Classical

This week’s blog post is an infographic I made the other day, after speaking with Laila Al-Sawi of the Intensive Arabic Program at the American University in Cairo.  She made reference to the five levels of Arabic use described by the late El-Said Bedawi, and it got me thinking about how Classical Arabic (فصحى) and colloquial Arabic (عامية) are not as distinctly separated as many books and teaching approaches make it out to be. Rather, there is a spectrum of use. I hope this infographic is helpful in describing one model of what that looks like. Continue reading “Arabic use in real life – five levels”