Talk:Arabic/Archive 1

Spelling is wrong fasiha

Heading

The word "Arabic", pronounced "Arabi" in Arabic, comes from the extended word: "Al-Rabi" ..which means: "The Teachings" or "From Teachings", hence "Rabi" for Teacher in Hebrew.

official language of iraq

wait a second...the official language of iraq is Arabic it isnt a co-official language....fix the map

Isn't the English word "assassin" a common word derived from the arabic language?

well, from an arab group at least. Arre 22:56, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

blank table

Interestingly, I get a wholly blank table when I watch this page. Is it me or is there something wrong with it? Muhamedmesic 21:37, 30 May 2004 (UTC)

second paragraph

I read the second paragraph and couldn't find fault with it - it is clear and lucid. What is bothering you about it?

separate page for each sound

Setting up a separate page for each sound of the Arabic language seems really excessive. All the necessary information can easily be kept on a single page. Eclecticology

major project

It's going to be a fairly major project to fill in all the concepts in Islam or the Arabic culture that don't translate directly into English (now all listed).

Spelling deserves a note: I have used a single coherent spelling scheme here that comes all from one book. Older spellings ulema and tarika (for ulama and tariqa using the new spellings) come from a book 20 years older. A native speaker of Arabic might be better to identify which spellings are more correct given the pronunciation. Rather than change them in this file, please use redirects for alternate spellings, as I am sure multiple spellings of some of these words are extant.

An important note: the term "Muslim" must replace "Moslem" or "Mohammedan" unless one is specifically quoting some text written by some English guy. I should probably have included "Mohammedan" as a 'just don't use it' word. I also could have (but didn't) mention that G. W. Bush made both gaffes in the speeches he made just after 9/11 - no wonder the Arabs won't join him now!!! What a moron.

wikipedia in arabic language

When can one see a wikipedia in arabic language [[ar:]] ??

Here ar:

In a very popular Arabic language newspaper, there was an article today about wikipedia. The author of that article praised the extensive amount of information on this encyclopedia, but ended it by saying that its not available in Arabic. I think that this common mistake, among Arabic speaking people, can be fixed if there was a direct link from the encyclopedias homepage of www.wikipedia.org to the arabic version of ar.wikipedia.org . It might, also, help develop the number of Arabic articles, I've noticed that the Arabic articles are nowhere near as many, nor as detailed as the English version.

Semitic language

I think "Arabic is a Semitic language, closely related to the Hebrew language. " can be abit misleading. While I concider both very beautiful languages, I think it rings abit like: "French is an indo-european language, closely related to Russian. ".
Arabic and Hebrew has very different grammer, and very different phonology, for example, the one has noun case conjugations, while the later does not, tenses differ, etc

In fact, it's more like saying, "French is indo-european, closely related to spanish" -- while this is not particularly relevant, it's certainly correct. In fact (according to the classification of SIL, which is fairly standard, http://www.ethnologue.com/show_family.asp?subid=3 ), Arabic and Hebrew are both southern central semitic languages. "Central" semitic contrasts with Southern (Ethiopian, 'South Arabic' (which is *not* Arabic, viz. 'Arabic' is here a geographic, not a linguistic specifier) and with (extinct) Akkadian. Dbachmann 11:25, 23 Jul 2004 (UTC)

illiteracy

"Due to the great rift between the Colloquial and the Literary Arabic, Salman Masalha, former professor of Arab Literature Department of Hebrew University in Jerusalem, states regarding illiteracy in the Arab world: "I say that it is over 80%. Practically speaking, even those defined as not illiterate because they completed eight years of schooling, I consider illiterate. In this century, anyone who finishes elementary school can't really read." [1]" Given that, as an Israeli citizen, there are very few Arab countries he can even visit legally, this statement lacks credibility. Nor is it supported by the CIA world factbook literacy figures, and it contradicts the evidence of my own eyes - comprehension of literary Arabic has massively increased in recent decades due to TV (including dubbed cartoons), and even small children can generally understand the standard language quite well by the age of 11, if not much earlier. I have removed it. - Mustafa, April 5 2004.

