Languages of Muslim countries
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Muslims believe that God revealed the Qur'an to the Muhammad literally, word-for-word, in the Arabic language. Thus, Arabic is regarded as the holy language of Islam.
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:
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Majority Muslim countries
- Iranians speak Persian, Kurdish, Luri, Azerbaijani, Baluchi, and a number of other languages. (See Persian language#Dialects and close languages and Category:Languages of Iran)
- Afghanistan has three major languages, Pashto, Dari and Uzbek, 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 in a very different language group from Arabic.
- Morocco: Besides the official Classical Arabic being used by official bodies, as is the case in most Arabic-speaking countries, Moroccan Arabic also known as Darija is the colloquial language. 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 Moroccans speak Berber languages such as Tachelhit and Tarifit
- Berber languages can also be heard in Algeria, notably including Kabyle, spoken by the Kabyle Berbers in the north-east of Algeria. Another Algerian language is Chaoui, spoken by the Chaoui, south-west of the Kabyle region. See Languages of Algeria.
- Nigeria: primarily Hausa, but some Yoruba and Igbo speakers are also Muslim.
- Pakistan: Urdu, Punjabi, Sindhi
- Bangladesh: Bengali
- Malaysia: Malay
- Albania: Albanian
- Bosnia (at least the Muslim component of federation; Bosniak population is almost exactly half of total population): Bosnian
- Sudan: primarily a Sudanese dialect of Arabic
- Somalia: people primarily speak Somali which is one of the Cushitic languages
- Libya: Arabic
- Tunisia: Arabic
- Mauritania: The official language of the country is Arabic, but common people of Arab-Berber origin use a distinct variety known as Hassaniya. Many people in the south of the country speak one of the national languages, such as Pulaar, Soninke or Wolof. These are also spoken in Senegal.
- Yemen: Arabic
- Iraq: Arabic
- Syria: Arabic
- Al-Andalus: the former Islamic part of the Iberian peninsula had substantial population of Muladis and Catholics, that spoke Romance Mozarabic languages. The Islamic conquerors spoke Arabic and Berber. Christians and Jews used Latin and Hebrew as their religious language, but Arabic became the language of culture for all the population.
Countries with significant Muslim minorities
- India: India has third highest Muslim population. Indian Muslims speaks many languages. In north its is Hindi, Urdu and Kashmiri. In south they speak Malayalam, Telugu and Tamil and in east it is Bengali.
- China: A variety of languages are spoken by Chinese Muslims. Uyghurs in Xinjiang speak the Uyghur language while the Hui minority generally speak Mandarin Chinese.
- Canada: English
- Philippines: primarily Maranao, Tausug and other languages in Mindanao. Some Tagalog speakers are Muslims.
- Singapore: English, Malay
- United States: English
Variations in Arabic
Arabic has many different 'branches'. Whether these are to be considered mere dialects or separate languages is a question of usually politically motivated debate. Many varieties of Arabic are treated as languages in linguistics, as well as being recognized as such by many of their speakers and a few countries. The main branches of Arabic are Levantine Arabic, Iraqi Arabic, Gulf Arabic, Egyptian Arabic and Maghreb Arabic. Maltese is an Arabic language spoken by a majority non-Muslim population.