There are Zero Native Arabic* Speakers [Long Short]

[@bestsynth4102]

There’s an old literary form of Chinese called “Wenyan” (文言) that was used in poems, imperial decrees, and historical records. At some point, when Vietnamese, Koreans, and Japanese all used traditional Chinese script, scholars could just sit down, not speak a word, and write out what they want to say in Wenyan, and it’d make sense to all parties involved.

[@octaviawinter9768]

oh that’s interesting! i’m gonna go read about it thanks

[@tobirivera-garcia1692]

From what I understand, the chinese system is even more bizzare than arabic. Languages that arent even related can use the same writing system. Its like a Russian person and a Korean person able to communicate using writing. It also led to headaches bad enough that Korea eventually scrapped the chinese system and made Hangul from scratch.

[@fadhil2831]

​@@tobirivera-garcia1692 correct me if i am wrong chinese or rather Han chinese are unique,this people are put in single ethnic group or community even though they speak many different type of language and the only thing that they has in common are writting system,so in some ways,both han chinese and arabs are catch all name for multiple community,its like calling everyone in northern medeteranian roman

[@jmiquelmb]

​@@tobirivera-garcia1692From what I know, Chinese languages/dialects are not always mutually understandable, that is, two people speaking "Chinese" may not understand each other. But the writing language is the same. But when it's Japanese and Chinese, the two languages are too different to be understood when read. A Japanese knows the Chinese characters but can't fully understand what a Chinese text says.

[@isaacevilman7586]

@@jmiquelmbWell, Japanese and Chinese are semi-mutually-intelligible in writing. Most kanji have the same meaning as modern hanzi (the Japanese tend to use traditional characters as opposed to the simplified ones, though). I’ve heard stories of Japanese tourists in China getting by with writing. Since Japanese has two additional syllabaries with grammatical functions, though, they’re not perfectly mutually intelligible. It’s sort of like a Spanish speaker and an Italian speaker writing to each other (I’m keeping it to writing, since spoken Spanish and Italian are far more closely related than any Chinese dialect is to Japanese). Many of the words are written just about the same, but it isn’t perfect.

[@Gunter4life]

Fun fact: there are also zero *French* native speakers. This is because France isn't real

[@netLG]

you forgot to censor the f word

[@f.t633]

what is France?

[@massblabla]

​@@f.t633 a fictional country

[@themiband0598]

you wish

[@slvaltva1392]

Oh thanks got, it was just a nightmare

[@burrybondz225]

School,cartoons, movie subtitles and nearly all forms of writing is in fusha (modern standard arabic). I say this as non-arab who stayed in yemen for a decade but other kids use to call me aljazeera or space toon because my idiolect is more based on fusha than it is the local dialect. Even now I struggle to even remember the local dialect but I can still speak in fusha, and i think it is because all contact I had with the language has been only in writing for a while now.

[@ishtarinanna4478]

Forever loling at the fact the kids were calling you Spacetoon 😂

[@theencoder1575]

Aljazeera? That s site is a nickname bro 😭😭😭

[@violetrose415]

Typical of kids to call you "Spacetoon" hahaha

[@albandary6935]

I don’t blame the kids for calling you that😂😂😂😂 Whenever I hear anyone start talking in fusha for no reason we will make fun of them as if they try to act like a cartoon character or a reporter in news😂😂😂😂

[@AF22-j8g]

​@@albandary6935 you are ridiculous , fusha is the arabic of the quran, and the original and true arabic

[@EggsBenAddict]

I heard it said that would be like if Italian, Spanish, Portuguese and French all claimed to be "dialects of Latin"

[@qaze000]

more like spanish portuguese and italian

[@tylerpatti9038]

@@qaze000 Why not french? French is just as much a romance language.

[@OGrandomunknownperson]

​@@tylerpatti9038it's not its very germanic influenced

[@tylerpatti9038]

@@OGrandomunknownperson All modern romance languages have foreign influence. so what? French has more in common with Italian than Spanish does.

[@liliqua1293]

​​@tylerpatti9038 yes, but I agree that maybe French is a little too far removed. Yes, it's romance but the phonology is just too divergent. The only variety that comes close to being that divergent is Cypriot Arabic and it's almost extinct. Arabic, in terms of its diversity, can be thought of more along the lines of Turkic, Slavic, or Quechua. While Romance languages tend to be more phonologically divergent, the aforementioned groups tend to be more diverse lexically. E.g. Polish: niébo Russian: niébə Bulgarian: nebé Slovenian: nebṓ Iraqi: séma Gulf: smāy Egyptian: sáma Moroccan: smá Compare with Romance: "sky" Italian: čelo Spanish: θielo French: syel Romanian: čer Slavic and Arabic are only incidentally that phonologically diverse: "bear" Polish: niedžvyetš Slovene: mēduet "annoy" Iraqi: ð̣awwaj Egyptian: dāyeʔ

[@saadfadel924]

I’m Syrian Arab and I would say although other dialects are different they are easily learned for Arabs, and Classical Arabic is also easy to learn if you’re an Arab compared to other languages, so don’t take this thing seriously we’re all Arabs our dialects are similar, also like in school and language used in written books and on media is Classic Arabic, and we get it easily, so again it’s not that much different

[@amal-alasheik]

The problem is that I see lots of people taking what he is saying seriously, Arabic dialects are very close to Fusha and Fusha wasn't created in 1800s and we certainly don't struggle to understand each other.

[@_blank-_]

​@@amal-alasheik Yemenis can understand Moroccan Darija?

[@srap1]

@@_blank-_ Darija is a mix between french and arabic , so ofc yemenis will not understand it

[@TheLastEgg08]

@@srap1Moroccans still go soft on the French part, try Algerians, it’s a mish mash of Arabic and French lol.

[@alioshax7797]

@@amal-alasheik Depends which Fusha we're talking about. The "classical arabic" (the Arabic of the Qu'ran, of medieval litterature and of preislamic poetry) was indeed obviously not created in the 1800s. However, the fusha arabic kids learn today all over the world, Modern Standard Arabic, was. Reformers of the Nahda heavily based themselves on classical arabic, so the two are very close, but a significant part of the vocabulary was altered ; new words were introduced, roots were standardised, and so on. They are considered different languages by most scholars, both in the Arabic world and beyond. That said, you could read the Qu'ran learning MSA : but most of the words you use in MSA did not exist in medieval times. And about dialects...depends which one. Everyone understand Misri, but go ask a Moroccan to speak with a Iraqi in dialect ; they won't understand eachothers.

[@sox-b9999]

Just because we mix slang with our language does not make us non-native Arabic speaker. I am from the Levant and I have a friend from Morocco, and we understand each other very clearly. He just dials back the slang a little bit and that's it.

[@JAYZ999]

Yeah I think he is exaggerating a little bit. It’s not that different from someone dialing back their heavy Aussie dialect to communicate with an American from LA.

[@liliqua1293]

@@JAYZ999 it's very different from that. Even the most divergent English dialects are pitiful next to Arabic. You can fit the entire diversity of the English language globally just in Egypt. Once you go into Palestine, Libya, or Sudan, there is no equivalent.

[@liliqua1293]

What you call "dialling back the slang a little bit", linguists call multilingualism and code-switching.

[@imshail]

@@JAYZ999 It's very, very different, I'm Moroccan and if I want to understand someone from beyond North Africa I have to actually make a conscious effort to remember what classical Arabic I did study and try to use the Moroccan Darija to try and make sense out of what the other person is saying, the entire Darija sentence structure is completely different from other types of Arabics, there are a lot of words that were borrowed from the Amazigh language along with French and Spanish because of the decades of colonization, the channel called Langfocus actually does a deep dive into how different the languages are and should give some insight into this.

[@hajzoom4278]

@@imshailI used to pride myself on being able to communicate in any Arabic dialect, but I had to hang up the towel on North African. Dude hit me with the “Mashi ana” and I asked him where he was going 😂.

[@GoldenCarrot0]

As someone who speaks Arabic i have learnt the different dialects as well and they are extremely similar so they can't be classified as separate language like how American and British English aren't classified as saperate languages

[@TonyNaber]

Exactly my point. Well said.

[@drownedzephyr]

it depends on how you classify languages/where you draw the line

[@ArkVogel]

Say that to the masri crowd.

[@fatixa6792]

زعما كتفهم دارجة عادي؟

[@SaadTheGlad]

@@fatixa6792 kaygulu shi 7waeyj ou mafahmin walu a khoya kayjibu sem wlah

[@rahileshanbi5551]

Arabic never got the point of diverging into different languages. Surely, most of us speak our dialects with different slang and some phonetic differences, but none to the extent of not understanding each other. The Quran helped keep standard Arabic existant with no changes, and learning MSA helped us grow our vocabulary and keep our knowledge of the language. Don’t forget, everyone speaks their own dialect of their language whether it’s an English, Chinese, or a Spanish dialect. It’s just that the Arabic ones tend to have greater variation because of the vast land area infused with different native languages that lived alongside Arabic.

[@SaadTheGlad]

That point about everyone being able to understand eachother is false. Take a look at Moroccan Darija and the Yemeni Dialect.

[@rahileshanbi5551]

@@SaadTheGlad It’s not *that* different, and your choice is perfect, as there are actually many Moroccan/Algerian dialects that have similar vocabulary to Yemeni dialects. Two Arabic dialects will always be mutually intelligible with the avoidance of using foreign language. You could also enhance the degree of intelligibility by resorting to Standard Arabic.

[@SaadTheGlad]

@@rahileshanbi5551 What if I don't want to enhance intelligibility? What if I want to speak pure, normal Darija with its loanwords and Tamazight words and old Classical Arabic words and its own inventions to someone from Yemen or Lebanon. Will they understand me? I really, really doubt it. I haven't met a single person who could understand my Darija. I heard Yemeni today and I couldn't understand jackshit except for a couple of words that were similar.

[@rahileshanbi5551]

@@SaadTheGlad Language comparison isn’t individualistic. Thus, it’s not about what *you* want or even about people with low exposure to the actual language. We’re talking about huge groups of people, and saying that the dialects aren’t intelligible is a false generalization made because of your personal experiences and preferences. Have you ever seen Arabs communicating? They always use Arabic. Even when many of them have French words or use their dialects with strong accents, they still get by and are understood. They don’t have to understand each other 100% for it to be considered mutually intelligible.

[@SaadTheGlad]

@@rahileshanbi5551 Ok but I really don't think you understand because I am 99% sure that if any Arab (or person from the Middle East) says that I understood a Moroccan because he changed some slang words, it's because he changed his entire language/dialect that he speaks to accommodate that person. I'm fluent in this sort of mishmash of dialects that I used to communicate in with Egyptians, Syrians and so on. Moroccan people try to imitate that when speaking with them, I've seen it first hand, and it sounds NOTHING alike the Darija we speak normally with other Moroccans. If I'm gonna speak with an Egyptian, it would be foolish of me to speak in Darija, because I might as well be speaking gibberish to him.

[@Ahmed-pf3lg]

As an Arab, the difference in dialects can be overexaggerated. We still understand each other, and if we live in the other country for 2 weeks we can almost entirely pick up the different dialect. It’s just sometimes there are certain outliers (like Moroccan or certain dialects found in remote isolate mountainous villages) ,, these outliers perhaps need stronger training to the ears to understand.. But still, the dialects are factually mutually intelligible.

[@موسى_7]

As an Iraqi, I would say Arabic is my native language. Iraqi is similar to standard Arabic, at least compared to other dyslexia. I also was exposed to standard Arabic TV and the Quran as a child, so I actually spoke standard as a little kids before I learned Iraqi. I was not living somewhere where everyone spoke Arabic. Edit: Autocorrect replaced 'dialects' with 'dyslexia'

[@a.a.6789]

I honestly disagree, Iraqis have extra letters the rest of us can't read and I heard you guys mostly use the Persian word for spoon while the rest of us as far as I know use a variation of mil3aqa/ma3il2a and as a Lebanese person I have as hard a time understanding Iraqis and Gulf ppl (don't Iraqis and Kuwaitis speak the same way for the most part?) most of time as I do with Moroccans and other Maghrebi ppl, ik this is controvesial but I feel Lebanese is the closest, I feel like ppl say Iraq and saudi for historical reasons (but not Jordan or Syria somehow??) but time moves on and the divergence is too much and I disagree, either way they're all correct and closeness to msa shouldn't matter.

[@liliqua1293]

اللغة العراقية راقي وباقي ❤️ Dyslexia is a reading disorder aghaati.

[@ehabl8816]

I'm an Iraqi too but I don't fully agree, it's true that Iraqi Arabic has a lot of the standard Arabic but we still have a lot of difference like the other guys, so maybe we can be one of the closest to it but no one is a native MSA speaker, but the other forms are still Arabic so we are native but not for the MSA.

[@Doopen]

Dyslexia? do you mean dialects? 😅

[@bebe4184]

​@@liliqua1293they probably meant dialect

[@liliqua1293]

Linguists describe around 30 native Arabic varieties spoken throughout the wider West Asian and North African region that are distinct enough to be categorized separately: 1. Hassaniya 🇲🇷🇲🇦🇩🇿🇲🇱🇳🇪🇪🇭 5.7 million 2. Tamanghasset 🇩🇿🇳🇪🇲🇦🇪🇭🇲🇷🇲🇱🇱🇾 407,000 3. Moroccan 🇲🇦 31.7 million 4. Algerian🇩🇿 37.1 million 5. Tunisian🇹🇳🇩🇿 11.9 million 6. Libyan🇱🇾🇪🇬🇳🇪 6.6 million 7. Maltese🇲🇹 671,000 8. Chadian🇹🇩🇨🇲🇳🇪🇳🇬 4.1 million 9. Sudanese🇸🇩🇸🇸🇪🇷 40.3 million 10. Saidi🇪🇬 26.9 million 11. Egyptian🇪🇬 78.4 million 12. Bedawi🇪🇬🇯🇴🇵🇸🇸🇾 3.1 million 13. Levantine🇸🇾🇱🇧🇵🇸🇯🇴🇹🇷 46.9 million 14. Cypriot🇨🇾 400 15. Qeltu Iraqi🇮🇶🇸🇾🇹🇷 11.4 million 16. Gelet Iraqi🇮🇶🇸🇾🇮🇷 24.2 million 17. Khaleeji🇰🇼🇶🇦🇧🇭🇦🇪🇸🇦🇴🇲🇮🇷 7.8 million 18. Najdi🇸🇦🇮🇶🇯🇴🇸🇾 19.9 million 19. Hejazi🇸🇦 11.8 million 20. Shihhi🇴🇲🇦🇪 36,000 21. Hadhrami🇾🇪🇴🇲🇸🇦 2.2 million 22. Taizzi🇾🇪🇸🇴 15.8 million 23. San'ani🇾🇪 15.3 million 24. Dhofari🇴🇲 118,000 25. Omani Hadhari🇴🇲 2.8 million 26. Bahrani🇧🇭🇸🇦 787,000 27. Qashqadaryavi🇺🇿 700 28. Bakhtiari🇦🇫🇹🇯 17,000 29. Bukhara🇺🇿 29,000 30. Khorasani🇮🇷 5,000

[@kareemellebany3559]

Although this captures a little bit of the situation, it is not really this simple. An an Egyptian, I consider myself a native Arabic speaker. Egyptian, Khaleeji, etc... is not that different from MSA. it's all more like a twisted tongue versions of the same thing + more words introduced that resulted from cultural differences and interactions between locals and speakers of other languages such as Europeans. The thing is, I do not need to learn additional grammar or use a totally different set of vocabulary to interact with someone from Saudi Arabia or Tunisia. You can even apply the rules of MSA to these "dialect" or "slang" vocabulary if you are sufficiently proficient. I know it is very hard to explain the situation to a non-native speaker so you did your best, but it is absolutely nothing like the example with French and Latin.

[@japanpanda2179]

Doesn't that mean there's probably at least a few native speakers of Modern Standard Arabic? There's probably some eccentric highly educated rich person out there who trained themself to speak only pure MSA, and taught their kids only by speaking to them in MSA and having them learn that at school, making their kids native first-language speakers of Modern Standard Arabic.

[@liliqua1293]

Do you speak French and Latin? If you don't, how do you know it's nothing like them?

[@wakannnai1]

@@liliqua1293 Because, at the end of the day, native Arabic speakers can understand each other for the most part. That's not the case for someone who speaks exclusively Latin (no one does that nowadays except maybe those that live in the Vatican) and someone who speaks French. Even in English, accents can vary wildly, and be unintelligible from those outside of the region, especially in the UK.

[@RyhanMuhammad-bb2xh]

I hope people understand

[@Jthaw-mp7ew]

He’s Lebanese, not a non-native speaker 💀

[@WafflePeep]

I’m from Egypt, we struggle a lot with understanding different dialects because of how different they are. Others seem to understand Egyptian though, I believe this is because most Arabic media is in Egyptian

[@TheEternallyconfusedone]

Yeah thats what happens when your native language is a mix of arabic coptic greek turkish italien french and english, ya sidi

[@lets_wrapitup]

@@TheEternallyconfusedoneit’s called loanwords not mixture

[@hajzoom4278]

Its also the fact there is just more of you guys around. More than double the population of 2nd place for Arabic countries.

[@TheEternallyconfusedone]

@@lets_wrapitup I know. Also we have inherited some gramitcal constructions from coptic so ita not all loanwords

[@nalat1suket4nk0]

A lot of the most popular arabic songs and shows are egyptian so they are well understood by arabs (lebanon has some very great music too)

[@donatellamasako4234]

So does that mean i can speak 11 languages (Algerian, Morrocan, Tunisian, Egyptian, Syrian, Lebanese, Palestinian, Saudi, British English, American English and French)? I don't believe so, i think they're not that distinct to be labelled as different languages, they're so close so they're dialects of the same language. Even if we wanna say they're different languages we'll only end up with 4 Maghrebi Egyptian Khaliji Shami

[@totzoz]

This!👏

[@liliqua1293]

Yes, it is like speaking 11 languages.

