The Arabic Language

9.5 Contemporary Middle Arabic
Depending on the definition of ‘Middle Arabic’, contemporary texts in a mixed 
style may be regarded as a special category, or they may be included in the 
category of texts that has been discussed so far. Paradoxically, with the spreading 
of education the number of people with some degree of schooling in Standard 
Arabic has increased immensely. There is a large number of semi-literates, people 
who are able to write simple messages, but lack the skills to write the language 
correctly according to the strict rules of grammar. When these people write 

---

166
The Arabic Language
Arabic, they tend to make the very same mistakes that one finds in the Middle 
Arabic texts of the Classical period.
The most obvious feature of both Classical and contemporary texts is their 
variation and inconsistency, which underscores the fact that these texts are not 
written in a discrete variety of the language. An incorrect form in one sentence 
may be repeated correctly in the next, the word order may vary between the collo
-
quial and the standard order, the agreement rules of Classical Arabic are applied 
in one sentence and neglected in another, within one and the same sentence 
reference to two persons may be made in the dual and in the plural, and so on.
In the usual definition, the term ‘Middle Arabic’ also includes literary texts 
with dialectal elements, such as the memoirs of ʾUsāma ibn Munqiḏ. There is a 
large difference, however, between the mixed literary texts of the Classical period 
and examples from modern literature. After the period of the 
Nahḍa
(cf. below, 
Chapter 12), the use of colloquial elements in literary texts became a permanent 
issue in any discussion between intellectuals in the Arab world. In Egypt, the 
emphasis on ‘Egyptianisation’ stimulated some writers to experiment with the 
diglossic reality of their language. Some writers felt that the use of dialect in 
dialogues was unavoidable when reporting the speech of illiterate people, and 
started using a combination of standard and colloquial. Although educated 
people, too, use dialect in their everyday speech, there was a general feeling that 
it would be improper to have them speak like that on paper.
After the initial attempts to integrate dialect and standard in literary texts in 
the early part of the twentieth century, the shift towards pan-Arabic nationalism 
in most Arab countries turned the use of colloquial elements in literature into a 
controversial option. Even those writers who had used dialect in earlier publica
-
tions, such as Tawfīq al-Ḥakīm (1898–1987), publicly regretted their transgres-
sions and reverted to the use of a pure standard. Two points are to be noted 
here. First, even those writers who were determined to write in colloquial Arabic 
could never escape completely the influence of the written language. Thus, the 
language of their writings is hardly ever an example of ‘pure’ colloquial speech. 
Very often, the use of dialect amounts to no more than the insertion of colloquial 
markers (cf. also below, Chapter 13).
Second, literary writers have an intimate knowledge of Classical Arabic, and 
their use of colloquial language is always intentional. Thus, in their writings 
there are no examples of pseudo-correction due to lack of grammatical educa-
tion. This kind of Middle Arabic is therefore much more akin to those Middle 
Arabic texts in which colloquial elements are used for the purpose of 
couleur locale
. 
Some contemporary Arab authors pride themselves on being able to write theatre 
plays in ‘pure’ colloquial speech, whereas in reality they have adopted a literary 
form of the dialect. Admittedly, contemporary Egypt is farthest in this direction, 
since the position of the dialect in Egypt is different from that in other Arab 
countries. But even in Egypt, written dialect is not identical with spoken dialect, 

---

Middle Arabic 
167
and theatre plays have to be ‘translated’ into ‘real’ colloquial Egyptian before they 
can actually be staged.
An interesting parallel is the use of colloquial colouring in formal radio speech. 
Sometimes the speaker in a radio programme, in order to create an intimate 
atmosphere, tries to transform the (written) text serving as the basis for the 
broadcast into a dialect text with the help of dialect markers. Take the following 
example from the beginning of a programme for housewives: