Learning Arabic: Robert Lane Greene’s perspective

It’s great to be back after a break, Ramadan is over, wishing everybody Eid mubarak (Happy Eid), a new academic year- so it’s back to the usual.  There are exciting things for me this year and for Arabizi too I hope. A warm welcome to the new readers, I hope that Arabizi will be a good resource for you and not rubbish in your inbox. And also thanks to all those who wrote emails and comments on the blog these are very much appreciated….. now to the post….

When I wrote the previous short post about Emarati Arabic being taught to expats in the UAE, it never occurred to me how a non-native speaker might feel about that. Nor did I ever know that as a result of one of the shortest posts I have ever written, that I would learn so much about the perceptions, feelings and frustrations of Arabic language learners. But that is exactly what happen in the form of a clear and constructive comment from Robert Lane Greene, journalist at the Economist and best-selling author of ‘You are what you speak- Grammar Grounches, Language Laws and the Politics of Identity’.  A keen language learner and enthusiast of Arabic language himself (the number of languages he knows would put any linguist to shame), saw the beneficial side of the teaching of Emarati to non-Arabic speakers. The points he raised made me think not only about the challenges non-speakers face, but it also allowed me to see what I deemed as negative in a new way.  What his comment made me do was realise that given the diglossic situation of Arabic with its complicated grammar (not a negative thing) and many dialects, that perhaps an effort such as the teaching of Emarati Arabic was to be appreciated. And maybe should be looked at as a step towards strengthening Arabic learning on part of the non-native speaker as it would give them access to ‘real- spoken’ Arabic as opposed to textbook examples of ‘how’ things should be said. Following that comment and subsequent conversations he kindly agreed to honour Arabizi and write a guest post for us :-).

It is candid, detailed to the point and describes Arabic from a non-native learner’s point of view which is rarely read about. Most learners complain at the complicated nature of the grammar, the rules and the impossibility to converse in Arabic. Most students will relate to the struggles and challenges he mentions and I am sure even the funny parts. I also hope that Arabic teachers can take note of how non-native speakers feel about the learning of Arabic language and hopefully work towards making it easier for the students. Yes, I know it is only one person’s experience but, it is a consistent, sincere and continuous one therefore lessons need to learned from it.

I have added it below without editing from myself- thank you Lane, a real treat for us at Arabizi. Comments are most welcome and I am sure Lane will not mind answering or adding to any points readers will make.

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Six years ago, I wrote a piece for Slate on learning Arabic. Since it’s still the second Google result for “learning Arabic”, people occasionally write me and ask me if I’ve made it past the problems I described there (with some attempt at humor, but no exaggeration). I’m happy to report that yes, I have made a lot of progress over the years, alhamdulillah.  I can read a newspaper with minor dictionary help, I can chat with cab drivers in Brooklyn who are usually amazed by the white American guy who speaks with them in decent colloquial, and I can follow, with some difficulty, a full-speed al-Jazeera broadcast on a familiar topic.  It’s been a long road, but fascinating.

When I started the journey, the hardest part was for me was the forbidding grammar of Modern Standard Arabic: ten verbal paradigms, reverse-gender agreement of numbers, the feminine singular for plural inanimate subjects, the litany of mind-bending quirks familiar to the student of the language. These are the things I focused on in that piece for Slate.

Since then, though, the single most frustrating thing about making progress is the polyglossia of the Arab world. Yes, we refer to diglossia most of the time, but that implies two varieties, high and low. For a journalist like me, who has followed the fascinating news from Libya to Tunisia to Egypt to Syria to the Gulf in the past year, the problem isn’t just learning just one “high” for reading and another “low” for speaking, but picking one of several colloquial Arabics, maybe picking a sub-colloquial among them, finding good teaching materials, and sticking with it.

My first Arabic teacher was a very nice Moroccan, and a very bad teacher. He began by teaching us the letters, having a hard time explaining the emphatic consonants to his puzzled students (to him the difference between daad and daal was just obvious). But worse, he began teaching us to speak in Moroccon colloquial, while never telling us that that was what he was doing.  I learned ish taakul, “what are you eating?” or “what will you have to eat?”, with no idea that this was Moroccan dialect. What can I say? The class was free. You get what you pay for. I quit.

My next class was at New York University’s continuing education school, with Karam, a Palestinian. He was also a very nice guy, and the quality of the class was much higher.  But once again, diglossia was a problem. Karam was a big believer in colloquial, and so taught it alongside MSA from the start.  We had a big book (a bad one, in my opinion: Ahlan wa Sahlan from Yale University Press) for MSA, and Karam’s home-made handouts for the Palestinian colloquial. He would teach us something in MSA, and then give the colloquial straight away. It was too much. I simply shut my ears at the colloquial parts, trying to remember only one version of everything. MSA was hard enough on its own. 

With my third teacher, things improved. Ahmed was an Egyptian, but taught no-nonsense MSA. He was pot-bellied, loud and funny, and it was hard not to enjoy just being in his classroom. The only Egyptian we got was in the form of songs, which he would occasionally teach, and positively insist we sing along. Looking back, I think it was a good pedagogical technique; it was painful for everyone, but so it was funny, and everyone relaxed as we got back into the MSA.  And I still remember one song:  Salma, ya salama, ruhna w giina b-salaama. I never learned any Egyptian colloquial beyond that, though I remember Ahmed’s typically Egyptian stress pattern:  al-qaa-HI-ra, not al-QAA-hi-ra.

