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Arab fowk, kent as Arabs an aw (Arabic: عرب‎, ʿarab), are a panethnicity^[1] primarily livin in the Arab warld which is locatit in Wastren Asie an North Africae. Thay are identified as such on ane or mair o genealogical, linguistic, or cultural grunds,^[2] wi tribal affiliations, an intra-tribal relationships playin an important pairt o Arab identity in tracin strynd o a naitional frae an Arab state.^[3]

The earliest documentit uise o the wird "Arab" as definin a group o fowk dates frae the 9t century BC in Assirie records which describe the indwallers o the Arabie Peninsula.^[4]

The maist popular Arab accoont hauds that the wird 'Arab' came frae an eponymous faither cried Yarab, who wis supposedly the first tae speak Arabic. Al-Hamdani haed anither view; he states that Arabs wur cried GhArab (Wast in Semitic) bi Mesopotamians acause Arabs residit in Wastren Mesopotamie; the term wis then corruptit intae Arab. Yet anither view is held bi Al-Masudi that the wird Arabs wis initially applee'd tae the Ishmaelites o the "Arabah" valley.

The ruit o the wird haes mony meanins in Semitic leids includin "wast/sunset," "desert," "mingle," "merchant," "raven" an are "comprehensible" wi aw o these haein varyin degrees o relevance tae the emergence o the name. It is an aa possible that some forms war metathetical frae ʿ-B-R "muivin aroond" (Arabic ʿ-B-R "traverse"), an hence, it is allegit, "nomadic."

• Arab League (Arabic) Archived 2006-05-09 at the Wayback Machine