A Selected Word List of Modern Literary Arabic pdf

A Selected Word List of Modern Literary Arabic – Compiled by The Middle East Centre for Arab Studies, Shemlan, Lebanon

A SELECTED WORD LIST OF MODERN LITERARY ARABIC

The words in the List are arranged, generally speaking, in the order of their frequency in the Arabic of modern educated intercourse; that is to say the language of present-day newspapers, books and periodicals and the language in which educated people converse throughout the Arab world.

Some words earn a high place in the List because of their frequency in the modern written language and others through their frequency in the spoken language.

Other considerations were also borne in mind when the List was being compiled. We thought it desirable wherever possible to keep together words derived from the same Arabic root and we placed synonyms side by side when their respective frequencies were not widely different.

But the basic principle on which we worked was the frequency of the word in the modern language.

The order in which they are arranged is our own and some may disagree with the placing of individual words.

We do not claim that all the words in the first section are necessarily more frequent than all the words in, for instance, the third section; but in our experience the great majority of the words in the first two sections are more frequently encountered than those in, say, sections five and six.

The effect of this is that the students become acquainted in the earliest stages of their studies with the words which will be of the most value to them and, through repeatedly encountering them thereafter, they come to recognize and use them instinctively.

 In view of this we hope that the Word List will prove useful to those about to under- take a study of present-day Arabic, as well as to those whose knowledge of the language has become rusty and who want to refurbish their vocabulary as quickly as possible.