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 Farsi
- Afghanistan has three major languages, Pashtu, Dari and also Farsi, 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 from a very different language group than Arabic.
- Morocco: Besides the official Classical Arabic being used by official bodies, as is the case in most Arabic-speaking countries, Moroccan-Arabic 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 Moroccan languages are Berber (Rif-Berber, spoken by people from the Rif-mountains and Tifinagh, spoken by the Tuareg people.
- Tifinagh can also be heard in Algeria, as well as Kabyle, spoken by the Kabyle Berbers in the north-east of Algeria. (Note: historically speaking the Kabyle people are Christians). Another Algerian language is Chaoui, spoken by the Chaoui, south-west of the Kabyle region.
- Nigeria: primarily Hausa, but some Yoruba and Igbo speakers are also Muslim.
- Pakistan: Urdu
- Bangladesh: Bengali
- Malaysia: Malay
- Philippines: primarily Maranao, some Tagalog speakers are Muslims.
- Albania: Albanian, or Shqiptarë
- Bosnia: Bosnian
- Sudan: primarily a Sudanese dialect of Arabic
- Somalia: Somali
- Libya: Arabic
- Tunisia: Arabic
- Yemen: Arabic
- Iraq: Arabic
- Syria: Arabic, some Syriac
- 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.
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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 rôle 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 is closer to Classical Arabic than Moroccan-Arabic is.
