Arabic

FACT FILE:

Official language in: 23 Sovereign States in the Arab World – Algeria, Bahrain, Chad, Comoros, Djibouti, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, Oman, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates, Yemen

Minority language in: 7 countries – Cyprus, Eritrea, Iran, Mali, Niger, Senegal, Turkey

Spoken by: Around 422 million

Language family: Afro-Asiatic – Semitic – West Semitic – Central Semitic – North Arabian – Arabic

Writing system: Arabic script (from right to left)

Fun Fact: Arabic has influenced a great number of languages, including most European languages as well as Asian and African languages. English has many Arabic loanwords such as alcohol, algebra, algorithm, average, candy, caravan, cotton, giraffe, guitar, jar, lemon, lilac, magazine, sugar and talisman.