Arabic is one of the most commonly spoken languages in the world today. Here are some interesting facts about Arabic:

1. Arabic is the official language of nearly 26 countries, classical Arabic is the liturgical language of 1.8 billion Muslims, and Modern Standard Arabic is one of six official languages of the United Nations. There are over 300 million speakers of Arabic across the world. Interestingly, Arabic recently has become one of the fastest growing languages in the world.

2. Arabic had a big influence on a great number of languages, including most European languages as well as Asian and African languages. English has many Arabic loanwords such as alcohol, algebra, algorithm, average, candy, caravan, cotton, giraffe, guitar, jar, lemon, lilac, magazine, sugar and talisman.

3. In Arabic, there are nearly 11 words for “love”, each describing specific stages of the process of falling in love. For example, “hawa” (هوى) describes the initial attraction towards someone, “huyum” (هيام), the loss of reason that follows, and “ishq” (عشق), a blind desire.

4. Arabic has sounds that don't exist in other languages. There are many differences between Arabic and English, the most obvious one being that it is written from right to left. There are also a few sounds that don’t exist in other languages, such as 'ح' , which is a ‘h’ sound as in ‘hubb’ (love). To get an idea of how this is pronounced, imagine breathing on a window pane to create a mist.

5. Arabic constructs words from basic roots: As in other Semitic languages, Arabic has a complex and unusual method of constructing words from a basic root. This means that a pattern of three letters such as ‘k-t-b’, will always be the foundation of words that have the semantic field of ‘writing’, such as the work ‘kitaab’ which means ‘a book’ and ‘maktab’ which means ‘a desk or office’. The beauty of it is that it conveys a depth of both meaning and emotion unmatched by many languages.

6. Arabic Alphabet consists of 28 letters. Learning Arabic Alphabet is the first step to learn Arabic language. If you are interested to learn Arabic Writing you need to know some information. Arabic is a language that is written from right to left. Arabic is written in the cursive way. To learn Arabic alphabet and to learn Arabic writing, you need to pay much attention to dots. Dots are used to differentiate a letter from another. A single dot, which may be added by mistake, can make a certain word mean a completely different meaning.

7. According to TNW, Arabic has surpassed English as the most popular language on Facebook in the Middle East, and it is the fastest growing language on Twitter.