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Language code: ar

Technical information about ISO 639 language code ar

Documentation

The table below provides technical details for the Arabic language, designated by the ar code from the ISO 639-1 standard.

Code

ar

Name

Official

Arabic

Native

اَلْعَرَبِيَّةُ

Family
Semitic
Text direction

Right-to-Left

Plural rules

More info

Language varieties
Egyptian ArabicLevantine ArabicGulf ArabicMaghrebi ArabicMesopotamian ArabicSudanese ArabicYemeni ArabicNajdi ArabicHejazi ArabicHassaniya Arabic
Related languages
HebrewAramaicAmharicTigrinyaMaltese
Key facts
Most widely spoken member of the Semitic language familyWritten in a cursive abjad that runs right-to-leftClassical Arabic of the Qur’an has changed little since the 7th centuryMany global scientific and mathematical terms (e.g., algebra, algorithm) trace back to ArabicFeatures emphatic consonants and a rich root-and-pattern morphology.
Sample phrase

مرحبا، كيف حالك؟

Character encodings

ISO 8859-6, Windows 1256, UTF-8, UTF-16, UTF-32

Supported in Localizely

Arabic belongs to the Afro-Asiatic family of languages, specifically the Semitic subgroup. It is the official language in more than 20 countries and territories. It is written using the Arabic alphabet. It is estimated that there are more than 300 million speakers of all varieties worldwide.

Language presence globally

Speakers

Egypt

95M

Algeria

39M

Saudi Arabia

32M

Iraq

25M

Sudan

25M

*The graph shows a rough estimate of Arabic speakers in countries where it is an official or minority language.

Related locale codes

ar-001 – Arabic (World)

ar-AE – Arabic (United Arab Emirates)

ar-BH – Arabic (Bahrain)

ar-DJ – Arabic (Djibouti)

ar-DZ – Arabic (Algeria)

ar-EG – Arabic (Egypt)

ar-EH – Arabic (Western Sahara)

ar-ER – Arabic (Eritrea)

ar-IL – Arabic (Israel)

ar-IQ – Arabic (Iraq)

ar-JO – Arabic (Jordan)

ar-KM – Arabic (Comoros)

ar-KW – Arabic (Kuwait)

ar-LB – Arabic (Lebanon)

ar-LY – Arabic (Libya)

ar-MA – Arabic (Morocco)

ar-MR – Arabic (Mauritania)

ar-OM – Arabic (Oman)

ar-PS – Arabic (Palestine)

ar-QA – Arabic (Qatar)

ar-SA – Arabic (Saudi Arabia)

ar-SD – Arabic (Sudan)

ar-SO – Arabic (Somalia)

ar-SS – Arabic (South Sudan)

ar-SY – Arabic (Syria)

ar-TD – Arabic (Chad)

ar-TN – Arabic (Tunisia)

ar-YE – Arabic (Yemen)

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