[@donatellamasako4234]

@@liliqua1293 they are so similar, I wouldn't count them as separate languages Cuz for example Moroccan and west Algerian are almost the same East Algerian and Tunisian Also Syrian, Palestinian and Jordanian

[@liliqua1293]

The problem is that you view it from a cultural and nationalist lens and not a linguistic one. Shami is only one variety, despite it being spoken in 4 countries. Mesopotamian is two: Moslawi (Northern) and Iraqi (Southern) Egyptian usually refers to the Arabic of ba7arwa, Delta Egyptians as Egypt, like Iraq, has two main varieties in its country (the other being Saidi). However, Maghrebi is definitely not one variety and yet it lines up more or less with the political boundaries of Maghreb countries; the entire Gulf and even Najd all say أبغى / أبي for "I want", الحينه for "now", and "بزر" for "child", among many other similarities. But these change pretty considerably between Libyan, Tunisian, Algerian, Moroccan, and Hassaniya. E.g. نبّي ، نحب ، حاب ، بغيت ، توا ، دوك ، دابا ، ظرك ، طْفُل ، فزغول ، درّي etc. And then what about Yemeni Sanaani?? Or Chadian? Or Dhofari? Or Shihhi? They all have many unique features not shared by their neighbors even if they are somewhat similar to them. Officially, linguists describe around 30 Arabic varieties that are distinct enough to be categorized separately. Khaleeji is one variety (Kuwaiti, Qatari, Emirati, Al-Hasa, and Dammam speak one Gulf variety) while Yemeni is many (San'ani, Ta'izzi, Hadhrami, and Tihami speak separate varieties). 1. Hassaniya 🇲🇷🇲🇦🇩🇿🇲🇱🇳🇪🇪🇭 2. Tamanghasset 🇩🇿🇳🇪🇲🇦🇪🇭🇲🇷🇲🇱🇱🇾 3. Moroccan 🇲🇦 4. Algerian🇩🇿 5. Tunisian🇹🇳🇩🇿 6. Libyan🇱🇾🇪🇬🇳🇪 7. Maltese🇲🇹 8. Chadian🇹🇩🇨🇲🇳🇪🇳🇬 9. Sudanese🇸🇩🇸🇸🇪🇷 10. Saidi🇪🇬 11. Egyptian🇪🇬 12. Bedawi🇪🇬🇯🇴🇵🇸🇸🇾 13. Levantine🇸🇾🇱🇧🇵🇸🇯🇴🇹🇷 14. Cypriot🇨🇾 15. Qeltu Iraqi🇮🇶🇸🇾🇹🇷 16. Gelet Iraqi🇮🇶🇸🇾🇮🇷 17. Khaleeji🇰🇼🇶🇦🇧🇭🇦🇪🇸🇦🇴🇲🇮🇷 18. Najdi🇸🇦🇮🇶🇯🇴🇸🇾 19. Hejazi🇸🇦 20. Shihhi🇴🇲🇦🇪 21. Hadhrami🇾🇪🇴🇲🇸🇦 22. Taizzi🇾🇪🇸🇴 23. San'ani🇾🇪 24. Dhofari🇴🇲 25. Omani Hadhari🇴🇲 26. Bahrani🇧🇭🇸🇦 27. Qashqadaryavi🇺🇿 28. Bakhtiari🇦🇫🇹🇯 29. Bukhara🇺🇿 30. Khorasani🇮🇷

[@donatellamasako4234]

@@liliqua1293 wow That makes more sense But still they are very similar now Maybe in the future each one will be more distinct so it couldn't be understood as much as it is now by other arabs Anyway thank you for the information

[@StormMast3r]

Yes. We learn standard Arabic at school but STILL! a LOT of the words that we say in pretty much any dialect come and ARE from standard Arabic words. The standard arabic in school is the FULL Standard arabic

[@TonyNaber]

It’s like their brains can’t fathom this simple concept. Almost like it’s on purpose, but idk 🤷🏻‍♂️

[@largiegorgle]

In addtion, the vast majority of Arabic speakers understand standard Arabic since it’s the language of the Quran and therefore still commonly used, so if you’re speaking to someone who is not of your nationality or speaking formally, it would be the default.

[@Elriuhilu]

That's like saying if you go to school in the UK you learn full Received Pronunciation, standard English, but the regional dialects still use most of the same words anyway. Of course dialects use mostly the same words, they're still similar enough to be considered the same language, but get someone from Hastings, Liverpool, Newcastle, Glasgow, Baltimore (USA), and Bankstown (Sydney suburb, Australia) together in a room and see just how differently they speak from one another, to the extent that people struggle to understand the different accents if they're not used to hearing them.

[@yaboi-km2qn]

@@Elriuhilu It's More like if you get an eglish speaker and a dutch speaker but they both know old english. especially if you get someone from morocco and someone from iraq.

[@azearaazymoto461]

I have a question for you. How different are the pronunciations? The difference between British and American accents is a slight vowel shift and all the consonants except 'r' are pronounced the same. Pasta in British English is pronounced with a short 'a' sound like in apple while pasta in American English is pronounced with a long 'a' sound like in pawn. The differences don't get much bigger than that.

[@amal-alasheik]

what an inaccurate and ignorant video, 0:54 Fusha wasn't created in 1800s, he speaks like some Arabic scholars met and decided to create a new Arabic language, both Fusha and the Arabic dialects are how the Arabic language organically changed throughout the years just like any other language, and no Araba don't struggle to understand each other, they read the same books watch the same TV and when we meet in our countries or foreign countries we understand each other just fine.

[@chiefdemic]

im not arab but reading the comments even if he's slightly inaccurate most agree with him.

[@amal-alasheik]

@@chiefdemic which is baffling to me too, for me as an Arab who lived all my life in an Arab country and consumed my fair share of Arab media and literature, he is certainly very "INACCURATE" and ignorant, most of the comments here are not from Arabs, I wonder where does this false narrative come from, I mean I've noticed it's mostly from people claiming to know Arabic when they didn't get past the intermediate level or Arabs raised in the West, I guess this proves that YT comments contrary to popular belief are not always the reality, seriously funny how people would agree on things they know nothing about.

[@yaroubthayer-752]

@@chiefdemiche’s mostly wrong though. Fusha or MSA is mostly Quraishi (Hejazi) Arabic dating to the sixth century. Arabic had gone through a couple of major developments through the millennia. You have the old Qahtanite Arabic of Sabaeans, Himyar and Hadramoot which is mostly dead. You have the extinct Arabic of Thamud and Ād - there are attempts to revive for academic study. Then you have the adnanites Arabic, which Hejazi and thus modern Arabic is based off. Adnanites Arabic most important development occurred during the Nabataeans era when large admixture with Aramiac happened.

[@chiefdemic]

@@yaroubthayer-752 I'm not arab but looking at the other comments from what I can see most people who are are agreeing with him so idk. And a close relative of mine did once mention how it's not easy communicating with people in arabic when you're from two different places. He's lived something like 10 years in saudi arabia and i think the conversation was about when he was in lebanon or qatar??? i really don't remember so don't quote me on that But thanks for the info wall I understand what you're saying, I'm just a bit confused on how so many other people agree with him when he's wrong.

[@yaroubthayer-752]

@@chiefdemic not to be crass but an Arab who can’t understand and converse in regional dialects is either low educated and not well read or not well traveled. I’m from the western Asia part of the Arab World and I - and everyone I know - can easily communicate in every Asian dialect of the Arab world + Egypt, Libya, Sudan, Tunisia and Mauritania. It’s true that Moroccan and Algerian Darija Arabic is a mess. It’s honestly almost gibberish. It has no grammar whatsoever and mumbly. It’s interesting because even though they use proper and pure Arabic vocabulary that is considered archaic in the actual Arabian peninsula - but it is still doesn’t sound “Arabic” they sing the words in such completely different manner, that it is un-recognizable. Sure, their king, president and media speak in formal and clear understandable manner, but to speak to the common man is - yes - quite a challenge.

[@Al-Basha_]

all Arabic speaking courtiers speak a semitic language which is Arabic. dialects aren't enough to separate a language and MSA isn't a whole new language. nobody says that MSA is our first or second language ever. MSA is literally a dialect that bring us together and nothing more wouldn't a Scot, struggle to understand a black American? but they are speaking English.

[@omar990anbar]

Comparing the Arabic case with the history of Latin is a bit misleading. Since very early times, even before Islam, each region or tribe had its own variant of Arabic, yet the knew and used the “High Language” when needed, for poetry or at gatherings. After Islam this continued and diverged more but all the different dialects could never develop to be fully independent languages because people always knew that they needed to get back to Classical Arabic for various reasons. So each and every Arab, now or centuries ago, used both his local dialect and the High Arabic together.

[@japanpanda2179]

Doesn't that mean there's probably at least a few native speakers of Modern Standard Arabic? There's probably some eccentric highly educated rich person out there who trained themself to speak only pure MSA, and taught their kids only by speaking to them in MSA and having them learn that at school, making their kids native first-language speakers of Modern Standard Arabic.

[@gamermapper]

That's literally the same for Latin tho. Before the nationalist movements they all cared only about Latin and considered their spoken languages as only dialects.

