Varieties of Arabic - Formal Vs. Vernacular Speech

Formal Vs. Vernacular Speech

Another major difference between varieties of Arabic is that between the standardized formal language, primarily found in writing, media or in prepared speech, and the vernacular, spoken dialects, used for most situations. The formal language is referred to as اللغة الفصحى al-lugha al-fuṣḥā, and itself diverges between its modern iteration (often called Modern Standard Arabic or MSA in English), used in writing, media or in prepared speech, and the Classical Arabic that serves as its inspiration. The latter is the language of the Qur'an and is rarely used except in reciting the Qur'an, or quoting older classical texts. Arabic speakers typically do not make this distinction. The development of Modern Standard Arabic dates to the beginning of the 19th century, and was the result of a laborious process of modernizing the Classical language.

Colloquial and formal Arabic certainly do overlap; as a matter of fact it is very difficult to find a situation where one type is used exclusively. For example, MSA is used in formal speeches or interviews. However, just as soon as the speaker diverts away from his well-prepared speech in order to add a comment or respond to a question, the rate of colloquial usage in this speech increases dramatically. How much MSA versus colloquial is used depends on the speaker, the topic, and the situation - amongst other factors. At the other end of the spectrum, public education, as well as exposure to mass media, has introduced MSA elements amongst the least educated so it would be equally difficult to find an Arabic speaker whose speech is totally unaffected by MSA. This linguistic situation in general is sometimes referred to as diglossia.

The Egyptian linguist Al-Said Badawi made the following distinctions in 'levels of speech' regarding the mixing of vernacular and formal Arabic in Egypt:

• فصحى التراث fuṣḥā al-turāth, ‘heritage classical’: The Classical Arabic of Arab literary heritage and the Qur'an. This is primarily a written language but it is heard in its spoken form on at the mosque or in religious programmes on TV.
• فصحى العصر fuṣḥā al-‘aṣr, ‘contemporary classical’: This is what Western linguists call Modern Standard Arabic (MSA), a modification and simplification of Classical Arabic created for the modern age; it has consequently coined a great deal of new words, both from using lexical material native to Arabic and by borrowing words from other, chiefly European, languages. Aside from being principally a written language, it is also read aloud from text. Highly skilled speakers can also produce it spontaneously, though typically in extremely formal contexts; this is particularly common in talk and debate programs on pan-Arab TV networks such as Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya, as it is understood throughout these networks' target market.
• عاميات المثقفين ‘āmiyya al-muthaqqafīn, ‘colloquial of the cultured’: This is vernacular language heavily influenced by MSA which can be used for serious discussion but is generally not written. It also includes a high quantity of foreign loanwords, chiefly relating to the technical and theoretical subjects it is used to discuss. This is used by well-educated people, principally on the TV, and can frequently be understood by Arabic-speakers outside the speaker's country of origin. It is also becoming the language of instruction at universities.
• عاميات المتنورين āmiyya al-mutanawwarīn ‘colloquial of the basically educated’: This is the everyday language that people use in informal contexts, and that is heard on TV when non-intellectual topics are being discussed. It is characterized, according to Badawi, by high levels of borrowing.
• عاميات أميين āmiyya al-'ummiyyīn, ‘colloquial of the illiterates’: This is very colloquial speech characterized by the absence of influence from MSA, but also relatively little foreign borrowing, with the result that the lexicon is almost entirely derived from Classical Arabic.

Almost everyone in Egypt has access to more than one speech register, and people often switch between them, sometimes within the same sentence. This scheme generally corresponds to the linguistic situations in other Arabic-speaking countries as well.

The spoken varieties of Arabic have occasionally been written, usually in the Arabic alphabet. Vernacular Arabic was first recognized as a written language contrasting with Classical Arabic in 17th century Ottoman Egypt, as the Cairo elite began to trend towards colloquial writing. A record of the Cairo vernacular of the time is found in the dictionary compiled by Yusuf al-Maghribi. More recently, many plays and poems, as well as a few other works (even translations of Plato) exist in Lebanese Arabic and Egyptian Arabic; books of poetry, at least, exist for most varieties. In Algeria, colloquial Maghrebi Arabic was taught as a separate subject under French colonization, and some textbooks exist. Mizrahi Jews throughout the Arab world who spoke Judeo-Arabic dialects rendered newspapers, letters, accounts, stories, and translations of some parts of their liturgy in the Hebrew alphabet, adding diacritics and other conventions for letters that exist in Judeo-Arabic but not Hebrew. The Latin alphabet was advocated for Lebanese Arabic by Said Aql, whose supporters published several books in his transcription. Later, in 1994, Abdelaziz Pasha Fahmi, a member of the Academy of the Arabic Language in Egypt proposed the replacement of the Arabic alphabet with the Latin alphabet. His proposal was discussed in two sessions in the communion but was rejected, and was faced with strong opposition in cultural circles.