Teaching Arabic in the United States. In: K. Wahba, Z. Taha and E. England (eds.). A Handbook for Arabic Language Teaching Professionals in the 21 st Century (Mahwah, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates) 13Ϫ20. Wahba, K. 2006 Arabic language use and the educated language user. In: K. Wahba, Z. Taha and E. England (eds.). A Handbook for Arabic Language Teaching Professionals in the 21 st Century (Mahwah, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates) 139Ϫ156. Karin C. Ryding, Georgetown (USA) 50. Arabic Dialects (general article) 1. Introduction 2. Geographical areas 3. Documentation of Arabic dialects 4. Comparative studies of linguistic issues 5. Introductions to modern Arabic dialects 6. Arabic before the spread of Islam 7. The relationship between ancient Arabic and modern Arabic dialects 8. Features of modern Arabic dialects as universal tendencies 9. Features of modern Arabic dialects as grammaticalisation 10. Evidence for a polygenetic explanation 11. The classification of Arabic dialects 12 The linguistic typology of Arabic dialects 13. Conclusion 14. References