Modern Standard Arabic vs. Classical Arabic

[BlackMamba]

Whats the difference between MSA and Classical Arabic. I know classical arabic is the type used in the Quran, but how much does it differ from the Modern Arabic? I really want to learn arabic in order to understand the Quran because I am Hafiz ul Quran and still do not know arabic. So lets say I learn classical arabic, would I then be able to communicate with Arabs? Or would I just be able to understand the Quran and nothing else. Because I do know some arabs that are Hafiz and they just know how to speak a certain dialect of arabic like Egyptian Arabic, and because of that, they cannot understand the Quran.

 

[Umar001]

As Salam Alaykum,

I speak only the Qur'anic arabic, not very good, but I use the words from the (small) Surahs I have memorised. A Brother from Yemen understands what I say but he says that I speak OLD SKOOL arabic, people would laugh at me lol but it is worth it.

 

[Ali.]

Well put it this way, it's like Old English and the English now. If you learn Arabic though you should be able to understand it.

 

[Mikayeel]

Old arabic is the best, its the master language. It is extremely hard grammer wise (imo)

 

[Caller الداعي]

bro i am learning arabic alhamdulilah ...and i was in the same dilemma ...but i found that the modern arabic is the old arabic....its just that they use diff. dialects and join , cut paste etc.. like u find the way ppl speak english araound the world (if u learn normal english the rest of the dialects and slangs r pretty much easy to pick up).

 

[Whatsthepoint]

Old arabic is the best, its the master language. It is extremely hard grammer wise (imo)

Yeah, langauges tend to get simpler with years. Just compare modern romance languages with Latin.

 

[Na7lah]

my advice is for you to learn modern arabic *not paticularly the slang though arabic grammer is not that hard but the old arabic has easier grammer since nowadays no one really focuses on the grammer

if u learn the modern one u can communicate with people and also understand the quran inshallah

 

[IceQueen~]

Firslty there's a difference between dialects, and modern standard.

dialects can be so dif that some arabs cannot understand other arabs from dif countries because of the immense dif in dialects (like slang and jargon used in one place will be dif in another even for English but in Arabic dialects the dif are more obvious)

Modern standard Arabic is yes a 'newer' or modern version of the classical language and can be made comparison with old English and Modern English

So sort of like how a Shakespearian would speak Enlish compared to how we speak now lol we would laugh

But mainly the dif is that classical Arabic for eg has around 16 000 verbs but around 10 000 are extinct nowadays/ no longer used. Some of these are used but extremely rare in modern times.

And then apart from the absense of old words Modern Arabic has added new terminology to meet needs for the advancement in technology/new inventions and thus needing new names/words etc in Modern times- for eg Scientific terms and terms for modern intruments/objects etc.

In this case sometimes old words are used with new meanings eg the word dharra in the Quran in the past would be understood to be a tiny particle like an ant etc but now it is used to mean an 'atom'.
But most of the time the foreign words are used for eg the word cinema is the same in Arabic (aside leeway for accent 'seenemaa').

If you spoke using just classical Arabic, Arabs knowing Modern standard Arabic would understand you but you may have difficulty understanding their 'modern' terminology or their modern use of terminology. (But you can very easily grasp this by listening and reading often)

But if you want to understand the Quran the best way to go about it (I personally think) is to learn classical Arabic first as that will equip you for Modern Standard as well whereas it is not the same the other way round.

If you learn classical first, become familiar with the grammar etc then all you would really have to do to 'switch' to Modern standard is learn a bit of Modern vocab. And as for speaking, it is much simpler as lots of grammar rules can be ignored (you don't need to speak the way you would read the Quran).

A very good book: A New Arabic Grammar by Haywood and Nahmad (available at Waterstone's for about £20)

 

[Ibn Abi Ahmed]

Whats the difference between MSA and Classical Arabic. I know classical arabic is the type used in the Quran, but how much does it differ from the Modern Arabic? I really want to learn arabic in order to understand the Quran because I am Hafiz ul Quran and still do not know arabic. So lets say I learn classical arabic, would I then be able to communicate with Arabs? Or would I just be able to understand the Quran and nothing else. Because I do know some arabs that are Hafiz and they just know how to speak a certain dialect of arabic like Egyptian Arabic, and because of that, they cannot understand the Quran.

Bro,

The differences from what I know are many, and the Qur'an is the pinnacle of perfection of the language so if you were to learn Arabic based on the Qur'an, your speech would become excellent Insha'Allaah. I have some lectures for you:

Follow this link and listen to the one called "Why Study Arabic and How?"

http://www.islamicboard.com/islamic-multimedia/53176-nouman-ali-khan-lectures-thread.html

(If the links there don't work, then go here: http://www.halaltube.com/category/nouman-ali-khan)

The brother, Nouman Ali Khan, also has an institute he runs in the US called Bayyinah which focuses on teaching Qur'anic Arabic:

http://bayyinah.com/

The classes are phenomenal as I've heard. Listen to the lecture mentioned above and you'll understand why and the other ones are amazing too, especially the 'Divine Speech' series. Plus I think he answers your questions in the first lecture as well.

One more series of lectures on how to learn Arabic is "Tips on How to Learn Quranic Arabic Quickly and Easily" by Mamdouh Mohamed:

http://www.audioislam.com/?subcategory=Language

I really love the points he makes in this lecture, very practical for students of the Qur'an. Let me know how your listening goes

 

[BlackMamba]

So have any of you learnt the classical arabic from scratch like i want to do and how did u go about learning it?

