A Frequency Dictionary of Arabic is an invaluable tool for all learners of Arabic, providing a list of the 5,000 most frequently used words in Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) as well as several of the most widely spoken Arabic dialects.

Based on a 30-million-word corpus of Arabic which includes written and spoken material from the entire Arab world, this dictionary provides the user with detailed information for each of the 5,000 entries, including English equivalents, a sample sentence, its English translation, usage statistics, an indication of genre variation, and usage distribution over several major Arabic dialects.

Users can access the top 5,000 words either through the main frequency listing or through an alphabetical index arranged by Arabic roots. Throughout the frequency listing there are thematically-organized lists of the top words from a variety of key topics such as sports, weather, clothing, and family terms.

An engaging and highly useful resource, A Frequency Dictionary of Arabic will enable students of all levels to get the most out of their study of modern Arabic vocabulary.

A CD version is available to purchase separately. Designed for use by corpus and computational linguists it provides the full text in a format that researchers can process and turn into suitable lists for their own research work.

Tim Buckwalter is Research Associate at the University of Maryland.

Dilworth Parkinson is Professor of Arabic at Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah.