Arabist

1 9.8

A person who studies Arabic language, literature, or culture

noun
/ˈærəˌbɪst/

Specialized

: arabista

Many diplomats, international organization workers, and Arabists argue that the problem is localized to North Africa or sub-Saharan Africa, but they are wrong.
State Department Arabists

Robert Ford is a career Foreign Service officer and a career Arabist.

Examples

Another nineteenth-century scholar, the eminent Arabist Reinhart Dozy, described the Norse raids on the Balearic Islands as part of a larger history of Islamic Spain.

Academic text (1996)
I try to be evenhanded here, as the Arabists in the State Department used to put it.

Fiction book (2000)
"I want to make Arabists of all of you," he declares.

Academic text (2010)
Gone are the days when so-called Arabists determined U.S. policy in the Middle East.

Blog text (29)
Arabist influence continued to diminish with the crisis leading up to the Six-Day War.

Academic text (2010)
Jacques Berque, the well-known French orientalist and Arabist, has characterized the encounter most succinctly.

Academic text (1996)
The Arabist presented a fascinating lecture on the history of Arabic literature at the university.
As an esteemed Arabist, she spent years researching the intricacies of Arabic culture.
The conference featured several notable Arabists who shared their insights on modern Arab politics.

Surface Forms

Arabist singular

Arabists plural

Morphology

Arabist = Arab (transparent) = arab + ist

The agentive suffix '-ist' straightforwardly forms a specialist from the base 'Arab', so the meaning is directly derived.

Etymology

The word Arabist comes from Arab, the people or place called Arabia, and the ending -ist, which means 'a person who studies or works in a field'. So, like artist is a person who makes art, an Arabist studies the Arabic language, literature, or culture.