mutual comprehensibility

"Their mutual comprehensibility is very limited. The reason behind the vast differences in spoken languages or dialects of the groups mentioned herewith is that they are mixes of many languages. Ancient languages spoken by non-Arab population of these countries continue to survive in the dialects/languages of everyday life and the roots of the older languages of the Phoenician, Aramaic, Syriac, Assyrian, Coptic...etc. are still evident. [1]" As anyone following Lebanese politics will be aware, the question of the origin of the dialects is highly political in Lebanon, where the guy quoted is based; and, while phoenicia.org contains some good historical info, it is no authority on linguistics. This should be replaced with a better quote. Oh, and "mixes of many languages" is not even controversial among linguists; it's false. Many Arabic dialects are full of words taken from other languages, but "mixed language" implies considerably more than that in linguistics; the only universally agreed-upon mixed language seems to be Michif. Mustafaa 03:41, 8 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Transliteration/Grammar/Alphabet

Shouldn't the masses of Arabic alphabet and writing info be left to the Arabic alphabet page? - Mustafaa 18:05, 15 Apr 2004 (UTC)

arabic grammar

what about the arabic grammar stub? should we kill it? or should we move the 'grammar' section over there?

also, we need a transliteration scheme. over at Ibn Fadlan, I used standard transliteration, using the Latin Extended Additional (1e00) codepage (underdots). This page (or the grammar page) needs to explain the sounds and how they are transliterated.

I suggest we list the sounds in a nice table, putting arab letters, standard transliteration and ascii schemes and whatnot next to each other, so that people can be referred here if there is a transliteration issue anywhere.

alright, I realize such a table (using 1e00-transliteration) is at Arabic alphabet (other transliteration schemes, such as Buckwalter ascii, should be added and discussed). Maybe this page needs to turn into a clean collection of links, to grammar, alphabet, dialects, literature etc.?

- --Dbachmann 11:33, 22 Jul 2004 (UTC)

What's that?

What's that? ?al luGat ul?\arabi:yat ulfus'X\a: ? Is that right or a problem in my computer? Manuel Anastácio 14:04, 16 Jun 2004 (UTC)

X-SAMPA

However accurate it may be to put things in X-SAMPA, I'm sure there's a nicer way to romanise Arabic. I don't have a problem with including X-SAMPA values as well, of course.

right, I will replace this with transliteration consistent with the one given in Arabic alphabet (codepages 1e00 and 200; `ayin is 02BF, ghayin is g-overdot ) Dbachmann 11:03, 23 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Modern Standard Arabic

Is there an article dealing with the details of the grammar of Modern Standard Arabic?

Arabic Word for...

It's my understanding that "Ard" is the Arabic word for "Earth". Any idea as to how it would be modified to become either masculine or feminine?

ard, plural aradin (arḍ, arāḍin) is feminine gender. what do you mean, modify? and how does this relate to this article?

• It doesn't need to be related to this artice as long as it isn't any longer discussion. Keaze

Dialects - Maghrebi vs Middle Eastern

This sentence:

in particular, while Maghrebis can generally understand one another, they often have trouble understanding Middle Easterners (although the converse is not true, due to the popularity of Middle Eastern - particularly Egyptian - films and other media.)

seems contradictory. The popularity of Middle Eastern films would make Middle Easterners easier to understand. Surely the statement should be that Middle Easterners have trouble understanding Maghrebis? - And in fact Varieties of Arabic has this:

in particular, while Middle Easterners can generally understand one another, they often have trouble understanding North Africans (although the converse is not true, due to the popularity of Middle Eastern films and other media.)

Which is correct?

--joe 15:30, 15 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Thanks for spotting that! I was trying to restore an incorrect edit, and somehow forgot to re-reverse "Middle Eastern" and "North African". - Mustafaa 18:45, 15 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Translation doubts

I read in the article: "however, a much more significant factor for most dialects is, as among Romance languages, retention (or change of meaning) of different classical forms. Thus Iraqi aku, Levantine fiih, and North African kayen all mean "there is", and all come from Arabic (yakuun, fiihi, kaa'in respectively), but now sound very different." I have some doubts about the meaning of this: 1. What do you mean about "retention" = change of meaning - is that true? 2. If retention is the change of meaning of a classical form, what were the original meaning of three words in the example? If it is the same ("there is") where are the change of meaning?

Excuse me if my english is not very good... Manuel Anastácio 01:17, 5 Oct 2004 (UTC)

arabs don't distinguish between classical and modern standard?

