Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) ( al- fuSHaa )

Marhaban - Welcome

Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) is a modernized form of Classical Arabic, the language of the Qur'an. MSA is the universal language of the Arabic-speaking world that is understood, if not spoken, by most speakers of Arabic.

It is estimated that there are 246 million first-language speakers of all Arabic varieties worldwide. Of these, 206 million speak Modern Standard Arabic as a second dialect.

MSA Arabic is the official or co-official language of Algeria, Bahrain, Chad, Djibouti, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Oman, Palestinian West Bank and Gaza, Qatar, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, Mauritania, United Arab Emirates, and Yemen. In addition to the Arab countries, in which Arabic speakers are concentrated, large numbers of Arabic speakers live in Iran and France (about 600,000 speakers each), and a substantial number of speakers live in Israel and parts of Africa (Ethnologue).

MSA is used in formal speaking situations, such as sermons, lectures, news broadcasts, and speeches, and in all formal writing such as official correspondence, literature and newspapers. There are no native speakers of MSA, the vast majority of educated Arabs learn it through formal schooling. In addition, many Arabs without formal schooling in MSA can understand it. MSA is quite uniform throughout the Arab world and serves as a lingua franca for speakers of various not mutually comprehensible spoken dialects.

The use of MSA varies somewhat across the Arab world. For instance, in Saudi Arabia, all radio and TV broadcasts are in MSA, regardless of their content. In the former French colonies of the Maghreb, there is a continued tendency to use French, rather than MSA, on formal occasions, and in writing. In most other Arabic-speaking countries, the use of MSA is reserved for formal occasions and formal programming in the media, with local dialects being used for all other programs.

MSA has several registers, or styles, each used for a particular purpose or in a particular social setting. The higher registers of MSA, used in formal settings, are close to Classical Arabic in grammar and vocabulary. They tend to be quite uniform across Arabic-speaking countries. Since the lower registers, used in informal contexts, represent a mixture of MSA and local dialects, they differ from country to country.

Although Ethnologue reports that 206 million people speak MSA, this figure must be taken with a grain of salt. The exact number of people who speak MSA is extremely difficult to estimate for a number of reasons. First, it is learned not as a first language, but as a second language in school and through exposure to radio, television, newspapers, magazines, and religion. Second, the skill levels in MSA vary widely. Educated people tend to be highly proficient in speaking and writing in MSA, in addition to speaking their local Arabic varieties. Among the rest of the population, the level of proficiency in MSA varies: some people may only be able to follow newscasts, some may be able to read newspapers, and some may be able to speak MSA with varying degrees of accuracy and fluency.

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