[@largiegorgle]

@@japanpanda2179 this is literally the Arabic equivalent of the stereotype that wealthy English people speak so articulately. “Remove your outer garment and reveal your valuable trinkets to me at once, lest I plunge this dagger into your upper abdomen. Indeed, you have committed a grave error placing your feet onto the section of this residential area my associates and I have claimed is of our possession. Now thy must settle the levy, or his innards shall settle it for me.

[@high_surv]

@@japanpanda2179 yes actually. I know a child who was raised with one parent speaking only MSA. But even that kid would only speak to his parent in MSA and no one else, since everyone would look at him funny. Eventually both of them got tired of it and stopped.

[@انا_ابراهيم_البناوي]

Love how People who don't understand Arabic say that there are no native arabic speakers while you could take a from a 1000 year old poem Written in arabic and you can easily understand it just because there are different dialects doesn't mean we don't speak arabic

[@violetrose415]

I hate to break it to you but when I read really old Arabic poetry in school, it sounded like total gibbreish and we had to learn what it actually meant

[@انا_ابراهيم_البناوي]

@@violetrose415 we don't have this problem kids are taught Classical Arabic and given old poetry to learn also reciting the Quran helps a lot and we do use most of the words in old Arabic in our everyday life

[@azearaazymoto461]

@@انا_ابراهيم_البناوي That's... not a native language. That's literally learning a second language.

[@lefroste6370]

Im egyptian and if you showed me a 1000 year old poem theres a 80% chance i will not know what the poem is even talking about xDD and i was good at school

[@mousyanon000]

There’s a difference between understanding a language properly and being a native speaker of a language

[@antoniolewis1016]

The dialects of Arabic are very different from each other. However! Standard Arabic was not invented with pan Arab movements in the 19th and 20th centuries! It's been around for at least 1300 years - in fact, it's part of the reason that different dialects of Arabic can understand each other if they slow down their speech.

[@yolanda6392]

The one family who decided to raise their children on modern standard arabic:

[@japanpanda2179]

Not even just one, I'm sure there are many who did, intentionally or unintentionally. One other commenter said "As for me I learned the modern standard Arabic first then the Syrian dialect because I basically grew up watching cartoons thar were dubbed in the msa", so they're definitely a native speaker of MSA. It's probably not as many as are native speakers of a dialect, but certainly not zero.

[@FlyingNacho]

​@@japanpanda2179 that's still, by definition, virtually zero.

[@japanpanda2179]

@@FlyingNacho It's a small percentage, but the Arabic world is huge.

[@ImjustheretovibeIdk]

Quranic Arabic stayed constant** important to note since that allowed MSA (or an earlier variant of it) to flourish in early history till today

[@imanmughairi6233]

That’s not true. Standard Arabic is not from the pan Arab movement, it’s a stabilization of the Arabic language after the Prophet came. This is because it had to be preserved after many migrants coming to the region. Actually, it’s not a matter of standardization but a matter of fluency. Almost all Arabic dialects use actual words that exist and if pronounced correctly, it could actually be considered fluent. But there’s also more fluent dialects, as in, better ways to structure a sentence and deliver meaning in a better way. A good example are the Yemenis that travelled to Mauritania that still preserve their fluency as they were not majorly affected by colonization. Arabic dialects are a combination of two things, changing the way a letter is pronounced which could easily be picked up, and using specific words that already exist in the Arabic vocab, therefore other dialects would use synonyms of the same words.

[@khobzabatata7100]

الله يخلي دار الأجنبي الدجال صاحب المقطع

[@imanmughairi6233]

@@khobzabatata7100 ما أظن انه المقطع يحتاج سب بس أظن انه هو لبناني عايش في امريكا

[@BellaPitaBruschetta]

Great video! You’ve explained this really well, keep up the good work.

[@3bigbignig-abandoned]

He's so cute I really want him

[@witext]

That’s awesome, I didn’t know this, I’ve considered learning to read Arabic (not learn the language) & now it’s so much cooler I kinda wanna do it now. But I’m already taking Chinese course & trying to learn Japanese on my own & this would be too much

[@xeladas]

huh, I'm surprised it's 0, there are native Esperanto Speakers after all. You'd think there would be some families that either raise their kids with MSA as their first language in the belief it might give them a leg up in school, or in work, or for whom use MSA so much in day to day to day life that they default to it in their home life.

[@frasenp8411]

There are I have seen some but that doesn't make it to Wikipedia lol

[@nuntius1]

wikipedia is not a source of reliable info

[@FlyingNacho]

I'm Arab and there definitely aren't native MSA speakers. In 30 years of existence, I have never met a single individual who uses MSA outside of a school/work/official setup. Not a single time.

[@mansaf.com34]

​@@FlyingNachoi dont think you understand what native speaker means brother, a native speaker is someone who speaks a language from his earliest childhood and didnt learn the language in question as a second language, meaning there are millions who are native fosha speakers, in fact many learn fosha first then dialect second. 99% of cartoons are in fosha all schools teach in fosha, books are in fosha, any type of learning necessity that the child uses to learn is literally in fosha, his parents and his atmosphere later influence him to speak in his dialect, there are some arabs who are fluent in fosha and not native, some who are bad at fosha and some who cant build a sentence without many grammatical mistakes but there are more than an obscene "0" that speak it natively and that usually is the fault of the parents if they dont expose them to fosha at their early 4 years. It not being used in informal encounters that often doesnt deem its speaker non-native. Your experience doesnt count towards the legitimacy of that claim, thats called an anecdote.

[@laurel3420]

@@FlyingNacho I mean I know a guy whose parents intentionally raised him speaking fusha as his native language. so your experiences are not universal etc etc

[@japanpanda2179]

I highly doubt the number is zero. There's probably some rich person out there who trained themself to speak only pure MSA, and taught their kids only MSA, making their kids native first-language speakers of Modern Standard Arabic.

[@mansaf.com34]

Not rich actually, the vast vast majority of religious arabs exclusively communicate with their children at their first 4-6 years of age in (فصحة) "fosha" the eloquent arabic or "msa" which is a very fancy saturated term for calling eloquent arabic, eloquent. You cant a find any renowned arabic linguist that mentions the term "msa" because its purely made for non arabs, however arabs distinguish "msa" as simply eloquent speach, meaning even dialects are simply non eloquent arabic, that literally it, any exaggeration of it being completely different and has its own grammar and what not is backed by 0 linguistic evidence its more or less funny, exaggerated stories that people share when they communicate with people from a different arabic country (except for algheria, Morrocco and tunsia since their dialect is heavily influenced by non arabic languages) Nonetheless, many grew up exclusively speaking in fosha but also understanding dialect. also adds to it that all cartoons are in fosha, all early educational books are in fosha. So the information in the video is absolute bogus, a number on Wikipedia doesnt mean anything to the reality in the middle east, as i mentioned to a different post, the reality to many children is that they learn fosha first then dialect second, making them native in fosha and fluent in dialect.

[@fordhouse8b]

So virtually zero. There may well be some eccentric out there teaching their kids Latin or Esperanto since birth, but the number is functionally zero.

[@japanpanda2179]

@@fordhouse8b I think it's more than you would want to guess. There were at least two commenters in this section who were raised this way.

[@PokeGamer025]

From an Arabic speaker: They may be extremely different, but in my opinion don’t necessarily constitute being entirely different languages, just WILDLY different dialects of the same language.

[@Sarafara7]

They’re not even that wildly different

[@hasnae5285]

​@Sarafara7 well as a moroccan they are if you compare for example moroccan darija and say Syrian or Palestinian arabic it's not the same while I as a moroccan can and will understand them if I speak to them in darija purely they probably won't understand much just a few words here and there this is influenced by many factors including their dialects being more used in tv for example and moroccan dialect being influenced by French Spanish and it's continuous adoption of slang into daily use

[@Sarafara7]

@@hasnae5285 I have Moroccan friends and I can understand what they are saying for the most part. When they used borrowed words that’s what I don’t know. But it still isn’t very out there for me

[@hasnae5285]

@@Sarafara7 honestly it can be that you are exposed to it and used to it or that they are just using simpler darija another thing is it depends where they are from too as someone from casablanca all I say is this is a mess 🤣😅 on another note it also speaks highly of your linguistic ability which is great 👍

[@Satoshi-yd7lj]

Eastern Libya, Egypt, the Levant, the Gulf, and Iraq are all mutually intelligible to a high degree. Westward of Eastern Libya starts the Maghrebi dialects (Eastern Libyan is also considerable as a Maghreb dialect but much vocabulary and its phonetics render it very understandable), whom in turn find it relatively easy to understand other Arabs despite themselves being hardly understood. One Moroccan told me he understands 90 percent of Hejazi Arabic, the Western Saudi dialect, while Saudis have told me they often understand nothing a Moroccan will say.

[@oma_006]

bruh I'm iraqi and was around alot of libyans as a kid and i didn't understand them

[@Satoshi-yd7lj]

@@oma_006 look up the eastern Libyan dialect here on KZbin.

[@egotist-ical]

Best explanation: we understand it like you understand Shakespeare, if you the whole language in school. And don't get me started about the Qur'aanic Arabic it's like Classical Arabic is to Dialectal Speakers to Classical Arabic. ITS A STRUGGLEE.

