Arabic Studies in India

Arabic belongs to the Semitic group of languages. Ibn Qahtan is popularly known as the father of this language. Between the ninth and twelfth centuries more works, philosophical, medical, historical, religious, astronomical and geographical were produced through the medium of Arabic than through any other tongue. The non-Arab community began to depend on import of petrol from the Arab world. This dependence increased greatly during the first half of the twentieth century. This concern created strong connections between non-Arabs and Arabs. One of the results of these connections was the interest of non-Arabs in Arabic. Today, it is one of the official languages of the UNO and is spoken by a large group of masses in Asia and Africa. Would you believe India has more than 50,000 people whose mother tongue is Arabic? According to 2001 Census data on linguistic groups, India had 51,728 people whose mother tongue is Arabic. Arabic is the mother tongue in some 20 nations stretching from the Atlantic coast of North Africa in the west to the Sultanate of Oman in the East, and from Syria in the north to Sudan in the south. Arabic plays a vital role in the commercial and cultural fields.