroad

With many new rules and a different alphabet from English, it may help to keep in mind the Arabic saying: “Every head has a headache!” However, those who tackle this language will find their very ways of thinking expanded. For one thing, you will have to get used to writing and reading right-to-left. When you return from your trip and your friend seats you on their sofa and asks whether you want sugar in your coffee, you can surprise them by telling them that ‘sofa’, ‘coffee’ and even ‘sugar’ are words all derived from Arabic. Perhaps they will even think of taking a trip of their own!