Arabic literary language

Modern Arabic literary language (ALA) is common in all Arabic-speaking countries, it is this type of Arabic that is used in the UN as one of the 6 official languages ​​and is recognized as one of 7 international languages . Most of the printed publications in Arabic, books, documents, and almost all educational literature are written in ALA.

For a long time, good command of prestigious literary norms among Arabs was a relative rarity. Nowadays, with the availability of education (training is conducted only in ALA) and the development of inter-Arab relations (including the pan-Arabism movement), al-Fusha is becoming a truly common language uniting all Arab-speaking peoples and contributing to the preservation and development of pan-Arab culture. Confident knowledge of the literary norm and “clear” ( fusha ) pronunciation usually speaks of the high social status and cultural level of the speaker.

Despite the fact that all 22 Arabic-speaking states proclaim al-Fuskh as their official language, in reality, the first language of most Arabs is the local spoken Arabic ( Arabic . العامية al-`āmmiyya or الدارجة ad-dārija). These varieties can vary quite a lot among themselves and be difficult or impossible to understand by carriers of other dialects. Typically, spoken language is not reproduced in writing. However, there is a whole literary layer using spoken language (especially poetry and dramaturgy).

The situation with the use of Arabic in the modern world seems to be a good illustration of diglossia - the coexistence of two variants of one language, separated socially, functionally and situationally. Educated Arabic speakers, as a rule, can easily communicate in ALA with representatives of other Arab countries. This state of affairs facilitates the possibility of a quick transition from one variant to another, sometimes even in the same sentence, in cases where (between) speakers of different versions of different spoken Arabic (e.g. between Tunisian and Syriac ) are not understood .

It should be noted that in real life it is difficult, and often almost impossible to draw a clear line between ALA and the dialect, since both forms of the language coexist simultaneously, simultaneously and often intersect and mix with each other in different proportions and volumes depending on the communicative and social context . Modern Arabic is a linguistic continuum in which it is mixed forms that prevail.

With the advent of the Internet , the modernization and development of telecommunication systems, the differences between ALA and Arabic dialects are slowly but surely decreasing in favor of the literary version.

Classical Arabic literary language (KALA) remains largely the norm for ALA, however, despite the close relationship, these two options are not identical to each other, as the modern literary language continues to develop and complement, especially lexically. There are also differences in syntax (the word order in modern ALA is often “subject – predicate – direct complement” , whereas in KALA, the norm is “predicate – subject – direct complement” ^[4] ), etc. Arabic scholars usually consider Classic Arabic and ALA, as two registers of the same language.

Despite its undoubted universality, influenced by local dialects , literary Arabic often acquires some regional features when pronouncing a number of phonemes (for example, the implementation of the classical phoneme jīm ج (/ dʒ /) as [ɡ] in Egypt , and like [ʒ] in Lebanon ) and grammar (e.g. mixing standard and local norms and forms in syntax and morphology ). Such confusion occurs even in writing (e.g. in newspapers). Thus, contrary to the widespread beliefs of a certain part of the Arabs (for example, in Egypt ), literary Arabic , which is completely pure and completely free of local features, is not found in colloquial speech anywhere ^[5] .

Arabic literary language in the normative version is practically not used in speech at home or in the family, between friends or in informal situations; this area is almost exclusively assigned to the local dialect.

The situation is different with the oral communication of educated Arabs in a formal setting or with Arabs from other countries. Since ALA remains predominantly a written language, in spoken language its option can be considered Conversational Standard Arabic (one of the Arabic names عامية المثقفين ʻāmmiyat al-'muthaqqafīn apt. “Dialect of educated”). The term itself has not yet been established in Arabic studies. This variety is a grammatically simplified version of ALA with some elements of local dialects. Conversational standard Arabic is more common in the Gulf and Levant countries ( Levant dialects themselves are very close to ALA), but sometimes the speech of educated Egyptians and Maghreb residents is also called that.

The question of which option (ALA or dialect ) is more preferable for study by foreigners does not have a clear answer. Depending on the specific needs and application of training, each person solves this issue individually. In Russia, the teaching of Arabic mainly begins with the literary language. In some Western countries, training plans developed on the basis of a single dialect are more common (recently, the largest Egyptian Arabic ( Arabic. مصري Maṣrī ), dialects of the Levant cultural centers ( Beirut and Damascus ) are popular among students) Arabic شامي Shami ) and dialects of economically developed countries of the Persian Gulf ( Arabic اللهجة الخليجية al -lahja al-Khalijiya ). However, knowledge of ALA helps in studying the dialect rather than vice versa.

• Gusterin P.V. Arabic language in the modern world (on the meaning of the Arabic language).