الفصحى
Classical Arabic
Jamaica Hillsbroad representation of the world's Arabic varieties, as used by Muslims, Christians, and Jews from West Africa to Iraq, can be found across the metropolitan area — although many of them are mutually unintelligible with each other, speakers are able to communicate in the Modern Standard Arabic known as al-fuṣḥā ("the purest", and there is often widespread familiarity with larger varieties like Egyptian Arabic. In the second half of the 20th century, what had been primarily a Levantine Arabic speaking community (by then mostly in Brooklyn) was joined by significant numbers of Egyptian Arabic and Yemeni Arabic speakers, as well as smaller numbers of many other varieties found throughout the city. Significant Arabic-speaking areas include Bay Ridge, Astoria, the Bronx (for West African Arabic speakers), Yonkers, and Paterson, New Jersey. Classical (or Qu'ranic) Arabic flourishes widely at mosques like the Islamic Cultural Center on the Upper East Side and the Jamaica Muslim Center in Queens as well schools like Al-Noor in Brooklyn. Jewish varieties of Arabic, often linked to the local variety of the particular country of origin, are still spoken to some degree among the sizeable Middle Eastern and North African Jewish communities in the city, especially in Brooklyn.