Arabic is widely taught in schools and universities around the world, and is used to varying degrees in workplaces, governments and the media. Arabic, in its Modern Standard Arabic form, is an official language of 26 states and 1 disputed territory, the third most after English and French; it is also the liturgical language of the religion of Islam, since the Quran and the Hadiths were written in Classical Arabic.

During the early Middle Ages, Arabic was a major vehicle of culture in the Mediterranean region, especially in science, mathematics and philosophy.

As a result, many European languages have also borrowed many words from it. Arabic influence, mainly in vocabulary, is seen in European languages.

Arabic has influenced many other languages around the globe throughout its history especially languages of Muslim cultures and countries that were conquered by Muslims. Some of the most influenced languages are Persian, Turkish, Hindustani (Hindi and Urdu), Kashmiri, Kurdish, Bosnian, Kazakh, Bengali, Malay , Maldivian, Pashto, Punjabi, Albanian, Armenian, Azerbaijani, Sicilian, Spanish, Greek, Bulgarian, Tagalog, Sindhi, Odia, Hebrew and Hausa and some languages in parts of Africa., and French Conversely.

Arabic has borrowed words from other languages, including Aramaic as well as Hebrew, Latin, Greek, Persian and to a lesser extent Turkish (due to the Ottoman Empire), English and French (due to their colonization of the Levant) and other Semitic languages such as Abyssinian.

Arabic is the liturgical language of 1.9 billion Muslims, and Arabic is one of six official languages of the United Nations. All varieties of Arabic combined are spoken by perhaps as many as 422 million speakers (native and non-native) in the Arab world, making it the fifth most spoken language in the world, and the fourth most used language on the internet in terms of users. In 2011, Bloomberg Businessweek ranked Arabic the fourth most useful language for business, after English, Standard Mandarin Chinese, and French.

The Department of Arabic, Govt. College, Chittur is one of the oldest centers of studying and teaching Arabic in the State of Kerala. The department began functioning from 1970 and it became for Second Language . There are 20 students in all departments.