Every year on December 18, Arabic Language Day is celebrated all over the world. On this day in 1973, the UN General Assembly voted to make Arabic its sixth official language. English, Spanish, Chinese, Russian, and French also have official status in the UN. Multilingualism is highly valued at the UN and each of the six languages has its own day of the year.

Arabic is one of the oldest and most widely spoken languages in the world. It is spoken today by more than 20 million people in 28 countries, from Africa to the Near East. Most knowledge of classical Arabic comes from the Koran, but there is a so-called “modern standard” Arabic, which is considered the official language of many Arab countries, is used in documents and official speech, in educational institutions, and as a language of business communication.

Knowledge of Arabic facilitates learning other languages, such as Farsi, Persian, Turkish, Urdu, and even Hebrew. These languages are largely based on Arabic words, so when communicating with a person in one of these languages, it will be easier to understand the general meaning.

If you want to learn Arabic on your own, we suggest you pay focus on the books from the collection of our library:

- Arabic Language Tutorial by Bolotov Vladimir Nikolaevich (Болотов Владимир Николаевич. Арабский язык: самоучитель)
- Textbook on the Arabic language (writing, reading, grammar basics) by Dubinina Natalia Valentinovna (Дубинина Наталья Валентиновна. Уроки арабского языка. Письмо, чтение, основы грамматики)
- Arabic Grammar: basic course in Russian and Arabic by Lebedev Vladimir Vasilyevich (Лебедев Владимир Васильевич. Арабская грамматика: базовый курс на русском и арабском языках)
- Introductory Arabic course by Stepanov Roman Viktorovich (Степанов Роман Викторович. Арабский язык. Начальный курс)

You can check the availability of books on circulation desks and in reading rooms in the Library Catalogue. The range of full-text of electronic books is expanding by using Electronic Library Systems. Ural Federal University students have free access to it.

مع السلامة (mae alsalama)! Goodbye!