For Arabic speakers al-ʿarabiyya is a cover term which refers to Arabic in its various forms, both synchronically and diachronically. In particular, it designates what the Arabs call fuṣḥā Arabic (lit. ‘pure, clear, or universally intelligible’, faṣīḥ) and the wide range of dialects – called ʿāmmiyyāt, lahajāti, or in North Africa the dārija – which are the true mother tongues of Arabic speakers. In Arabic folk-linguistics, the dialects are treated as deviations from the norm – or the ‘measure/standard’ – which the fuṣḥā provides in its capacity as the codified language and a…