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Languages Of MuslimsMuslims believe that God revealed the Holy Qur'an to the Prophet Muhammad literally, word-for-word, in the Arabic language. Thus, Arabic is regarded as the holy language of Islam. Languages of major Muslim groups However, there is no single "Muslim language" per se, as Islam, the faith of Muslims, is shared by people of many different ethnicities and languages: - Iranians speak Persian.
- Afghanistan has three major languages, Pashto, Dari and Uzbek, each belonging to ethnic groups (tribes) with the same names.
- The most populous "Muslim country" in the world is Indonesia. The CIA World Factbook 2000 lists languages as: Bahasa Indonesia, English, Dutch, local dialects, the most widely spoken of which is Javanese.
- Turkish people speak Turkish, a language in a very different language group from Arabic.
- Morocco: Besides the official Classical Arabic being used by official bodies, as is the case in most Arabic-speaking countries, Moroccan-Arabic also known as Darija is the 'language of the street'. It is grammatically simpler, and has a less voluminous vocabulary than Classical Arabic. As in Algeria, most Moroccan-Arabs live in the north of the country. Other Moroccans speak Berber languages such as Tachelhit and Tarifit
- Berber languages can also be heard in Algeria, notably including Kabyle, spoken by the Kabyle Berbers in the north-east of Algeria. Another Algerian language is Chaoui, spoken by the Chaoui, south-west of the Kabyle region. See Languages of Algeria.
- Nigeria: primarily Hausa, but some Yoruba and Igbo speakers are also Muslim.
- Pakistan: Urdu
- Bangladesh: Bengali
- Malaysia: Malay
- Philippines: primarily Maranao, Tausug and other languages in Mindanao. Some Tagalog speakers are Muslims.
- Albania: Albanian, or Shqiptar
- Bosnia: Bosnian
- Sudan: primarily a Sudanese dialect of Arabic
- Somalia: Somali
- Libya: Arabic
- Tunisia: Arabic
- Yemen: Arabic
- Iraq: Arabic
- Syria: Arabic
- China: A variety of languages are spoken by Chinese Muslims. Uighurs in Xinjiang speak the Uighur language while the Hui minority generally speak Mandarin Chinese.
- Canada: Arabic
The Arabic language has many different 'branches'. Whether these are to be considered mere dialects or separate languages is a question of debate. The fact is, that it is not self-evident that all Arabic-speaking people understand each other when they speak. Each Arab country has developed its own variant of Arabic. The Arabic spoken in Egypt is very well understood by most Arabic-speaking people. One of the reasons for this is the flourishing Egyptian film industry. Their films are watched by millions of people in the Arabic-speaking world. Another reason may be the leading rle of the Al-Ahzar University in Cairo in theological issues and in the intellectual world. However, this does not mean an Egyptian will easily understand for instance an Arabic-speaking Moroccan. There many differences, not only in idioms, but in pronunciation and spelling as well. Egyptian Arabic more closely resembles Classical Arabic than does Moroccan-Arabic.
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