All students of the Arabic language will welcome this revised and updated edition of the highly praised Modern Arabic by Clive Holes. He traces the development of the Arabic language from Classical Arabic, the written language used in the 7th cetury for the Qur'an and poetry, through the increasingly symbiotic use of Modern Standard Arabic or MSA (the language of writing and formal speech) and dialectal Arabic (the language of normal conversation). He shows how Arabic has been shaped over the centuries by migration, urbanization, and education. Modern Arabic illustrates the use of the Arabic language in real life, whether in conversation, news bulletins and newspaper articles, serious literature, or song. This new edition takes into account research published in several areas of Arabic linguistics since the first edition was published in 1995. It includes more extensive comment on the North Arabic vocabulary of Modern Standard Arabic, more information about "mixed" varieties of written Arabic that are not in MSA (especially in Egypt), updated references, explanations, and many new examples. All Arabic is transcribed, except for an appendix presenting the Arabic alphabet and script. Students of the Arabic language will find Modern Arabic without peer-as will those general linguists who are interested in discovering how Arabic compares structurally and sociolinguistically with European languages.