[@salehsaber4306]

This is a lack of understanding if arabs never learned MSA in school they would still understand it when they hear it since all the dialects (accents is more accurate) are very closely tied to MSA and in reality the line is very blurred, there is a lot in the dialects thats is more classical than MSA. Also, many people do speak in MSA to their officials or when they want to be formal even to their family members. Non-arabs and some arabs who’re nationalistic like to argue against this for many reasons that are biased and not based. We have scientific papers that shows most dialects share 90% of vocab and even those that share 80% to 70% still use traditional arabic words that are just old fashioned and out-dated in other regions.

[@amal-alasheik]

unfortunately, this false narrative about the Arabic language is rampant on KZbin.

[@StanbyMode]

Yeah but theres no way there’s 0 native speakers of Modern Standard Arabic, there has to be atleast a couple thousand to a couple million. I even knew a Libyan immigrants who only spoke modern standard arabic and not the libyan dialect

[@aag3752]

MSA is dead.

[@KWTxrulz]

I know a guy in Oman who actually is Tunisian his kid only speak MSA.

[@LordDucarius]

Its the same in germany, everyone learns standard german in school so if both sides want to they can communicate with each other. But if you have a swiss person talking to a frisian in both their dialects you would think its 2 completly different languages and it takes some time to get used to the other pronounciation

[@venkatvallabhaneni1227]

Frisian is not a dialect of German. It didn’t develop from Althochdeutsch, but rather are a separate branch of Germanic languages. In fact, they are closer to English or Plattdeutsch than Hochdeutsch.

[@uamsnof]

In Germany, there are more and more people that don’t speak dialect and only speak standard German or, at most, standard German with a regional accent. So it’s not the same as with Arabic.

[@salehsaber4306]

It is very funny when westerns think we can’t understand most accents and dialects. Or that we can’t speak classical arabic if only we didn’t feel funny. All false in all honesty.

[@FlyingNacho]

It's true. I'm Algerian, and when I speak "Arabic" to a Saudi, they think I'm speaking French. Stop being in denial. Literally no parent speaks fusha to their newborn lol.

[@JolivoHY9]

​@@FlyingNacho maybe because you use french vocabulary? instead of spreading misinformation at least try to use the algerian counterpart of the word with your friend (which will be from msa with different pronunciation) rather than the french version of it. also no one in the world speaks the 100% most formal version of their language to their newborn baby. so by your logic, each dialect in the world is its own language.

[@hjuy4049]

​@@JolivoHY9 it is literally the Algerian counterpart. It's a part of the language, just like "rendezvous" is a part of English, and a LOT of Algerian and moroccan vocabulary is amazigh, if you actually tried to listen in on a real conversation in Morocco or Algeria without them purposely accodomating you by speaking more like fusha (which sounds weird and is clunky to do for them) then you wouldn't understand much

[@JolivoHY9]

@@hjuy4049 it literally isn't. for example the word for "color" is "kolor" in their dialects which came from french. but they do have their og counterpart which is "lawn" which means color in msa "لون" the moroccan and algerian dialects didnt have any french words before france came and took over their countries. even if they somehow did, they only had a few. most of the words are originated from arabic. while the rest are from amazigh language which isn't a lot. your comparison is also wrong. you're comparing english, which is essentially a mixture of old dialects that borrowed different words from different languages, to a dialect of an ancient and complex language like arabic that was affected by the occupation. i spoke with a lot of moroccans in my life, in order to understand them you have to understand the way they pronounce words. cuz they talk fast. when you start analyzing their speech, you'll find that at least 80% is arabic

[@hjuy4049]

@@JolivoHY9 That's what they call colour, that's what the word they use in everyday life, if they wanted to say color to someone they would use that. It IS the word for color, just because it's not Arabic or amazigh doesn't mean it's not the word in Algerian Darija, just the word for motorbike in Moroccan Darija is "la moto" it's LITERALLY the word we use day to day, some areas may use a different word but where I am from that IS what we say, that's the word we think about when we see one.

[@edis0088]

This is not as apparent, but in danish this also exists. For example, on zealand (the island that copenhagen is on) we have 2 genders (grammatically). In western jutland (the peninsula) they only have 1. And on southern funen (in the middle) they have 3 genders. Therefore dialects can almost become different languages

[@AMDamxn]

I think this is dumb because by that standard English should also have 0 native speakers. At school all Arabic countries learn the exact same Standard Arabic so we’re all taught Traditional Arabic as a first language.

[@japanpanda2179]

Really though, there's no such thing as Standard English. British English is no more "official" than American or Australian English, and even though Received Pronunciation does exist it's only a standardized form of British English.

[@laithtwair]

When you stepped into school the very first day as a little kid, you already knew how to speak, in your dialect you learnt with your family. That's your "native language" as linguists define it, not what you learn at school

[@NikodAnimations]

​@@japanpanda2179 However, English dialects are much more similar ig

[@Fr33Palestineee]

@laithtwairthe Arabic we speak is literally just standard/ normal Arabic (that is taught in skls) that’s really boiled down and ruined and has no grammar cuz it’s basically ruined arabic… this video is so stup!d, he’s acting like Arabs now speak a whole different language from Arabs in the time of the prophet for example, but that’s not the case, we literally just speak Arabic with the same exact letters, it was just changed and ruined as Arabs started getting c0l0nized and separated, naturally when that happens the language itself gets weaker. He also claims that standard Arabic is somehow a new thing…? If he’s talking about the fusha Arabic that we’re taught in school and is in the quran then he couldn’t be more wrong like… it’s just crazy… fusha Arabic is literally THE Arabic language itself, the other ways Arabs speak with rn are just extensions of fusha, extremely weak fusha that google can’t translate cuz it’s not the language itself. The quran, hadeeths, old poems from hundreds of years ago, and books from before Islam, they’re all in standard Arabic (fusha). In fact when the quran came to the prophet it literally helped improve the fusha to make it even more complicated and efficient than it already was, and that was 1400 years ago, fusha Arabic had existed way before Islam, it’s certainly not new at all and not “a language made so Arabs can understand each other”, we learn it cuz it’s the actual language not bc we “have” to or else we wont understand each other, the Arabic dialects can be extremely different from each other but at the end of the day it’s a fact that all of them are taken from fusha Arabic and changed and weakened which is why we can understand each other just fine most of the time, we learn fusha to prevent our language from d’y!ng, I mean the only reason fusha Arabic still exists till this days is actually because of the quran… even my Arabic teacher admitted that, the reason for that is the current way Arabs speak… we abandoned our language so much that it can literally just be forgotten and eventually disappear

[@wldwld18371]

You got something wrong in the video. We arabs always had dialects and before arabic even spread in the levant and in africa. When islam appeared muslims started spreading the religion as well as the language. But over time dialects formed but we still used/use standard arabic in writing/formal communication. One misconception westerners have is that modern standard arabic is a new standarized version. But its simply just the arabic version the quran was revealed in and the prophet ﷺ and companions spoke with, we might not use that arabic anymore but we preserve it so that we can inderstand our religion. For example, a christain cannot understand an old hebrew or aramaic bible because the language has changed, but any arabic speaking muslim would understand quran since we have preserved its language

[@Kuzamori]

straight to the point, good video :D

[@TonyNaber]

What? 😂 it’s not “straight” to anything. It’s a meaningless convolution based on either intentional or subconscious biases. There are native Arabic speakers. This is beyond ridiculous it’s like arguing that Americans are “not native English speakers”. Who tf says that 😂

[@Kuzamori]

@@TonyNaber watch the video again...

[@kylezo]

@@Kuzamorii watched it several times but I found it easier to understand by just reading the hundreds of comments correcting him. This video sucked

[@latusalihyasalim4872]

we don’t use it in our daily life but we use it in academic environments and in places that involve religious activities, mosques, organizations..etc.

[@kween5600]

The Tunisian dialect is the most close one to standard Arabic, followed by the Mauritanian dialect. People think Tunisian dialect is incomprehensible because of how fast Tunisian speakers are and because there are some foreign words, but when you take it easily and read it slowly, you realize most of the words used in Tunisia are literally from the fus’ha Arabic.

[@BalqeesBarham]

I want to correct some things. The dialects are basically derived from the official Arabic language that existed thousands of years ago, but the Arab tribes used specific abbreviations for each tribe, and with the Islamic conquests Each tribe was concentrated in certain places, which created the Arabic dialects, but classical Arabic is not new. On the contrary, even in our normal speech, we sometimes use it when talking about politics and other things.

[@a7mdftw]

they are still one languge , you cant say "i have learned 2 languges , saudian arabic and classical arabic" so its actually not true when they wrote "0 naitve speakers"

[@Tenjooo]

Then all Arabic speakers should understand each other. Its not like spanish and portuguese are one language

[@NotFine]

Except you can say that

[@a7mdftw]

@@Tenjooo its just that france conquerd algeria thats why thier accent is so far from us now , same thing with mroco and spain. other countrys i can totally understand even when they are talking to thier familes, you get what im saying here?

[@a7mdftw]

we dont say it here becuase "saudian languege" that you are referring to , doesnt have gramatical laws neither does it have new letters than arabic its doesnt have teachers nor books , therefor its not a languge.@@NotFine

[@testacals]

@@a7mdftw Having new letters is irrelevent. There are languages that use the same alphabet but are two different languages. There are also languages that use multiple alphabets

[@zainaberryshortcake]

The information in this video is a bit misleading. First of all we need to clarify something that was little mentioned in the comments, Fus-ha or MSA was NOT created some centuries ago, it was always there, it's not something that has been created, it's the language of The Holy Quran and ancient Arab poetry. If you understand Fus-ha then you'd understand The Holy Quran and an ancient poetry scripture from +1400 years ago. It's basically a slightly simplified Classic Arabic so saying it was CREATED is false. Secondly, it's overexaggerated that we don't understand eachother if we speak different dialects, yes some dialects need more time to grasp, but mostly, most Arabs and native Arab speakers understand eachother easily, and the gap between dialects is tightening with social media and exposure between Arabs nowadays. I watch videos of Arabs from the entire Arab and Arab speaking region, and it's as easier as it could get, sometimes I don't even realise that I'm listening to someone from an entirely different region from mine, and I don't face any difficulties understanding. This takes me to the third point. Speaking in any form and dialect of Arabic is considered being Native. In Arabic we say "اللهجة ابنة اللغة" which means "The dialect is the daughter of the language". All Arabic dialects are a form of Arabic, they're basically different in phonetics, some vocabulary, tone, but they're all Arabic. Now, if Arabic dialects were classified as different languages, it won't be possible to learn a different dialect easily. For example, if one goes to an opposite region, with a completely different dialect, it will only take a few weeks to be able to understand the dialect, a bit more to be able to speak with it, if it were considered a different language, it will probably take years. Now however, if we talk about people native in MSA, (as a form of Arabic and not a language) it is possible to find natives, I myself spoke MSA before learning my parents' dialect at the age of 10, a lot of kids especially those who were brought up in non-Arab speaking countries were taught MSA at an early stage, in fact, some speak using it better than their own dialects. We can't forget that from an early age, Arab children are exposed to MSA through media and education, so we basically grow up understanding both our dialects and MSA at the same time, which in theory, makes us native in both. Our situation with our dialects as Arabs is something that isn't easy for non-Arab speakers to understand, so I'd definitely not rely on Wikipedia for information.

[@rommot9595]

But we do speak it and it's understandable Ss for me I learned the modern standard Arabic first then the Syrian dialect because I basically grew up watching cartoons thar were dubbed in the msa

[@japanpanda2179]

That kinda makes you a native speaker of Modern Standard Arabic. Sure, your situation isn't as common as someone who learned their local dialect first, but there's probably plenty of parents who taught their kids only by speaking to them in MSA and having them learn that at school, making their kids native first-language speakers of Modern Standard Arabic. There's definitely more than zero native speakers.

[@Kei-ij3lg]

A lot of kids who grew up watching cartoons spoke msa as children (me included) lol its rlly cute when they do

[@rommot9595]

@@Kei-ij3lg so real but ig we're not the rule of thumb

[@NoMan-pp1jq]

It’s also important to note that Egypt, Sudan, Libya and the rest of the Middle East can understand each other just fine. Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and Mauritania can also understand each other. The difference in pronunciation is the biggest difference in Darija Arabic and they have some ancient Arabic words which were preserved in their dialect but not the others. However we can communicate via formal Arabic as we all learned it and if we wish to learn the accent of each other then it doesn’t take more than a month to understand and maybe a couple more to speak it proficiently

[@hjuy4049]

It's not "the biggest difference" the biggest difference is the amazigh vocabulary

[@NoMan-pp1jq]

@@hjuy4049 Amazigh is not an Arabic dialect though. What was mentioned in this video was regarding Arabic

[@hjuy4049]

@@NoMan-pp1jq Moroccan and Algerian Darija are a arabic-amazigh mix. Something like 30% - 40% (I am not sure about the exact numbers so take them with a pinch of salt) is amazigh words, verbs and phrases

[@NoMan-pp1jq]

@@hjuy4049 there’s definitely not that much Amazigh in Moroccan. At most it’s 20% and even that is pushing it. In any case, it’s an Arabic dialect and dialect contain many cultural elements which is why they are different in the first place. An Arab that has gone to vacation for a few times in North Africa starts understanding the dialect. The same cannot be said about an Italian in France or Spain.

[@hjuy4049]

@@NoMan-pp1jq the French, Italian or Spanish would start to understand, it's mostly the same words with a different prononciation. Moroccan Darija not only has a different prononciation but a lot of influence from amazigh, when people hear someone speaking a middle eastern dialect they'll accomdote them by speaking closer to fusha, but I am not sure if that tourist you're talking about would be able to jump into a random conversation between 2 old people that didn't learn fusha in school and still be able to follow it

[@musa9371]

so there are no native english speakers then. Ozzys, Brits, Scots, Kiwis, Canadians, ... all are classified as native english speakers yet many of them can hardly understand each other. there are plenty of british accents that even brits cant understand. as a lebanese that has many arab friends from around the arab world, i initially find it difficult to understand them but it usually takes just some practice to get it. because its mostly the same vocabulary and grammer, they differ in accent and loan words (maghrebi have french words, iraqis have persian words, egyptians have english words, yemeni has minimal loan words so it was the easiest to understand). i will say maghrebi arabic was very difficult but egyptian, levantian, iraqi, yemeni, and gulf arabic are definately not different languages. im not particularly pan-arabic but western anti-pan arabism has definately got in the way of objective classification if they're saying they are😅 also east and west arabs may not have had much interaction but they did interact heavily with their religious text which is classic arabic (basicly same as standerdized arabic).

[@Canaleaca]

You've said exactly what I had in mind some westeners they want to teach us our own language. It's absurd how they keep spreading misinformation😂

[@chipe123o4]

It should be noted that arabic is still dominant, we see it in many aspects like the structure of the sentences, the conjunctions and roots of the verbs, which is why we call them dialects, not languages.

[@MohdHilal]

Arabic dialects are actually different subsets of classical Arabic, they also simplify the grammar a little

[@acethegreat2946]

they ruin the grammar.

[@mansaf.com34]

Classical arabic is simply eloquent speech, hence the name (فصحة) and any dialect is simply non-eloquent speech. With the exclusion of any dialect that is heavily influenced by non arabic languages (spanish-french-barbar-english)

[@NotesNNotes]

I was wondering about this very thing last night, as I was trying to find an Arabic translation of something but wondering if it would come across the same to people in the levant vs elsewhere Really cool :)

[@إثانرايس]

Wouldn't have said it better myself :)

[@abboodio]

Arab here, its tough to call the dialects different languages, its all a matter of getting used to, many of the words other dialects don't use actually use proper Arabic but are just an under utilized word in another dialect, or are slightly altered, like in the gulf dialect, the word shulonak means what's your color in proper Arabic, but what it means for gulf people is how are you, or maalem in Jordanian/Palestinian Arabic dialect means teacher, but it used when calling a person in a positive way, many of the words certain dialects use are derivatives of the same language just some utilize certain words and phrases more, now some countries like the north african Arab countries (excluding Egypt and I think Sudan as well) use some random french words and phrases which make it especially hard for other Arabs to communicate using general Arabic (the one that has the dialect) but it's still very easy to communicate as soon as we realize we can't understand each other and go to proper Arabic, now obviously there are pronunciation differences but it's kind of like an Irishman (god bless the Irish) talking to an American, hope that covered everything

[@Croft001]

As an Arab, I can confirm that this is very well explained... Aside from that fact that diffrent arab dialects aren't that hard to understand for arab people. It's sort of spiritual or something cuz for some reason, we're always familiar with the sounds and stuff.

[@beryaniseokjin1944]

لو انت سعودي او سوري أو مصري صعب عليك تحكي مغربي أو تونسي أو حتا تفهم عليهم ترا، في اختلاف جدا كبير بين اللهجات خصوصي بافريقيا واسيا

[@Leen_AZ123]

The great Comoros? They speak classic Arabic, including some Yemeni dialects, that are dialects within classic Arabic.

[@amouryf]

"Arab Empire" *clicks off the video as I understood that this is an american* btw i could tell already that he is probably american

[@AvrahamYairStern]

He's a Lebanese-American, speaks fluent Lubnani Arabic

[@1tortillapls]

@@AvrahamYairSternhe doesn’t. like not even close, he can’t speak Arabic.

[@azearaazymoto461]

@@1tortillapls Have you heard him speak? You sound quite certain.

[@meemzing]

You denying Arabs had several empires across the Middle East? Lolol.

[@amouryf]

@@meemzing Since when was there an empire named "Arab Empire"

[@hassanfahmy8490]

Standard Arabic has always existed as the written language. It was always the spoken language in academic and religious settings as well. It was not created with the pan Arab movement. Writing in dialects is a recent development.

[@clacix]

You are Arabic vsauce

[@3bigbignig-abandoned]

He's so cute and beautiful

[@mars8872]

As an arabic speaker, that's the reason why I struggled learning my own language at school, since it was so removed from the one I spoke at home. Sure, speaking arabic at home did give me an advantage over people who never spoke it when it came to learning MSA, but it still felt like learning a whole new language.

[@kylezo]

There are some problems associated with yt kids talking about this stuff in this manner but thankfully the comments are mostly correcting him. Ultimately this video sucks and the comments are much higher quality. Not just native speakers but other westerners are like "uhhh...what? no."

[@heavingearth9694]

We understand each other without modern standard arabic. I can understand egyptians, levantines and gulf arabs and tunisians. With algerians it’s still easy but if they don’t use a lot of french and don’t speak do fast. Modern Standard Arabic is kinda like the language used for yhe news and official things and not something we arabs came up with because we don’t understand each other, that’s a big misconception being libyan myself and living in germany. German non-native arabic speaking acquaintances understand me clearly even though they learned the syrian dialect. this has proven to me that without using msa still the language is common. Also beduin arabs exist everywhere and they are preserving the language since millenias and have similar patterns of poetry, music heritage and culture and being always the culture surrounding big cities made an influence on those cities for a long enough time to bring dialects to similarity. You can find even slang words in a North African city that are similar to gulf states. or words in berber speaking country similar to the slang in yemen. many words in libya are close to palestinian or damascus dialect to the point i laugh with my friends about this “ while each speaking their dialects and clearly understanding each other “

[@LelakiKerdus]

Just like how Bahasa Indonesia is used in Indonesia.

[@Ferryman_n]

The arabic we learn at school is called "al-arabiya al fus-ha"

[@abdullahmohammad7712]

not a good video and as a palestinian i can tell you that i can understand arabic from different countries. only the slang i will not understand.

[@Bombay_wali_clips]

Love you my palestinian brothers sisters from India may Allah bless you all ❤😢

[@botanicalitus4194]

@@Bombay_wali_clips 🇵🇸 ❤ 🇮🇳

[@ailaG]

When I go through periods of learning it, or recall the Arabic I had in school and tell someone who speaks it that I really should learn it more seriously, they sometimes ask me which Arabic. And I'm like, maaan, let me get through shu ismac kif hallek first 😅 (I actually learned 6 years of Arabic in school but a. They made no effort to help us retain what we've learned and b. It was all in years starting with 1. Mostly formal standardized dialect, I think)

[@abdullahnooreldinalkhawari704]

As an arab, he said nothing that's correct 😂😂😂

[@liliqua1293]

Enlighten us ya 3abdullah

[@Yazan_Majdalawi]

He flipped the table, he treated dialects as languages. They are actually just slang usages of the one and only Arabic language. No one treats the slangs seriously.. He really exaggerated a lot.

[@abdullahnooreldinalkhawari704]

@@Yazan_Majdalawi you summarized it well👏👏👏👏👏👏

[@abdullahnooreldinalkhawari704]

@@liliqua1293 this guy summarizes it @Yazan_Majdalawi

[@liliqua1293]

@@abdullahnooreldinalkhawari704 Wow, you're right, "he really flipped the table". Now I want you to say that ^ sentence in American, Canadian, British, Australian, South African, and New Zealand English, then say it again in Moroccan, Tunisian, Egyptian, Lebanese, Iraqi, and Yemeni.

[@almami1599]

I don’t know what qualifies as a native language but i as a Mauritanian didn’t need to go to school to learn MSA i remember growing up watching cartoons and tv in MSA and i remember understanding it and being able to speak as much as my native dialect all the time, and there is the generation of Cartoon Network kids many of whom started speaking in standard Arabic with their families and entourage until the age of 5, and now more than ever with the Internet i believe the gap between dialects is getting narrower very fast

[@MuhammedAL-Chad-nz4jx]

Pure Misinformation...

[@lekevire]

How?

[@MuhammedAL-Chad-nz4jx]

@@lekevireModern Standard Arabic Is The Same Literary Language Spoken 1200 Years Ago. They Just Revived It And Used It Again After It Was Being Neglected For A Very Long Time Due To Banning The Printing Press By The Ottomans...

[@beryaniseokjin1944]

​@@MuhammedAL-Chad-nz4jx msa is different from quraishi Arabic in the quran, with this attitude you can take Arabic as far as 5000 years lol

[@MuhammedAL-Chad-nz4jx]

@@beryaniseokjin1944You Don't Even Know Arabic? What's With Non-Arabs And Non-Arabic Speakers In General And Making False Claims About Arab Islamic History... It's The Exact Same Language. No Such Thing As "msa" I Don't Know What You're Even Saying. Yes. Arabic Goes As Far Back As 5000 Years Ago. Cry About It...

[@MuhammedAL-Chad-nz4jx]

@@beryaniseokjin1944msa Does Not Exist. It's Called Arabic And It's Exactly The Same As The Quran Arabic. Keep Coping And Crying...

[@maryamneimat9686]

Learning MSA if you already speak the dialect at home is easy. But yeah, lots of different dialects everywhere. Sometimes even in the same country between different cities

[@salihawouda2992]

This why the Quran 📖 is a miracle ☝️

[@_S0me__0ne]

The quran and that it was originally written in Arabic does not make or mean it's a miracle, no matter how many imams, dawatis, apologists, or Muslim theologians claim it. You can believe something but that doesn't mean it's true.

[@DemiLot]

Don’t see the connection there akhi

[@salihawouda2992]

@@DemiLot I see , because if all these different arabian tribes and countries with their different dialects and accents cannot change the quran , no one will ☝️📖

[@GlizzyGoblin757]

the quran is a curse on the world created by an evil conqueror with a love for young girls. find Christ✝️

[@VegetaKrd]

@@_S0me__0neYou have no share in arabic if you disbelieve in islam. Without the quran, the arabic language would have a huge malfunction

[@purplelord8531]

do we count native language by what you first learned to speak at home? I would never call my home language my 'native language' because I only learned the words we use at home

[@huz653]

There are native Arabic speakers, and we know the native Arabic but we just don’t use it a lot because it’s super formal

[@YahiaIssa-pu2ch]

I am an arab and when i was a child my parents taught me classic arabic and we always talked with classic arabic at home, i started to learn my countrys variation at 8 years old, so i think that number must be atleast 1, and i am sure i am not the only one,and as much as i know classic arabic was there way before 1800s ,and the opposite is true, dialects where there after fusha(classic) arabic

[@malikahashami]

You can say the same thing ,conserning the latin language education in Europe,about us here in Morocco.... Since here,we study the scientific subjects in frensh instead of arabic starting from middle school.This is apart from the modern standard arabic that's used for scientific subjects in primary school only🙂 .( other subjects are always studied in arabic until we reach university).

[@makkah1234]

Most people in the Middle East and North Africa may struggle with the Classical Arabic, but that’s not true in the Arabian peninsula. Even though no body speaks it in everyday conversation, but it is still totally understood. In fact, most of the time, the communication between them and those others whose dialect is ununderstandable is achieved via the classical version, but still, some simplification may be still required for proper communication. In most parts of those regions of what is so-called the “Arabic world”, Arabic have gotten mixed with the ancient languages which were spoken prior to the 7th century. For example, Arabic wasn’t the main language in the Levantine region until the 10th century even though the official governmental scripts were written in Arabic during the Umayyad’s period.

[@JujiCallisto]

Not to the extent of it being a second language, we still hold a great sense of the standard Arabic naturally.

[@user-th7lu2yf7n]

as an egyptian, this video is correct. but i think arabic still counts as the native language of arabic speaking countries still. because all the dialects take from standard arabic in a way or another. and i sometimes say words from standard arabic when i don't know how to say them in my own dialect even lol in addition to that, as a kid i spoke standard arabic fluently, moreso than my own dialect, because of watching cartoons and other arabic content, which is made using modern standard arabic

[@MrNsaysHi]

Wait, this doesn't make sense to me because this Modern Standard Arabic is exactly written and tought as in the Quraan which existed way before 1800s !

[@AQ_77]

From what I understand, theyre not exactly the same thing.. MSA is a more formal variant used by news anchors, magazines, textbooks, journals, government forms, anything official basically. While fus-Ha or Classical Arabic is a more poetic in style reserved for religious scriptures and texts and can come across as archaic/old-timey. Sort of like comparing the CNN/BBC english and Shakesperean english.

[@mohamedadil7]

You are missing the point here, the local dialects are derived from ARABIC LANGUAGE and closely related to it U can think about the different dialects as an altered standard arabic language, when i go to school as an arabic native i don't feel I'm learning a different language as english for example

[@xzue-bz3ns]

Even so , most arabs can speak the old dialect of arabia , more specifically the quraish tripe dialect , which is the tripe of the prophet, so you can say it's the main dialect of arabic

[@hadirmaamouri4204]

I was at a polyglot event 2 weeks ago for Arab students who study in Tunisia..I spoke with Egyptians , Palestinians, Moroccans and Saudis. I didn't even use fusha or Standard Arabic ..I just toned down my dialect , all of us did ..If one of us didn't get a word , we would then say it in MSA ..I highly doubt if you're an italien you can understand french if they tone down their accent. Every Arab speaks MSA and can write it and read it for a simple reason . It's everywhere. No we don't use it to speak with one another but , it's in our classrooms , it's in our national anthem ,it's in the cartoons we watched growing up and most importantly it's in the Quran that is recited every day everywhere ..shopkeepers put it aloud in the mornings when they open up, mosques on Friday and it's recited every day in almost every home. Arabic is not latin ..I think you looked at this from a western perspective , there isn't a set way for a language to evolve , both are totally different.

[@simeoneutras2097]

Yes because the differents Arabic dialects trough the Arab world are just mostly an Alphabetical Arabization of their original natives languages for each of them. For exemple, Maghrebis and Horners Af will be the ones the most misunderstood by Arabians, Levantines and Mesopotamians, because Arabians ( where the Arabic language borned ) and Levantines + Mesopotamians were already originally speaking closer languages from the same common related proto-Semitic branch. While Berber, Coptics and Kushitics belonged to a complete different branch.

[@spacetimevortex]

i don't believe this is necessarily a truthful video title, however i understand where the convo is coming from. im an american and this is what i think. Western European nationalism which has been politically separating populations in an extreme way for a long time and this has created *very* distinct languages. the Arabic 'dialects' are the beginnings of those different languages being differentiated from each other, but my hypothesis is that because the *populations* in the Arab world historically speaking were not as permanently and strictly divided for as long, the dialects are still similar enough to be understandable to one another in a way that say French and Italian or German and French are not!!!

[@RyhanMuhammad-bb2xh]

Just wow , you are amazing 🤩🤩 and that really happened, Colonialism tried to create division and make communication difficult between speakers of the language Even now, you can imagine there are people who admire his dialect and the way he speaks. Even in the same county , in Egypt, they mock the Upper dialect and associate it with farming. The upper man has often been demeaned in our Egyptian films as just a doorman or a bandit who takes refuge in the mountains.😅

[@meemzing]

It is also quite the opposite, Western European nationalism imposed on the MENA in the 20th century directly supported pan-Arabizing /baathist movements which heighten erasure of native minority populations heritages, languages and identities. That being said, Arabic is one language with different dialects, and those dialects and mutual intelligibility diverge based on region. It is much how Dari and Farsi are both different dialects of Persian language.

[@justforplaylists]

Does English have hybrids instead of dialects? Like, the places where dialects would have formed, other languages also had influence too.

[@Mo7amad_55]

I’m from Saudi Arabia And in my city I don’t understand another Tribe or village In my city we have like 5-10 tribes With different Accents

[@ArkVogel]

Wow, man. I liked your other videos but this is clearly one of those orientalist stretches. You could give someone from anywhere in the Arab world a 2000 year old Arabic text and they would be able to read it without issue. “MSA” is just Fus’ha Arabic, which is what the Quran is written in, hence the reason why Arabic speakers across time and nations could speak and understand fus’ha regardless of their local dialect.

[@Igbmn]

As an egyption i went to morocco once it was so hard to talk with them but i eventually hot used to it

[@matali5940]

I don't know how Modern Standard Arabic established initially in the modern days. But Standard Arabic has established rigorously after the Islam religion came. The grammar, word form and rhetoric with logic. The dialect varied but the standard form is the same. For me, the MSA is only a refreshed continuation from the Standard Arabic (Fusha). Because it has the same rules, at least since 1400++ years ago. The difference I could think of may be the modern loan words or new arabic terms. And the way of teaching (pedagogy). Because MSA books tend to strengthen the conversation part. A modern conversation. While Standard Arabic/Classical Arabic focus on beginning word form (morphology), tajwid (way to pronounce), grammar (syntax) and so on that is useful for reading. This is only my insight as a non-arabic speaker. As long as you learn Ajurumiyah, Qatrun nada, Alfiyah or Kafiyah, you could easily acommodate to the MSA conversation and literatures.

[@BarisTitanX]

There are some native speakers because I know of some parents that spoke MSA to their children from birth as their first language, but I guess they're not documented. They are usually non-Arabs (like me) wo have learned it later in life as we don't have a dialect.

[@AymenDZA]

It's even more complicated than that sometimes, because even within a single Arabic country the different regions vary Wildly in their regional dialects

[@TonyNaber]

It’s the same language you dunce. You probably grew up afar. Most ppl in the same country perfectly understand each other and even beyond those fake colonial borders

[@shannonweatherly3940]

@@TonyNaber Yea but the words are different. I’m not talking accents like J in Kuwait becomes G in Egypt. I could not say “I want” in Kuwaiti Arabic and people to understand that in Egypt. The words sound 0% alike. Ebbe vs aowz. Modern Standard Arabic is ooredo. That’s 3 versions of the same word. There are too many examples of that to list. Sure chai stays the same as do many words, but many words are completely different. The guy in the video is saying no one’s first language spoken from birth is Modern Standard Arabic.

[@llKAR1Mll]

Not "modern Arabic" It's "Original Arabic" that we learn in school "Quran's Arabic" Most beautiful and brilliant language in the world

[@BlueSaladid]

To end the debate (because I see people arguing for both sides even though they know nothing): While it's true that dialects are quite different, what many non-Arabs don't get is that they are still mutually understandable because of the nature of the Arabic language. In Arabic, you can literally create your own words and other people would understand you just fine, because words are made of roots, and all Arabs know the roots, and so when you plug a root into a template, they can logically figure out the meaning without ever hearing it before. This means that you have two types of differences between dialects: 1- Differences from within the Arabic language (this dialect prefers to use a word coming from root A rather root B that the other dialect would use) and in this case, with a bit more processing time, a native speaker would be able to understand what you're saying. 2- Differences coming from foreign languages (like loanwords). In this case it's harder, as other native speakers don't know what the words mean, so they'd have to use context and guess. And #2 is the reason that dialects like Moroccan are harder to understand for speakers of other dialects, because Moroccan has many loan words from French, Tamazight, and Spanish.

[@ahmedayad7376]

Well No , there is native speakers of the formal arabic and they are the ( nomadic people ) in the arabian Peninsula

[@qabasalsrihin610]

Hey Arab here just clarifying some points: Arabs don't agree with the "Modern Standard Arabic" we consider the Holy Quran the standard form of Arabic and from which Grammar and other rules are derived from (nahu, sarf, balagha). Historically, before Islam emerged, each tribe had a dialect or a way of speaking, they would invert a letter in place of another or shorten words etc. But they sometimes had trouble understanding each other so they decided to designate a dialect for it to be the standard way of communicating formally between tribes or writing things down, and they chose the dialect of Quraish which is the dialect of the Quran and to this day Arabs consider the standard dialect.

[@RyhanMuhammad-bb2xh]

But the language of the poetry is same of the Quranic! It's not a second language Subsequently , this is not the language of the Quraysh. It is only High Arabic, like any language that has a Semitic form

[@high_surv]

Your explanation about MSA's creation is hugely misleading. MSA wasn't "created" in the 1800s so that Arabs with different dialects can speak to each other. It simply evolved from Classical Arabic which was already the literary dialect since the 7th century. I think the name "modern standard Arabic" causes misunderstandings. To Arabic speakers both CA and MSA are just fus'ha, and the differences between the two is comparable to Classical Latin vs Medieval Latin.

[@CanaaniteGuy]

The standard Arabic is nearly understood by every Arabic speaker , and it is used by the governments and by the media and of course Islamic religion and formal letters, other than that the difference between dialects varies a lot but Arabic speakers can manage communication by using what is known as the (white dialect). the only major exception can be found in the Maghrebi dialects ( mainly Moroccan and Algerian ) which also can be learned with little effort if someone spend sometime there , I have a friend who managed to master the Moroccan dialect after spending 2 months in Morocco. Arabic is not like Latin , because still every Arabic speaker can understand the standard Arabic, it is not the case with Latin in which most of the romance languages speakers can't even speak/understand. although it is the Root of all current romance languages.

[@aamirkhan6692]

Saying no one speaks MSA as a native language is the same as saying no one speaks English (literary) as a native language. Of course no one speaks like the literary books but the speak in dialects and accents

[@japanpanda2179]

Literary English was NEVER standardized though. There is no "standard English", there's only the vernacular dialects of American English, British English, Australian English, etc. none of which can be considered any more correct than any other. Old dialects, like the Shakespearean dialect, are probably the closest that exists to an English version of MSA, but they are never used at all in conversation unlike MSA, they are only of historical interest.

[@laithtwair]

for many reasons, linguists have chosen to define arabic dialects as separate languages from MSA. if you scroll down further on that wikipedia page you'll find Egyptian arabic which does have native speakers

[@alexandradistefano1139]

How do you guys understand each other at all?

[@AbdoMSG]

They use the same language structure and grammar, just different parts of said grammer are more common based on the dalect, we do have abit of different vocabs but they are easy to learn

[@liliqua1293]

Exposure, multilingualism, an old and robust cinema from one of the more central varieties, and compulsory learning of the proto-language making speakers is various varieties familiar with forms not in their own spoken variety.

[@redtailpunk]

you can tell by how well they all get along

[@mr.cauliflower3536]

I think it might be somewhat similar to interslavic, but more official.

[@Kurumi2310]

Your source of information is wikipedia? “In henry cavill tone”

[@purplemarsmotionpictures]

but standardisation happens to a lot of languages, doesn't mean that they don't have "native speakers". Take Norwegian for example, we got two standard written forms Bokmaal and New Norwegian. Neither of these have speakers that follow one or the other to the dot. These are "fake" written forms(One of them started off as Danish) created to write down dialects that can diverge so much from each other that understanding Swedish or Danish can be easier sometimes. This doesn't mean that we don't have native norwegian speakers.