Arabic is a Semitic language; other closely related Semitic languages include Amharic (Ethiopia) and Hebrew. More distantly related are languages like Berber (North Africa) as well as historic languages including Phoenician and ancient Egyptian.
English is the most commonly taught second language in the country and nearly everyone speaks at least a minimal amount of English if they are not completely fluent. Among the immigrant groups dozens of additional languages are spoken, including Persian, Hindi, and Urdu, but again many of these people speak either English or Arabic as a means to communicate across linguistic groups.
Religion
Nearly every citizen in the United Arab Emirates is a Muslim, most of whom are Sunni Muslims. The rest of the citizens, only about 4-5% of the population, are generally either Christian or Hindu. These numbers only represent citizens, which is about 20% of the population; among non-citizen temporary workers various other religions exist and are followed in larger numbers than Muslim is. Among these religions the most common are Christianity (both Roman Catholicism and Protestantism) and Hindi.
Islam (the name of the religion, whose followers are called Muslims) is a monotheistic religion, whose holy book is called the Qur'an. The Qur'an is believed to be the word of God spoken through the prophet Muhammad from 609-632 CE (Common Era is preferred over AD (Anno Domini or "year of the Lord") since the Islamic world doesn't believe Jesus was the messiah). Islam believes Muhammad was the last prophet sent to earth by God, the last in a long line of prophets, which includes Moses, Abraham, and Jesus among others.