Arabs (Arabic: عرب‎‎, ‘arab) are a panethnicity of peoples whose native language is a variety of Arabic. They primarily inhabit Western Asia, North Africa, and parts of the Horn of Africa and East Africa. Before the spread of Islam, Arab referred to any of the largely nomadic Semitic people from the northern and central Arabian Peninsula. In modern usage Arab refers to a heterogeneous collection of Arabic-speaking peoples in Western Asia and North Africa. The ties that bind Arabs are linguistic, cultural, political, and ethnic, with Arabized Arabs displaying genetic contributions, in varying proportions, from both indigenous elements and the Arabian peninsula. As such, Arab identity is based on one or more of genealogical, linguistic or cultural grounds, although with competing identities often taking a more prominent role, based on considerations including regional, national, clan, kin, sect, and tribe affiliations and relationships. Not all people who could be considered Arab identify as such. If the Arab pan-ethnicity is regarded as a single population, then it constitutes the world's second largest group of people after the Han Chinese. The Arabian Peninsula itself was not entirely Arab linguistically or culturally before the spread of Islam. Arabization occurred in the southern and eastern regions of the peninsula. For example, the language shift to Arabic displaced the distinct Old South Arabian languages from what is now modern-day Yemen and southern Oman. These were the languages spoken in the civilizations of Sheba, Magan, and Dilmun.

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