16Diglossia is a two parts word. First, “di” means standard form of language. Second, glossia means language or tongue. Diglossia is defined as sociolinguistic term that represents the situation of a language in a particular speech community. Diglossia indicates the co-existence of two types of the same language in a speech community. For example, in Arabic situation there is a co-existence of the standard language and the colloquial language. Arabic diglossia is an ancient phenomenon. Colloquial Arabic was not a threat to classical Arabic until in the 19th century a question about the colloquial Arabic adoption as the “language of culture” was raised. Colloquialisms faced some obstacles:
1. Books on literacy, arts and science represents the traditional heritage
2. The religious attitude
3. If all dialects are to be written that means standardization will be lost.
4. Standard is the accepted and needed language for Arabic
5. Although there are regional dialects in each Arab country, there are social dialects within each region.
In Arabic there is also a common Arabic, it is between the classical and the dialect arabic. The variety is based on the classical form of Arabic. However, it is influenced by the dialectal atmosphere to a lesser or greater degree. Arabic is either closer to colloquial or classical Arabic.
Language is the foundation of every society and without it the community will be in complete
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