What exactly is Arabic? Who is Arabic, which countries in the ME

[madmunchie]

makes you an Arabic. I read that Iranians consdier themselves Persians, not Arab. What other distinctions are there? A guy last night said that the whole ME is considered Arabic, I wasn't in agreement with him, I thought there were more criteria than just living in the ME, such as Israel are Jews and Iran considers themselves Persian?????

Is being Arab a race?

This friend said that Canadians as well as Mexicans can be called Americans because we all live on North America, but the ME isn't a continent, so that doesn't (as far as I can think) apply to Arabs..... Can somebody help me out? Or, at least point me into the right direction.

[existentialist]

1. Arabic

While I am no expert I believe that I am correct that Arabic is first and foremost a language, and those whose first language and culture is Arabic can rightly be called Arabs.

That stated Arabic is spread all across North Africa and east as far as Iraq, and there are, of course, pockets of Arabic speaking people throughout most of the world.

[Solly Mack]

2. League of Arab Nations

http://www.middleeastnews.com/ArabLeague.html

Might help answer your questions

[OKNancy]

3. from answers.com

seems to be based on the language. Actually Arabs are Caucasian ( that always makes racist squirm)
---------
Arabs, name originally applied to the Semitic peoples of the Arabian Peninsula. It now refers to those persons whose primary language is Arabic. They constitute most of the population of Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, the United Arab Emirates, the West Bank, and Yemen; Arab communities are also found elsewhere in the world. The term does not usually include Arabic-speaking Jews (found chiefly in North Africa and formerly also in Yemen and Iraq), Kurds, Berbers, Copts, and Druze, but it does include Arabic-speaking Christians (chiefly found in Syria, Lebanon, Israel, and Jordan). Socially, the Arabs are divided into two groups: the settled Arab and the nomadic Bedouin.
The derivation of the term Arab is unclear, and the meaning of the word has changed several times through history. Some Arab scholars have equated Joktan (Gen. 10.25) with the ancient Arab patriarch Qahtan whose tribe is thought to have originated in S Arabia. The Assyrian inscriptions (9th cent. B.C.) referred to nomadic peoples inhabiting the far north of the Arabian Peninsula; the sedentary population in the south of the peninsula was not called Arab. In classical times the term was extended to the whole of the Arabian Peninsula and to all the desert areas of the Middle East, and in the Middle Ages the Arabs came to be called Saracens.

[ThomWV]

11. It Is So Refreshing To Get A Real Answer To The Actual Question Asked

Thank you ever so much. Its getting rarer and rarer to get an accurate answer to the question someone asked.

[Cocoa]

4. language

Arabs speak Arabic. Other non-Arab Muslims might know Arabic because it is the language of the Koran, but it is not their primary language.

[madrchsod]

5. arabs and jews are semites

iranians are persians but this means really nothing bacause over the thousands of years the inter-marriage between all these tribes have left this question only useful when it comes to someone to hate. even all the religions of the middle east has one common beginning. i wonder if humans will ever evolve from their tribal instincts of the fear of the other people on the other side of the river

[Teaser]

6. First let's get some usage correct.

No one is "an arabic."

One may be an "arab." An arab is a member of a semitic ethnic group originating in the arabian peninsula.

Arabic is a language, "Al-lughati al-arabiyyati" (to be a pedant). It is a language closely related to Hebrew.

Most arabs speak some dialect of arabic or another. Most practioners of Islam speak some arabic (as the true Koran only exists in arabic. A translation of the Koran is not the true Koran).

Iranians are persion. The name Iran comes from the indo-european term "Arya" (from which the term Aryan is derived).
Iranians are closely related to europeans. They are not arabs.

Kurds are also muslim, but are more closely related to Turks than other other groups.

[ret5hd]

9. First let's get some spelling correct.

it's "Persian" not "persion".


i kid, i kid!

[Teaser]

13. you want to be really correct

than spell it with an "F"

[CJCRANE]

7. There are also

arab minorities living along the coast of East Africa.

From my experience arabs are quite a diverse "race" due to being at the crossroads between Asia, Africa and Europe so you can get semitic arabs, white arabs, black arabs and every combination in between.

[MADem]

8. Arabs are Semites, Iranians are indo-European/southwest asian

Different languages, different cultures. Shave off the beards that sometimes hide their features, and they don't even look at all alike. The shared factor is religion, though shi'a predominates in Iran. Turks are not Arabs either. Neither are Afghans or Pakistanis.

South Americans are Americans, too. They just aren't "Murka" Americans.

[ldf]

10. wow!

and i thought it was just a division between "the chosen people" and the bastard race that god caused to come into existence because he refused to use his damn crystal ball.....

who knew?

:shrug:

[HamdenRice]

12. Keep in mind the history/origins of the Arabs

Originally the Arabs were members of small tribes in the Arabian penninsula.

The rise of Islam -- a religion that has prosletized by arms -- caused these people to expand dramatically outward, conquering other areas of the middle east and North Africa. Along with their religion they brought larger political entities, the caliphate, which at one point extended all across North Africa and into Spain, as well as into the Balkans as far north as Serbia.

The reconquest of Spain, began a long decline that ended with the collapse of the last imperial caliphate, the Ottoman Empire, around the time of World War I.

Many of the peoples who once lived under the Islamic Caliphate adopted Islam and Arabic language, and consider themselves Arab today, even though they are not racially of pure Arab descent.