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Languages in Kuwait

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Being an Arab nation, native Kuwaitis would speak Arabic. Although Arabic is the base language of Kuwaiti nationals, variations have existed in all Arabic speaking nations as different Arab nations have variations in their cultures. In Kuwait, a variety of Arabic has sprung up and is now commonly known as Gulf Arabic. For the locals, this variation is known as Khaliji. Khaliji tongue is spoken by about 500,000 in the country. However, it is not uniquely Kuwaiti as it is also spoken in other Arab countries like Eastern Saudi, Bahrain, Oman, Qatar and Iraq. Gulf Arabic or Khaliji differs from its root language as it borrows only very few Persian words unlike the original Arabic language. Other differences are that the letter “K” is pronounced as “CH,” the “Q” would come out like the letter “G” and the letter “J” as letter “Y.”

Kuwait is also home to other nationals as it gets its workforce abroad. As a common denominator of these migrant workers, the English language is also widely used. It is considered the second language of the country as schools in Kuwait include English in its curricula.

South Asians like Pakistanis and Indians are also a big group in Kuwait and so Urdu and Hindi languages are quite commonly heard in this part of the world.

The other major language that is a spoken on Kuwait’s soil is Tagalog. Tagalog is a language spoken by Filipinos. The government of Kuwait outsources lots of its labor force from the Philippines. In fact, Radio Kuwait, a government-run radio station broadcasts some programs in Tagalog.