Libyan People - Language

Language

The official language of Libya is Standard Arabic. However, the prevalent spoken language is Libyan Arabic. This language is spoken by about 6 million Libyans, besides other Arabic dialects (partly spoken by immigrant workers, partly by native populations), viz. Egyptian Arabic, Moroccan Arabic, Sudanese Arabic, Tunisian Arabic, Ta'izzi-Adeni Arabic, South Levantine Arabic and Hassaniyya Arabic, amounting to a total number of first-language Arabic speakers of about 95% of total population.

SIL Ethnologue indigenous minority languages in Libya:

  • Berber languages: ca. 305,000 speakers
    • Nafusi: 184,000 (2006)
    • Tamahaq: 47,000 (2006)
    • Ghadamès: 30,000 (2006)
    • Sawknah: 5,600 (2006)
    • Awjilah: 3,000 (2000)
  • Domari: ca. 33,000 speakers (2006)
  • Tedaga: 2,000

Non-Arabic languages spoken by temporary foreign workers include (with more than 10,000 speakers each): Punjabi, Urdu, Mandarin, Cantonese, Korean, Sinhala, Bengal, Tamil, Tagalog, French, Italian, Ukrainian, Serbian, English.

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Famous quotes containing the word language:

    After all, when you come right down to it, how many people speak the same language even when they speak the same language?
    Russell Hoban (b. 1925)