It say in the piece

"The term Modern Standard Arabic is sometimes used in the West to refer to the language of the media as opposed to the language of "Classical" Arabic literature; Arabs make no such distinction, and regard the two as identical."

Is that true I always thought Arabs considered them distinct? ---

We call them both fus'ha, as oppose to the spoken language, which is darija or aammiyya. - Mustafaa 21:46, 26 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Unless things changed drastically since I've been in the Arab world, I did not know that "we" called them both fus'ha, but rather that al-Lughatu al-Arabiyyatu ul-Fus'ha is the Arabic language as it was literally used in the "classical age," specifically by the people of the Hijaz and Mecca, and especially as it appears, in vocabulary and gramar, in the Quran. To my knowledge, the Modern Standard Arabic is called al-Arabiyyatu al-Mubassatah, that is Simplified Arabic. Did things change to the extent that the Arabs now call both Fus'ha? A.Khalil 09:58, Jan 9, 2005 (UTC)

I've never heard anyone use the term al-Arabiyyatu al-Mubassatah; very probably this is a regional difference, but in Algeria I've only ever heard people talk about fusha and darja. - 64.81.54.23 01:37, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Mubassatah sounds Levantine to me, agree in the Maghreb it's fusha (or lugha fasiha) versus deridja. (Collounsbury 22:21, 31 January 2006 (UTC)).

fwiiw, English distinguishes 'Quranic', 'Classical' and 'Standard' Arabic. And they are quite different, of course. Read the Quran. Read a newspaper. About as different as Shakespeare and the NYT. I realize that's not the issue here, though. 'Mubassatah' seems practically unknown to google. dab (ᛏ) 08:56, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)

English

I have just heard an english friend try to say I was artistic in the the turkey market only in winter in Arabic --PHussein 19:44, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Kuntu fanii fii diik es-suq esh-shita'an faqaT? — Yom 21:24, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

Eh ... "kuntu fanii fii suuq ad-diik shitan faqaT" someone is trying to be clever with arabic that sounds like a string of english profanity :) Benwing 10:45, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

Link suggestions

An automated Wikipedia link suggester has some possible wiki link suggestions for the Arabic_language article, and they have been placed on this page for your convenience.
Tip: Some people find it helpful if these suggestions are shown on this talk page, rather than on another page. To do this, just add {{User:LinkBot/suggestions/Arabic_language}} to this page. — LinkBot 10:26, 17 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Numerals

The following sentence was removed from the article by User:A.Khalil:

— though they originated in India ... (context: Arabic numerals in English)

Did they not originate in India? — mark ✎ 12:40, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC)

they did, in fact, originate in India. Even the zero. dab (ᛏ) 15:38, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC)

That's what I thought (I was too lazy to check) — mark ✎ 16:07, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC)

The Arabic numerals used in the West and thoughout the modern world are not the Hindi derived numerals but are actually an Arab invention based on the concept of numbers which the Arabs acquired from Indian texts. Having said that, there are Arab numerals which are derived from Hindi and they are the ones used in Arab countries east of Libya, and the Arabs do actually refer to them as Hindi numerals. However, no one in the West will be even familiar with these.

sure, that's what we mean. The Arabs took them from the Indians, the European took them from the Arabs. (plus, their shapes changed somewhat, in the process). This is why we call them arabic numerals, while they are really (originally) indian numerals. This is just what the article is alluding to. Of course it is slightly off-topic anyway, as it's not directly about the arabic language. dab (ᛏ) 19:38, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC)

No. Sculpting was originally an Egyptian thing, but we cannot say that a French sculpture is Egyptian because the idea of sculpting is originally Egyptian. Similarly, the concept of using 9 digits only to represent various numbers is suppsedly Indian, and the Arabs became familiar with it when Ibn al-Muqaffa found it in Sanskrit texts when he traveled to study India on orders of the Caliph. The Arabs later developed the Hindi numerlas which are still used in the Arab east, and they refer to them as such. In the Arab west a new set of numbers were developed which have not much resemblence to the ones used in the Arab east, and are reportedly based on the number of angles used to form a numeral indicating the value of the number digit. These Arabic numerals were later adopted in the West and further stylized to give us the modern numerlas we all use today. The Zero is an Arab invention of the Abbassid era to give a visual clue to the "emtpy space" in the place value system. Before that, a number would only have empty spaces and the reader could not easily differentiate between 1, 10, 1000, or 21, 201, 2001 and so on, since the spaces depended on the specific hand writing style of the writer. A Zero, an "emtpy", was developed to fill in the gap. Again, in the Arab east this was in the form of a dot "." but in the Arab west the form of a zero was a circle since it has no angles.A.Khalil 19:59, Jan 8, 2005 (UTC)

