For people learning a Western language, it is the same way. Almost all foreigners will learn either French, German, Spanish or English. Of those, obviously English is the overwhelming favorite in today’s world. Swedish? Italian? The other languages are too many and too narrow to be worth one’s time compared with English.

So now look at the Middle East: We say they are all “Arabic speaking countries”, but how does one learn this Arabic that all these countries speak? You would have to learn MSA, but then you still can’t talk with the mechanic on the corner about your radiator, that’s all dialect. You can’t say more than Assalaam aleikum before you will be discovered as an outsider. Keefik? Shlonik? Keifa Halika? The dialects already diverge.

So one decides to learn a dialect. They can talk with anyone in Iraq now, Shlonich ya warda, Shlonik akhuya, but they meet a man from Sudan or Morocco and can’t even say “Would you like to get coffee?” The dialects are mutually unintelligible without a solid MSA education as well. So what this means for an outsider learning Arabic, is they must learn TWO languages in order to be as competent in a conversation as someone learning only English or only Chinese.

This is a huge problem! It’s part of the reason the Middle East is still so isolated from much of global economy. It makes for a more exclusionary society, which can feel great if you’re on the inside, but doesn’t encourage international commerce or scientific collaboration. Fighting for MSA isn’t the cure, either. No one in the Middle East grows up speaking MSA with their family.