To get a sense of the status of Arabic dialect with a referent that might make more sense to a western audience (or maybe not), try this approximation: Arabic n

To get a sense of the status of Arabic dialect with a referent that might make more sense to a western audience (or maybe not), try this approximation: Arabic now is like Latin a millennium ago. In the 11th century, standard Church Latin had evolved slightly relative to Cicero but was clearly the same language; someone who was fluent in Church Latin could reliably travel anywhere in Christendom (and to cosmopolitan cities elsewhere) and make themselves understood. The local dialect there might have evolved from Latin, or might not, but there'd be someone educated and literate that they could communicate with. In the areas where the language had evolved from Latin, the hoi polloi could kinda sorta make out the Latin (better in some areas than others), and the cleverer ones could figure out the relationships between their language and Latin, and the educated ones would just go learn Latin (but perhaps have an easy time of it). Thus also, mutatis mutandis, with Modern Standard Arabic. The analogy isn't perfect but it turns out to be pretty darn good and lets you make some good guesses about the situation on the ground in the Arabic-speaking world and the mutual intelligibility of, say, Qatari and Tunisian (i.e. not very much).