It seems that you're knowledgeable on the topic, A.Khalil. The reason I posed the question was that your edit (like all your contributions up to now) lacked an edit summary. You might want to use that in the future — when evaluating changes, it helps a lot to see a motivation. — mark ✎ 11:51, 9 Jan 2005 (UTC)

A Khalil, your account supra does not match what I have read on the issue. First, my understanding has always been the 'Maghrebine' numerals - which the West adopted as Arabic via Italo-Tunisian contacts - were the original form (themselves based off of an Indian form); the modern charqi numbers as used in the machreq were adopted seperately, again based off of but modifying Indian forms. Your account of the zero also seems off. While my understanding may be wrong, I'd like to know your sourcing, I presume Levantine. (Collounsbury 22:28, 31 January 2006 (UTC)).

well, the Arabs still did not invent the zero. no, not even as a decimal place holder. The Indians invented it. Yes, it was a dot rather than a circle, that's what I mean by "the shapes shifted somewhat". dab (ᛏ) 20:10, 9 Jan 2005 (UTC)

---

latin transcription

I've seen Arabic transcribed into latin letters online, mostly in messageboards and filesnames. The transcription contains case sensitive latin letters as-well-numbers. Could someone please explain this transcription and it status, adding it to the article? A quoted example, quoted (I do apologise, for I do not understand what's written here,hopefully nothing volgar) "Ma fii far2 baynetna! Ne7na 3arab bi baYdna"

There is the Buckwalter Arabic transliteration scheme [2], but yours seems to use 3 rather than E for ayin. See also SATTS. dab (ᛏ) 10:27, 20 Jan 2005 (UTC)

If I recall rightly, 3 = ayn, 5 = kha, 7 = H.a, 9 = qaf; the numbers are selected on the basis of their similarity to the Arabic letters. There are more, but I can't remember them offhand. This is basically used for chatrooms. - Mustafaa 00:33, 25 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Actually I think 9 = sad, 6 = t.a, 2 = hamza (') I did see once 8 being used as qaf, although I can't say I'm sure... A * or ' is used to add to those numbers to get them to be the dotted variations of the letter eg 3* = 3' = ghain :) --Agari 10:02, Feb 25, 2005 (UTC)

The scheme most Egyptians would use is 2=Hamza, 7=Haa', q=qaf, 3=ayn, gh or 3.=ghayn, kh or 7.=Kha'. Ta', Sad, Dad, and Za' are reduced to t,s,d,z because that's how they are treated in Egyptian Arabic anyway.--Karkaron 01:49, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

Arabic in IPA transcription

It's good to have the phonology table in IPA. My version (1999) of the IPA handbook uses ˁ to indicate pharyngealization: I wonder if the article should follow suit. I changed the transcription of the voiced pharyngeal fricative (`ayn) to ʕ from ʔ, which seems to make more sense. However, the handbook suggests that a pharyngealized glottal stop, ʔˁ, would be a better transcription of `ayn. This simply doesn't make sense to me (you should hear me trying to pronounce it in different ways!). Any thoughts? Gareth Hughes 23:28, 11 Mar 2005 (UTC)

That's very weird; it sounds wrong to me, but this seems controversial. I've also seen some publications use epiglottals. Maybe describe ths dispute in a footnote? - Mustafaa 23:38, 11 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I'm puzzled by this statement on p.53 of the 1999 IPA handbook:

/ʕ/ is a Retracted Tongue Root glottal stop. This realization is supported by Gairdner (1925), Al-Ani (1970) and Kästner (1981) as well as extensive observation of a range of speakers from different regional origins residing in Kuwait at present (1990). Nowhere have we observed a pharyngeal fricative.

It seems clear enough, but it still doesn't sound quite right to me. Gareth Hughes 14:39, 12 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Molokhiya

I have just made a stub article about the vegetable molokhiya, giving the Arabic name as "ملوخية". I don't read any Arabic at all; I just copied and pasted this from a web page. If it's wrong, could you correct it for me?

Thanks, Pekinensis 16:52, 4 Apr 2005 (UTC)

looks ok. the transliteration would probably be mulūẖiyyah (correct me...). dab (ᛏ) 17:19, 4 Apr 2005 (UTC)

etymology of monsoon

I need some help with the arabien word for monsoon (season). There are different Versions between the Wikis and it would be nice to know the background of the following words:

• الموسم الذي تهب فيه الريح
• ‏ ريح موسمية
• رِيحٌ مَوْسِمِيَّة
• موسم

--Saperaud 17:11, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)

The key word is the same in all cases: موسم mawsim = season. Whether the phrase was "seasonal winds", "wind season", etc. is a moot point. - Mustafaa 02:18, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)

MSA, CA, FuSHa

This page has (had?) a strong Arab POV in it. MSA and CA are *not* the same, and should *NOT* simply point to FuSHa. First of all, FuSHa is a word in a foreign language; we need to stick to standard terms. So I delinked the MSA and CA are created stubs that describe these languages and (in the case of MSA) give some info about the changes from CA.

Benwing 06:15, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Similarities to Aramaic and Hebrew

The first sentence is sort of ambiguous. I think it needs to be clarified to which language Arabic is more similar.Yuber^(talk) 01:38, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)

An Arabic name standards project

As many of you know, there is no one standard way of transliterating from Arabic to Roman letters. This can be quite a hassle on Wikipedia, but it's just the way it is. I'm trying to organize a wikiproject to discuss these sorts of questions, develop standards, and make it easier for people to find pages on Arab topics. If you're interested, sign up at Talk:Arabic name#An Arabic name project. – Quadell ^{(talk) (sleuth)} 15:40, July 14, 2005 (UTC)

Robin William's shirt

Image:Robin_Williams.jpg Arabic? What does it say? ¦ Reisio 04:07, 2005 July 23 (UTC)

"I love New York" Fox1 04:55, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

Am I sensing a bit of sarcasm in that picture ;)?Heraclius 22:29, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

planning on rearranging arabic language articles

the current situation is rather a mess. in particular, much of stuff just called "arabic" refers to classical arabic; that stuff doesn't distinguish modern-standard, koran, etc. the main "arabic language" article talks somewhat about all arabic varieties and somewhat about MSA. etc.

I propose:

• Generic "Arabic foo" articles should be applicable to *all* varieties, both formal and colloquial.
• Stuff relevant to all and only the formal varieties should go under "Formal Arabic ..."; stuff relevant to all and only the colloquial varieties should go under "Colloquial Arabic ..."; stuff relevant to some specific variety should go under an article of that name ("Koranic Arabic", etc.).
• I have chosen the names Formal and Colloquial purposely. Written vs. Spoken is not very accurate: MSA is spoken quite a lot, and some "spoken" dialects (e.g. Egyptian) are written. The distinction is properly of diglossia, and hence Formal vs. Colloquial is exactly correct. In a radio interview, for example, the speakers may start out in pure spoken MSA but gradually introduce more and more elements of colloquial speech as the level of formality drops. Literary is not any more correct than Written. Fusha is not good because (1) it's a foreign-language term; (2) it is closely associated with a political (i.e. non-linguistic) view that MSA, Koranic, etc. are all exactly the same, which isn't the case; (3) there is no similar term for Colloquial Arabic. ("Darija" is Moroccan-only, for example.)

I plan to start this in a few days, barring objections. In the process of doing this, I'll rewrite/expand stuff as needed.

Benwing 17:38, 16 August 2005 (UTC)

you may want to check out Talk:Greek language where they are facing similar problems, although in the case of Greek mostly diachronic. They came up with the very nice Template:History of the Greek language. dab (ᛏ) 17:57, 16 August 2005 (UTC)

"MSA" and "Qur'anic" Arabic are of course different in some ways; no one denies that. But that misses the point - which is that they are far more similar to one another than either is to any of the "dialects", and are considered by their users to be little more than different stylistic registers of the language they learn at school. The idea that these are the same language is not political, it's common sense, on a par with calling King James Bible English and 20th-century media English the same language. Colloquial Arabic, dialectal Arabic, Fusha, Classical Arabic, are all fine, being widely used terms - but Formal Arabic, as a label for Fusha, strikes me as something of a neologism, descriptively accurate but not appropriate as an article title (only 642 ghits.) Also, Darija is pan-Maghreb, not just Moroccan, while 'ammiyya covers the Mashreq. - Mustafaa 20:20, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

