I was reading through this wiki page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Asian_Arabic and thought I'd ask here to get answers from people living in central asian countries and those who have travelled there extensively.
I personally am a native speaker of Arabic, and I can communicate both in Standard (Fush'a, Qur'anic) and Levantine Arabic. Would I encounter many people who speak arabic in CE? I am aware that several Uzbeks in particular still learn Arabic at school.
Just curious :).
jamshyd
2
celtic_sufi
Vsyegda gotov! ;)
At the grass roots level (i.e. among the people) Arabic is close to useless. The regional lingua franca is Russian and the regional native languages are either related to Turkish or to Farsi (this said, you will recognize lots of terms and names of Arabic origin in them). There are also Arabic peakers among intellectuals and ex-military who studied at a 'vostochnii fakultet' (Oriental languages faculty) in the USSR. And, of course, among Islamic clergy or at least among the better educated ones who know more than memorised Quranic verses.
BTW, in the south of Tajikistan (Vakhsh region and Shahr-i-Tuz), there are enclaves of so-called 'Araby' (Arabs) who trace their lineage back to eigth century Arab warriors who came to CA. Some do speak it but as the Wikipedia article says, most are assimilated into Tajik/Persian culture.
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Lonely Planet
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