Sociolinguistic Variaties in The Arab World, PPT - by Muhammad A. Ezgouzi, The 7th Lecture. Week8. Sociolinguistics, Spring2023

Misurata University
Faculty Of Arts
English Department
MA program
’’The sociolinguistic situation in the Arab world“
Sociolinguistics APLI 646
Lecture presenter: Muhammad Altayeb Ezghouzi
Course Tutor: Yaceen Ihmeed
Spring 2023
Contents
The sociolinguistic situation in the Arab world.

 The two main varieties of Arabic.
 Standard Arabic (SA)
 Colloquial Arabic (QA)
 Arab Variety and Diglossia.
 Bilingualism and Diglossia.
 The sociolinguistic situation in the Arab world.
Arabic is a Semitic language that is spoken by more than 200 million speakers
in the Arab region. In addition to several other millions in North America,
Europe, Australia, and other parts of the world.
It is the official language or one of the official languages of more than twenty
countries around the world.
It is one of the six official languages of the United Nations. As well as the
language of Islamic scholarship.
Arabic is used by millions of non-Arab Muslims who can often read it but do
not have oral fluency in it.
The Arabic language has an uninterrupted literary tradition
that is more than fourteen hundred years old.
While systematic research on the social aspects of the

Arabic language has taken place only in the past century,
The modern Arabic sociolinguist Charles A. Ferguson
(1959a) was the first contemporary scholar to provide a
formal framework describing the Arabic sociolinguistic
landscape and its main historical, social, and linguistic
variables.
 The two main varieties of Arabic.
The Arabic sociolinguistic situation is characterized by the coexistence of two

Varieties: Standard Arabic (SA) and colloquial Arabic (QA).
The term Standard Arabic (SA) is used to refer to a variety of Arabic that is taught
at schools and has formal and official status throughout the Arab world, Standard
Arabic therefore covers both Classical Arabic (CA) and Modern Standard Arabic.
The term Colloquial Arabic (QA) refers to several Arabic dialects that are spoken
routinely by speakers of these dialects and do not have an official status or
standardized orthography.
 Standard Arabic (SA)
SA is the official language of Arab governments, education, and print
publications. It is more or less the same throughout the Arab World
with minor variations mainly in lexical choice and phonological features
due to the influence of the local dialects.
(Holes, 2004; Mitchell & El-Hassan, 1994; Parkinson, 1991, 1993;

Schulz, 1981).
 In the Maghreb/North Africa, for example, one may find certain lexical
items or expressions borrowed mainly from French, whereas most of
the borrowed expressions come from English in the case of the
Mashreq/Middle East, In addition, most of the borrowed expressions
come from Italy in the case of the Libya/North Africa.
 Classical Arabic (CA) is often identified in the literature as the pre-

renaissance formal and literary language, which is most closely related
to the Qur’an and the medieval and pre-Islamic literary tradition.
Colloquial Arabic (QA)
Colloquial Arabic (QA) refers to several regional dialects that are spoken regularly
by Arabic speakers in everyday conversations and other informal communicative
exchanges: sports, music, film, and some TV show broadcasts. These varieties
diverge in several ways, particularly in terms of their lexicons and phonology. they
share a wide range of lexical, syntactic, phonological, and morphological features.
As Mitchell and El-Hassan (1994, p. 2) note, “Regional differences are lexical (and
phonological) before they are grammatical.”
While both SA and QA have been influenced by the explosion of new concepts and expressions related to electronic,
social, and satellite media, changes undertaking QA seems to be more dramatic than those affecting SA.
We as Arabs can note many such expressions as:
‫جايك بس انشيك ايميلي‬

“I am coming to you after I check my email.” (Jordanian)
‫الزم تكمل البروقرام‬

“You have to restart the program.” (Jordanian)
‫هكمل سيرشينق مره تانيه‬

“I will do a search one more time.” (Egyptian)
‫ما عنديش نت‬

“I do not have internet.” (Libyan)
‫الكفر ماهي بزينه هينا‬

“ The coverage is not good here.” (Saudi)
In general, QA is constantly changing at a pace faster than SA due to three interrelated reasons.
 QA is not codified, and therefore new concepts, expressions, and styles can be easily
introduced and befitted into it.
 Arabic speakers sometimes disagree on what is acceptable and not acceptable in QA.
 some speakers of QA, especially from the younger generations, deliberately try to deviate
from the “rules” or “standards” of their dialects by introducing new concepts, especially
borrowed or modern ones, to indicate their sophistication, intelligence, modernity, and/or
their socioeconomic class.

 Arab Variety and Diglossia.
A rather special situation involving two distinct varieties of a language, called
diglossia, exists in Arabic countries.
In diglossia, there is a “low” variety, acquired locally and used for everyday
affairs, and a “high” or special variety, learned in school and used for
important matters. A type of diglossia exists in Arabic-speaking countries
where the high variety (Classical Arabic) is used in formal lectures, serious
political events, and especially in religious discussions. The low variety is the
local version of the language, such as Egyptian Arabic or Lebanese Arabic.
 Bilingualism and Diglossia.
• Bilingualism
The level of the individual tends to be a feature of the minority group.
A member of a minority group grows up in one linguistic community
mainly speaking one language.
• Diglossia
is a kind of situation where two variations of language happen at the
same time. In other words, Diglossia is when we have two varieties of
the same language existing side by side throughout the community
with each having a different role to play.
According to Fishman (1967), people
can speak multiple different languages.
This means that a diglossic speech
community is not characterized by the
use of two language varieties only,
there may be more than two language
varieties used within a diglossic
community.
References
 Ferguson, C. (1959a). Diglossia. Word, 15, 325–340.
 Ferguson, C. (1959b). The Arabic koine. In R.K. Belnap & N. Haerixe
(Eds.), Structuralist studies in Arabic linguistics: Charles A. Ferguson’s
papers, 1954–1994 (pp. 50–69). Leiden: Brill.
 Ferguson, C. (1991). Diglossia revisited. South West Journal of
Linguistics, 10, 214–234.
 Fishman, J.A. (1967). Bilingualism with and without diglossia,
diglossia with and without bilingualism. Journal of Social Issues, 23,
29–38.

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Misurata University

The sociolinguistic situation in the Arab world.

While systematic research on the social aspects of the

The Arabic sociolinguistic situation is characterized by the coexistence of two

(Holes, 2004; Mitchell & El-Hassan, 1994; Parkinson, 1991, 1993;

 Classical Arabic (CA) is often identified in the literature as the pre-

‫جايك بس انشيك ايميلي‬

‫الزم تكمل البروقرام‬

‫هكمل سيرشينق مره تانيه‬

‫ما عنديش نت‬

‫الكفر ماهي بزينه هينا‬

introduced and befitted into it.

borrowed or modern ones, to indicate their sophistication, intelligence, modernity, and/or

their socioeconomic class.

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