Contra Mustafaa, it is typical for non-Arab scholars without a religious reason to group Quranic and MSA together, not to. The attitude that they are "little more than different stylistic registers" is something of an Muslim/Arab conceit and while it should be acknowledged, equally it is not the view adopted by most scholars of the language without a religious motivation for asserting their sameness. Registering the difference is appropriatley acknowleding a serious diff. in usage and form between modern and archaic (as ironically between the archaic language of KJV and modern English usage - obviously the degree is a bit of judgement). (Collounsbury 22:40, 31 January 2006 (UTC)).

Arabic status in Israel

The infobox states that Arabic is an official language in Israel, but it doesn't tell that it's spoken in Israel, unless it is by small minorities. If this is the fact, why is it an official language? CG 12:32, September 7, 2005 (UTC)

The info box states that Arabic is spoken "by a majority" in Israel. It is not. Although an official language of the State, a "majority" of Israelis do not speak it. In total, probably no more than 30% of Israel speaks Arabic (constituting Israeli Arabs and some older Mizrahi Jews). I changed this inaccuracy, but it was removed within minutes as vandalism.

If you added Israel to the "Spoken in" field, I think you should remove the sentence by a majority, and in many other countries as a minority language.. Also, we should change the Region from Arab World to Middle east, or put the two together. CG 19:35, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

I have read both comments written by CG above and I'm confused by them. It seems that CG wants to have his/her cake and eat it too. In the first comment CG seems to wonder why Arabic is an official language in Israel, if Israel was, apparently, not in the "sopken in" list. Then, cg seems to be offended by the notion that a language of "small minorities" should become an official language of that country. Then in the second comment CG want to delete the entire sentence regarding Arabic being a language of a minority in some countries. How very big of you cg. But wait, this seemingly progressive thougnt is followed by a call to imperialism. By which I mean CG's insistance that we change the lands of the Arabic language from the very appropiate "Arab World" to the euro-centric "Middle East". Well CG Arabic is an official language in Israel becuase the government of that country has deemed it so, if you are offended by that you should take it up with the them. I think its great that the 1.26 million Arab Israeli's have their native language as an official language.(see the CIA world fact book) Also, besides the Arab minorty (20%) some of the Jewish population does speak that language making the entire population of Arabic speakers close to 30%. As regarding your second comment of "Middle East" vs. "Arab World" its a no-brainer: the "Arab World" all the way. The "Middle East" was a term concoted by imperial Europe during its hay day to differentiate between the "far" and "near/middle" easts. What does it exactly include? Who the hell knows. Generally it the countries of the penisula and Iran (which does not include Arabic as an official language), sometimes Afghanistan and Pakistan have been thrown into the mix (and again niether of these two muslim countries have Arabic as an official language). The "Arab World" is a much viable option because it was coined by arabs (not europeans) and it includes, as its name suggests, all the countries where Arabic is perdominantly spoken. So the heading should definatly read "Arab World". If some of wikipedia'a readers are, again offended by this, then we can add "and other countries". After all there are arabs spread all over the globe thanks to the Palestinian Diaspora.

Please No personal attacks! I wasn't offended by any claim. I can't believe you've written a whole paragraph just to insult me and without even signing. My question about the official status of Arabic in Israel is just by curiosity. I should've ask it in the Reference desk. CG 21:34, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Arabic status in Malta

While the Maltese language is related to Arabic, no Maltese speaker would consider Arabic and Maltese to be the same. Arabic is taught as a foreign language in Maltese schools, and has zero official status within Malta. Consider also that Polish and Russian are far more closely related, yet are regarded as distinct languages. I have edited the infobox accordingly, and removed the reference to Malta. Rhialto 13:07, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

It seems to me that you are speaking of "classical Arabic". Maltese is an Arabic dialect (darja) quite like Tunisian Arabic, Algerian Arabic, Moroccan Arabic and so on. The only difference lies in a political-ideological approach: the latter countries consider themselves as a part of the Arabic world and stress this link by adopting an official language which nobody speaks as a mother-tongue, while Maltese aren't concerned by this question and plainly use their dialect as an official language, without wondering about its external ties. --Vermondo 12:30, 5 March 2006 (UTC)