[originaltext] It is generally thought that Arabic is a single language, spo

It is generally thought that Arabic is a single language, spoken, written and understood by people in countries as widely separated as Iraq, Egypt and Morocco, but this is not so. It is only written Arabic (that is, the Classical Arabic of the Koran and the Modem Arabic of contemporary literature, journalism and broadcasting), that is more or less common to the whole of the Arab world. The colloquial Arabic which is spoken in the different Arab societies today differs as widely between Arab countries as do Italian, Spanish and Portuguese. In the Arab world, written Arabic acts as a kind of Esperanto, providing a means of communication between educated people of different Arab nationalities. Written Arabic is, paradoxically, spoken too: on the radio and television, in public speeches, as well as between Arabs from different countries. We could call it pan-Arabic. It is used in rather the same way as Latin was used by educated people in Europe in the Middle Ages.
    Even in English, of .course, there are differences of grammar and vocabulary between the written and spoken language, but this difference is far less than that between the artificial pan-Arabic and the living colloquial language of any Arab country. Moreover, both written and spoken English are recognised in English-speaking countries as belonging to one livinglanguage, and both are taught in schools. Colloquial Arabic, on the other hand, is not regarded by the people who speak it as proper’ Arabic. Unlike colloquial English, it is not taught in schools, and it is not written; indeed, there is a strong feeling in Arab societies that it should not be used in a written form.
    The educated Egyptian then uses pan-Arabic to talk to equally educated Iraqis, Saudis and Moroccans. No reasonable man, however, wishes to talk like a book or a newspaper, and the language that the same educated Egyptian uses with his family and with other Egyptians is quite different. This language is wholly Egyptian, and it is only spoken.