Arabic

Arabic (/ˈærəbɪk/;Arabic: العَرَبِية‎, al-ʻarabiyyah [alʕaraˈbijja] or Arabic: عربي ,عربى‎ ʻarabī [ˈʕarabiː]) is the Classical Arabic language of the 6th century and its modern descendants excluding Maltese. Arabic is spoken in a wide arc stretching across Western Asia, North Africa, and the Horn of Africa. Arabic belongs to the Afroasiatic family.

The literary language, called Modern Standard Arabic or Literary Arabic, is the only official form of Arabic. It is used in most written documents as well as in formal spoken occasions, such as lectures and news broadcasts.

Arabic is a Central Semitic language, closely related to Aramaic, Hebrew, Ugaritic and Phoenician. Standard Arabic is distinct from and more conservative than all of the spoken varieties, and the two exist in a state known as diglossia, used side-by-side for different societal functions.

Some of the spoken varieties are mutually unintelligible, both written and orally, and the varieties as a whole constitute a sociolinguistic language. This means that on purely linguistic grounds they would likely be considered to constitute more than one language, but are commonly grouped together as a single language for political or religious reasons (see below). If considered multiple languages, it is unclear how many languages there would be, as the spoken varieties form a dialect chain with no clear boundaries. If Arabic is considered a single language, it is perhaps spoken by as many as 422 million speakers (native and non-native) in the Arab world, making it one of the six most-spoken languages in the world. If considered separate languages, the most-spoken variety would most likely be Egyptian Arabic with 89 million native speakers—still greater than any other Afroasiatic language. Arabic also is a liturgical language of 1.6 billion Muslims. It is one of six official languages of the United Nations.

Anthony Weiner

Anthony David Weiner (/ˈwiːnər/; born September 4, 1964) is an American politician and former U.S. representative who served New York's 9th congressional district from January 1999 until June 2011. A member of the Democratic Party, he won seven terms, never receiving less than 59% of the vote. Weiner resigned from Congress in June 2011, due to a sexting scandal.

He was a member of the New York City Council from 1992 to 1998, and a congressional aide to then–U.S. Representative Chuck Schumer from 1985 to 1991. A New York City native, he attended public schools and graduated from the SUNY Plattsburgh in 1985 with a B.A. in political science. He was an unsuccessful candidate for Mayor of New York City in the 2005 and 2013 New York City mayoral elections.

Early life, education, and family

Weiner was born in Brooklyn, New York, on September 4, 1964, as the middle son of his Jewish parents: Mort Weiner, a lawyer, and his wife Frances (née Finkelstein), a public high-school math teacher. The family lived for a time in the Park Slope neighborhood of Brooklyn. His older brother, Seth, was killed at age 39 by a hit-and-run driver in May 2000. His younger brother, Jason, is a chef and co-owner of several New York restaurants.