Classical Arabic

The literary form of Arabic standardized through the early Islamic period and codified in the eighth and ninth centuries CE. Classical Arabic descends from the language of the pre-Islamic Arabian peninsula, attested in pre-Islamic poetry and inscriptions from the sixth century CE, and reaches its canonical form in the Qur’an and in the grammatical and lexicographical traditions of the early Abbasid period. Many ancient Near Eastern toponyms that lack continuity in other surviving languages survive in Arabic into the present day.