 

[Faye]

I am also a Hafiz-e-Quran and am intrested in learning Arabic for the same reason.

In the Madrassa I am going to to learn Arabic, we learn both MSA and Classical Arabic. We speak MSA but most of the texts/literature that we read are in Classical Arabic.

The difference between the two is that MSA is simpler than Classical Arabic. The grammer is less complex and is more informal. Many verb forms are extinct. The vocabulary is also slightly different, as many words have acquired new meanings over the years, or fallen into disuse.

Even a knowledge of MSA does not ensure that you can speak to Arabs. They will probably understand you as it is the formal language, but local dialects/slang are sufficiently different from place to place as to create a language barrier even between native speakers. In Arabic, the local dialect is referred to as 'Aammiyah and the formal language (MSA), as Fushah. Most Arabs speak 'Aammiyah and read Fushah

MSA is a good place to begin learning Arabic. The basic grammatical structure is the same, only the Classical Arabic contains more complexities and subtle discriminations not found in the Classical Arabic. The basic vocabulary is also the same.

For gaining Quranic vocabulary, there is a book called 'Mufradatul Quran' (I am unsure who the writer is.) It contains a listing of Quranic words in order of frequency of occurrance and gives the many meanings those words have been used for in the Quran. By memorizing 100 of the first words, one gains a basic understanding of 80% of the Quran. (approx) This book exists in Arabic-Arabic and Arabic-Urdu.

There are many books on Quranic grammer and many tafaseer contain grammatical parsing. 'I'eraabul Quran' is a book devoted to this topic and 'Tafseerul Muneer' (in easy MSA) comtains parsing as well.

I suggest you learn MSA first to gain a basic familarity with Arabic and then increase your knowledge with these books. Many 'Ilm resources are only available in Arabic and learning the language opens access to these treasure troves.

 

[truemuslim]

Its pretty much like old english, you kno where they go like "Hello thy king of england, shall i get a glass of wota for thee? " ugh, reminds me of enlish class and british ppl ...
and arabic classic is tiight, i never see no one speak it tho. when u do, they make funna u. lol
its the quran arabic! THe best arabic! the arabic fus7a!
Buuut no...
NOW its like, yemenis talk all wierd, syrians invent new words, saudians are the ones no one can understand, sudanis are like yemenis (in my opinion) , lebenonis are just...eh..egyptians are prolly like lebenonis , jordani's are like imposible, libyans...i wonder if theyr arab. oman is like yemenis , and...*thinks of other arab countries*
okey pretty much it.
everyone went there own way. arabic fus7a has died.
But arabic fus7a is the BEST. Its the quran arabicc!

 

[Mikayeel]

Its pretty much like old english, you kno where they go like "Hello thy king of england, shall i get a glass of wota for thee? " ugh, reminds me of enlish class and british ppl ...
and arabic classic is tiight, i never see no one speak it tho. when u do, they make funna u. lol
its the quran arabic! THe best arabic! the arabic fus7a!
Buuut no...
NOW its like, yemenis talk all wierd, syrians invent new words, saudians are the ones no one can understand, sudanis are like yemenis (in my opinion) , lebenonis are just...eh..egyptians are prolly like lebenonis , jordani's are like imposible, libyans...i wonder if theyr arab. oman is like yemenis , and...*thinks of other arab countries*
okey pretty much it.
everyone went there own way. arabic fus7a has died.
But arabic fus7a is the BEST. Its the quran arabicc!

loool at ur 'comment about all the arabic speaking countries'.

In a way yemeni and sudani r the same, they both speak fast, i can fully understand yemenies (but then agian i can understand most of the arabs).However no one can understand marocans, tunisians and algerians other than themselves. My uncles wife is marocan, and my god the way they speak. I swear down its soooo weird, i can understand only one word out of the 20 she says.

Egyptian and sudani r the closest to eachother. They use alot of the same words only the way they say things differ. Its cus it was one country.

 

[truemuslim]

loool at ur 'comment about all the arabic speaking countries'.

In a way yemeni and sudani r the same, they both speak fast, i can fully understand yemenies (but then agian i can understand most of the arabs).However no one can understand marocans, tunisians and algerians other than themselves. My uncles wife is marocan, and my god the way they speak. I swear down its soooo weird, i can understand only one word out of the 20 she says.

Egyptian and sudani r the closest to eachother. They use alot of the same words only the way they say things differ. Its cus it was one country.

Lol yh morrocans, algerians and tunisians way of arabic is sooo hard. On ther morrocan channel on tv its like so wierd. i thought it was a different language till my mum said it herself its hard to understand it. You know how the syrians talk? like they even take some words from the irani language and turkish language. hah. lol. they like americans, coz americans took like half there words from latin or greek roots...or arabic even.
the thing i can understand best is sudani's...especially on tv, coz you WANT to listen by the way theyr dressed. lol. always hijab :statisfie . best channel on arabic dish :statisfie even the yemeni channel totally screwed up now. when they wear hijab it looks like an animal eating there head.

I wonder if the arabi fus7a will ever be spoken by the mid east countries again.
Inshallah it does tho.
If you can understand that itll be easy to understand quran.
and it'll be easy to memorize quran. Instead of memorizing words you got no clu what they are, memorize words you KNOW there meaning.

So whoever planning on learning arabic, learn the classic. The beautifulll quran arabik :statisfie