Arabic (اَلْعَرَبِيَّةُ, al-ʿarabiyyah [al ʕaraˈbijːa] or عَرَبِيّ, ʿarabīy [ˈʕarabiː] or [ʕaraˈbij]) is a Semitic language that first emerged in the 1st to 4th centuries CE.It is the lingua franca of the Arab world and the liturgical language of Islam.It is named after the Arabs, a term initially used to describe peoples living in the Arabian Peninsula bounded by eastern Egypt in the west, Mesopotamia in the east, and the Anti-Lebanon mountains and northern Syria in the north, as perceived by ancient Greek geographers.The ISO assigns language codes to 32 varieties of Arabic, including its standard form, Modern Standard Arabic,also referred to as Literary Arabic, which is modernized Classical Arabic. This distinction exists primarily among Western linguists; Arabic speakers themselves generally do not distinguish between Modern Standard Arabic and Classical Arabic, but rather refer to both as al-ʿarabiyyatu l-fuṣḥā "the eloquent Arabic") or simply al-fuṣḥā (اَلْفُصْحَىٰ).
