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There are events after 2009, mostly wikis in other languages arguing over maintaining the English wiki's distinction or their own interpretation of things. And although speakers of Arabic might insist that they have good reason to prefer to see the two as one every now and again these pleas have usually been shut down by the majority of the community voting against. There is an ongoing merge request since July of 2019, so let's see what will come of that...

There are events after 2009, mostly wikis in other languages arguing over maintaining the English wiki's distinction or their own interpretation of things. And although speakers of Arabic might insist that they have good reason to prefer to see the two as one every now and again these pleas have usually been shut down by the majority of the community voting against. There is an ongoing merge request to merge CA and MSA since July of 2019, so let's see what will come of that...

(Edit: Merger proposal removed on 19 February 2020, under "lack of support")

So we’re off to a great start. To be more specific, the language being taught definitely has classical grammar. The vocabulary was collected from a number of surveys which included words common in newspapers and literature of the tim. This not only meant it would include new terms and inventions but also a lot of young countries or modern politicians being mentioned here and there.

There are many interesting details one will encounter in the preface, such as the book having already been tested for a pilot on a group of American university students prior to publication. Abdo was a member of the American University of Beirut (AUB) at the time so it’s pretty safe to assume the pilot took place there. Furthermore there is some evidence to indicate the military having had some contribution in the authorship of this book. In the acknowledgements, there’s a thank you to Elizabeth & James A. May for “continuous encouragement and important suggestions”, a wife and Foreign Service officer who were serving in Beirut at the time. (1962, April, Department of State Newsletter p. 52)

So we’re off to a great start. To be more specific, the language being taught definitely has classical grammar. The vocabulary was collected from a number of surveys which included words common in newspapers and literature of the time. This not only meant it would include new terms and inventions but also a lot of young countries or modern politicians being mentioned here and there.

There are many interesting details one will encounter in the preface, such as the book having already been tested for a pilot on a group of American university students prior to publication. Abdo was a member of the American University of Beirut (AUB) at the time so it’s pretty safe to assume the pilot took place there. Furthermore there is some evidence to indicate that the US military may have had some contribution in the authorship of this book. In the acknowledgements, there’s a thank you to Elizabeth & James A. May for “continuous encouragement and important suggestions”, a wife and Foreign Service officer who were serving in Beirut at the time. (1962, April, Department of State Newsletter p. 52)

Today the Western hemisphere is triumphant, with Russian, Turkish and even Arab academia yielding and acknowledging MSA as a distinct from CA from time to time. As for the earlier trends for Modern Arabic, they’re still around too. There are movements which demand a more phonetically accurate spelling for their accent, or which want to have their dialect considered a separate language. Sometimes I see people confusing them, claiming MSA lacks nunation for instance although this is a misconception due to older literature using “Modern Arabic” not for MSA but the aforementioned trends…

Today the Western hemisphere's point of view is triumphant, with Russian, Turkish and even Arab academia yielding and acknowledging MSA as distinct from CA from time to time. As for the earlier trends for Modern Arabic, they’re still around too. There are movements which demand a more phonetically accurate spelling for their accent, or which want to have their dialect considered a separate language. Sometimes I see people confusing them, claiming MSA lacks nunation for instance although this is a misconception due to older literature using “Modern Arabic” not for MSA but the aforementioned trends…