Arabic and Middle East Studies

Arabic (Arabic: العَرَبِيَّة‎) al-ʻarabiyyah [ʔalʕaraˈbijːah] ( listen) or (Arabic: عَرَبِيّ‎) ʻarabī [ˈʕarabiː] ( listen) or [ʕaraˈbij]) is a Central Semitic language that first emerged in Iron Age northwestern Arabia and is now the lingua franca of the Arab world. It is named after the Arabs, a term initially used to describe peoples living from Mesopotamia in the east to the Anti-Lebanon mountains in the west, in northwestern Arabia, and in the Sinai peninsula. Arabic is classified as a macrolanguage comprising 30 modern varieties, including its standard form (Modern Standard Arabic).

The Middle East is a transcontinental region centered on Western Asia, Turkey (both Asian and European), and Egypt (which is mostly in North Africa). The corresponding adjective is Middle Eastern and the derived noun is Middle Easterner. The term has come into wider usage as a replacement of the term Near East (as opposed to the Far East) beginning in the early 20th century.