Modern Standard Arabic and dialects: why it matters for your translation
Arabic is not a single language but a written standard under which sit dialects that sometimes differ more than German and Dutch. Anyone booking an Arabic interpreter or commissioning a translation should know what that means. This article explains the difference between Modern Standard Arabic and the major dialect groups, why it matters at interviews and in hospitals, what to watch for in documents and names, and which questions to ask before booking.
In this article
- •Modern Standard Arabic: the language of writing
- •The major dialect groups at a glance
- •Why dialect matters at interviews and in hospitals
- •Documents: Standard Arabic with national peculiarities
- •Names in Latin script
- •What to ask before booking
Modern Standard Arabic: the language of writing
Modern Standard Arabic, in Arabic Fusha, is the shared written language of all Arab countries. Newspapers, laws, certificates, news broadcasts, contracts and school books are written in it. It is learnt at school, not at home. Nobody grows up with Standard Arabic as a mother tongue, and almost nobody speaks it in daily life. Someone who has studied Standard Arabic can therefore read a contract, but cannot automatically hold a conversation with a family from Aleppo or Baghdad.
For translation, Standard Arabic is the norm. For interpreting, it is the exception: it is used for speeches, conferences, official negotiations and with speakers from different countries who settle on the shared standard. In a conversation with a patient, an asylum seeker or a parent at the youth welfare office, the other person speaks dialect, and the interpreter must understand it and be able to answer in it.
The major dialect groups at a glance
The dialects differ in pronunciation, vocabulary, grammar and in the most everyday words such as now, what, how or much. A speaker from Morocco and a speaker from Iraq often understand each other's dialects only with effort and then switch to Standard Arabic or to Egyptian forms, which are widely known through films and television. Roughly, these groups can be distinguished:
- Levantine: Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Palestine. The most common group in Austria, with clear differences between city and countryside, for example between Damascus, Aleppo and the rural regions.
- Egyptian: understood across the Arab world thanks to film and music, with its own pronunciation, such as a hard G where others say J.
- Iraqi: Mesopotamian dialects with distinct vocabulary and influences from Persian and Turkish, plus regional differences between Baghdad, Mosul and the south.
- Gulf Arabic: Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Oman, with further regional forms in Yemen.
- Maghrebi: Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, with strong influence from French and Berber, hardest to follow for speakers from the east.
- Sudanese: a group of its own, close to Egyptian and Gulf forms but with a distinct vocabulary.
Why dialect matters at interviews and in hospitals
At an interview, whether in the asylum procedure, with the police or in court, much depends on single words: who threatened whom, when, in which words. An interpreter who understands the dialect only approximately fills gaps unconsciously with assumptions, and those assumptions end up in the protocol. Later they count as contradictions. Conversely, the person being questioned often does not notice that their word arrived differently, because they cannot check the German side.
In hospital it is similar, only faster. Pain is described differently in every dialect, body parts have different names, and older patients often do not know the Standard Arabic terms at all. A Syrian farmer from Idlib and an engineer from Dubai describe the same complaint in different words. Children speak nothing but dialect anyway. Whoever has to ask again loses time, and whoever does not ask loses accuracy.
I am Aliaa Azzouqa, a native Arabic speaker with Standard Arabic and Levantine dialect as my base, and I have worked for years with speakers from every Arab country, among others for the Landespolizeidirektion Wien, the child and youth welfare service of the City of Vienna, the youth welfare office in Graz and the Barmherzige Brüder hospital in Graz. Working across dialects is my daily routine, not the exception.
Documents: Standard Arabic with national peculiarities
Written documents are almost always in Standard Arabic. Even so, a Syrian birth certificate looks different from an Egyptian or an Iraqi one. The authorities have different names, the forms are structured differently, and the same thing carries a different name in every country. What Austria calls a certificate of single status has a different name and a different issuing office in Syria, Jordan and Egypt. The Iraqi nationality certificate has no direct counterpart elsewhere.
A good translation therefore does more than translate words, it places the document: it names the issuing authority correctly, renders dates according to both calendars when the document gives both, and explains in translator's notes what a term means in the country of origin without reinterpreting it as an Austrian concept. Our certified translations are produced by court sworn and certified translators who know these differences.
Names in Latin script
The most frequent point of dispute in document translation is the spelling of names. Arabic names can be transferred into Latin letters in several ways: Muhammad, Mohamed, Mohammad, Mohammed. All are correct, and to an authority all are different people when they appear in different documents. Each country also has its own habits: Egypt spells along French and English lines, the Maghreb follows French, the Gulf states follow English.
The rule in practice: the spelling in the passport is authoritative. All translated documents should follow it, even if the translator would transliterate a name differently. So send a copy of the passport with every order, or at least the exact spelling of every name that appears, including parents and spouses. Where no passport exists, for example for children, we follow Austrian documents that already exist and note the basis in the translation.
- Send a passport copy or the exact spelling of names, for every person in the document
- With several passports or earlier spellings: tell us which one the authority already uses
- Place names: the usual English or German form where one exists, otherwise a consistent transliteration
What to ask before booking
Anyone booking an Arabic interpreter should ask a few questions before the appointment is fixed. They take a minute and save a conversation in which two people laboriously communicate in a Standard Arabic that neither of them speaks in daily life.
- Which country and region does the person come from, and which dialect do they speak?
- Which dialect does the interpreter speak, and what experience do they have with the dialect in question?
- What is the subject: medicine, law, youth welfare, engineering? Technical vocabulary is a separate question in every language.
- Is a female or a male interpreter preferred, for example for medical or family matters?
- On site or by video? With difficult dialects and poor audio, being in the room is often the better choice.
- Are there documents that should be read in advance, such as medical reports, a decision or the last protocol?
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