| Arabic is spoken by more than 280 million people as a first language, most of whom live in the Middle East and North Africa. It is the official language of 22 countries and it is the liturgical language of Islam. Arabic has many different, geographically distributed spoken varieties. Modern Standard Arabic - also known as Literary Arabic - is widely taught in schools, universities, and used in workplaces, government and the media.
English is spoken by approximately 375 million people as their first language. English is probably the third largest language by number of native speakers, after Mandarin Chinese and Spanish. However, when combining native and non-native speakers it is probably the most commonly spoken language in the world. |