Guest Author - Julie L Baumler
When Westerners think about Middle Eastern Languages, generally only Arabic, Farsi (Persian) and Hebrew – for Israel – come to mind. However, this is just the tip of the iceberg. Arabic, of course, has a large number of distinct dialects, such as Egyptian Arabic, Moroccan Arabic, Leviathan Arabic, etc. Not to mention Modern Standard Arabic (M.S.A.), which isn't anyone's native language but is used for publication, international business, and general communication between speakers of different dialects. However, the diversity of languages goes well beyond dialects. The Library of Congress reports that they have materials in all current and historic dialects of over forty languages in their Near Eastern collection. These include documents in Abkhaz, Altaic, Arabic, Armenian, Avaric, Avestan, Azerbaijani, Bashkir, Berber, Buriat, Caucasian languages, Chagatai, Chechen, Chuvash, Finno-Ugrian, Georgian, Iranian languages, Kabyle, Kara-Kalpak, Kazakh, Komi, Kurdish, Kyrghyz, Lezgian, Mari, Ossetic, Pahlavi, Persian and Old Persian, Pushto, Selkup, Sagdian, Tajik, Tatar, Turkish and Ottoman Turkish, Turkmen, Tuvinian, Uighur, Uzbek, and Yakut. This does not include the languages in their Hebraic collection, such as Aramaic, Hebrew, and Yiddish. Although Yiddish is not in common usage in Israel, and originally originated in Europe, it is the everyday language spoken by some groups of very religious Israeli Jews who believe Hebrew should be reserved for religious use only.
The CIA World Factbook lists thirty languages in use in Afghanistan alone! These include the two official languages of Dari and Pashtu, which together only account for the native tongue of about 85 percent of the population. Dari, the most commonly spoken language in Afghanistan, is also known as Afghan Persian, but in fact Persian developed from Dari.
Arabic is, in fact, the most common language in the Middle East. It is widely spoken in eighteen countries as well as by Palestinians – these include Algeria, Comoros, Djibouti, Iraq, Israel, Jordon, Kuwait, Libya, Lebanon, Mauritania, Morocco, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, the United Arab Emirates (U.A.E.), and Yemen. Arabic is also the official language for the Arab population in Israel. Farsi, or Persian as it is often called because it is the language of Persia, is, of course, spoken in the former Persia, which is now Iran. It is also used as a minor, though unofficial, language in Bahrain and the U.A.E.
Western languages are also widely spoken in the Middle East, sometimes even as official languages. French and Arabic are the two official languages of Comoros and Djibouti. French is also often used for business and commerce in Morocco and Tunisia, widely spoken in Algeria, Mauritania and Egypt, as well as a useful language for communication in Syria. English is understood in the larger cities of many Middle Eastern Nations and Russian is used in many of the former Soviet Republics that have traditional ties to the Middle East, such as Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. Greek is used in Cyprus today, and historically was used for official documents, daily speech, and commerce in areas of the Middle East that were under Roman rule approximately two thousand years ago.
