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Yes Arabic from 1000 years ago is very much understandable today[1].

[1] https://fluentarabic.net/arabic-unchanged-1000-years/

The article doesn't expound on it, but it very much depends on what Arabic means to you. Depending on the answer, it's really a dozen different languages. I know people who only speak their own darija and classical literature is utterly obscure to them.

Sorry to disagree, but no, they are not dozens of different languages. The challenge with Arabic is that it has a rather large vocabulary, and different regions use slightly different vocabularies.

That being said, Darija, or rather North African Arabic is a messy mix of Arabic and Tamazight. Which can be difficult for Middle East Arabic speakers to understand.

For reference, I speak Darija and understand both classical and modern Arabic. It would take me a few days to adapt my speech to other regional variations of arabic.

What's your prior exposure to Classical and Standard Arabic ? The people I'm thinking about only have darija exposure without any formal education in Arabic and little exposure to pan-Arabic media.

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