Arabic (اللُّغَة العَرَبِيّة)
Arabic (ar, ara) is a world language. Wikidata records about 315.4M speakers. It is written in Arabic alphabet and Arabic script. It is an official language in 25 countries, including Afghanistan, Algeria, Bahrain and Chad.
Arabic is right-to-left, has dual number and gendered verb forms, and Modern Standard Arabic differs from spoken dialects. Layouts must be mirrored.
Expect text translated from English into Arabic to grow by roughly 20–30%, which matters for layouts, subtitles and page counts.
In the United States, 1,422,969 people aged 5+ speak Arabic at home (Census ACS), and 485,777 of them (34%) speak English less than "very well" — a key indicator of demand for Arabic translators and interpreters.
Translation guides
Where Arabic is official
- Afghanistan
- Algeria
- Bahrain
- Chad
- Comoros
- Djibouti
- Egypt
- Eritrea
- Iraq
- Jordan
- Kuwait
- Lebanon
- Libya
- Mauritania
- Morocco
- Oman
- Palestine
- Qatar
- Saudi Arabia
- Somalia
- Sudan
- Syria
- Tunisia
- United Arab Emirates
- Yemen
Rates for Arabic translation
Arabic falls in our middle eastern & turkic band: roughly $0.09–$0.18 per word for general commercial work. These are indicative ranges, not quotes — specialised, certified and rush work costs more, and literary translation is usually priced per 1,000 words.
For context, the median salaried translator or interpreter in the US earned $60,170 in May 2025 (BLS). See salaries by state →
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