Comment by slibhb

> but nobody speaks this in real life

They speak it on tv and it's written in newpapers. They learn it in schools. Educated Arabs code switch into Fusha all the time. Islamist leaders (e.g. Nasrallah) speak Fusha in their broadcast speeches.

It's also pretty hard for foreigners to learn an ammiyya (outside of immersion). "Studying Arabic" almost always means Fusha.

I agree with you that "the actual Arabics are the 20-odd spoken languages". In a healhier culture, Fusha wouldn't exist or would have the same cultural place as Latin in the Western world.