- 02 May 2013 02:55
#14226004
Recently i've been considering an attempt to at least dabble in arabic but it turns out that would be even more difficult than I thought. It seems "Arabic" is more of a language group than a cohesive language, kind of like latin apparently. You've got your liturgical arabi that stems from the classic source, written arabic which according to what i've heard is close to a muslim version of italian, and the regional dialects which supposedly are like the romance languages give or take. Could somebody with some knowledge on this give me some first hand accounts on the mutual intelligibility of the various tongues (are they like spanish and Portuguese or far more divergent even when in relative proximity) and which version I should learn if any (i'd guess the written arabic but i don't know how often it is spoken and if the average person is even fluent in it.) I doubt I'd seriously invest in the liturgical branch seeing how i have no interest in hanging around madrassas.