After Ahmed, I was on my own, with no time for classes. I kept the much better books he used in his class, the Al-Kitaab series, and worked my way through them on my own. As I started putting fairly fine finishing touches on my knowledge of MSA, I began to want to learn a colloquial properly. I had met two Egyptians at a bar in South Africa who didn’t speak English, and the only thing I had been able to resort to was MSA, very weird for all of us.  I wanted to start speaking the way Arabs speak for real.

But which dialect?  My biggest interest was in the Levantine countries, I decided. So simple: I’ll learn “Levantine colloquial.” I was loth to have to pick one, but that’s what I chose, with silent apologies to the Iraqis, Saudis and Algerians. Only to discover, as I gathered materials, there were coursebooks on Syrian Arabic, on Lebanese Arabic, on Palestinian Arabic… and these were far more different from each other than I wanted them to be!  And this was Damascus, Beirut and Jerusalem Arabic.  Imagine my annoyance on learning that if I traveled to a small village in the Levant, much less talked to a Bedouin, I’d probably encounter yet another Arabic I couldn’t understand.

I flitted aimlessly between my three books. There really is such a thing as a Levantine continuum, and I understand that Syrians and Palestinians understand each other well. But there were all these choices I had to make, and didn’t want to: –kum or –kon for the 2^ndperson plural attached pronoun?  Final taa-marbuta becomes –e, or no? (Hiyya or hiyye?)  In my own book, I write with joy about the messy real world of language. In learning Arabic, I wanted there to be one right variety, or by God, at least only two clear-cut varieties I had to learn.  But the universe didn’t offer me a simple solution.  Today I speak a sort of mishmash Levantine, probably mostly Palestinian.  (I re-hired Karam as a private tutor for a few hours of practice.)

 All of this has made me wonder about how Arabs feel about all this.  I have encountered opinions from 

– denial (“this isn’t an issue—everyone speaks one language, really”), to 

– scorn of the dialects (“the Bedouins are the only ones who speak real Arabic”—the belief that Bedouins basically speak Classical Arabic, but most children have to go to school to learn “real Arabic”), to 

– embrace of the dialects (“we speak the nicest Arabic in [my home country], which is incidentally closest to fusha”).  

Opinions seem as varied as the linguistic map itself.  

Pragmatically, it would be fabulous if the much-mooted “Middle Arabic”—combining the most common dialect features with a simplified MSA grammar—would appear as a kind of koine. But there is no one to bring it into existence.  So the result is many different “Middle Arabics” improvised by speakers from different regions trying to talk to each other, or by educated speakers on television trying to sound serious (classical) and real (dialect) at the same time by mixing elements of the two ad-hoc.

The situation is difficult enough for Arabs; it is harder still for the learner. But nobody promised it would be easy. I’m glad I’ve learned as much as I have, but I know that I’ll be adding piecemeal to that knowledge of Arabic—Arabics, really—for the rest of my life.

‘Say it in Arabic, please’: Arabic language rights restored?

The year is moving fast it’s already July and I am becoming busier and busier by the day, the more writing I do the more there is to do…well can’t complain at least it doesn’t put me off linguistics. Just means that I don’t have time to write longer posts. I have an Arabic article I will translate about language and the human need to talk- will do it as soon as I can. It would be wrong of me to put it up if I am not happy that would be a true injustice to the author.  Ramadhan (fasting month) is due next month very excited as always and looking forward to the spiritual experience as usual.

 It was refereshing the other day to come across an article in the Gulf News about the experience of a non-Arabic speaker learning Arabic in the Gulf. I say refreshing because I usually quote native Arabic speakers and their feelings, anxieties and fears about the current and future situation of the Arabic language. What struck me about this article was his insistence that since the Gulf states have Arabic as their native tongue it then becomes incumbent upon non-native speakers living there to learn the Arabic.

He also notes and outlines the current situation of the Arabic language, in that English is preferred over Arabic and that perhaps the Arabs might lose their language one day. Of course he then goes through the importance of Arabic language, and what it would mean to lose that language. In talking about his experience of learning Arabic, he writes a description of Arabic language that I have not read in a long while. It shows his true admiration for the Arabic language and his appreciation of what it would mean were we to lose this language.

The article ends with his reflection on the danger of Arabic being lost, I chose to put this article here because I felt that it was up to date, from the ground and seems authentic in all that he writes. Have a read below as usual no changes to the original.  

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Ancient languages are part of collective human heritage and a testament to mankind’s long journey. Don’t let them die.Language is perhaps the most precious, most beautiful gift after intellect that God granted man. In fact, language is the medium of expression of our intellect. Language is perhaps the most significant invention of our ancestors, even more important than the wheel that was invented nearly 6,000 years ago in ancient Iraq and is considered the beginning of human civilisation. For the wheel couldn’t have come about without man’s ability to think and express himself.

Languages have always and endlessly fascinated me. How they come into being, how they evolve with their speakers and how they relate to each other. How babies form pictures of people, things and places in their embryonic minds and express them in incomprehensible sounds is an endlessly fascinating process. Those incomprehensible sounds though must have formed building blocks of our languages.

One of the first things I wanted to do after landing in Dubai, besides buying my own car, was to learn Arabic. But it’s one of those pious resolutions that are easy to make and hard to follow for one reason or another.

Still, having lived and worked in the Gulf for so many years, it’s a real shame if our understanding of the Arabs doesn’t go beyond shawarma (Arabic sandwich wrap), shisha (hubble-bubble or hookah) and shopping malls.

The trouble is, you could live and work in the UAE for years and decades without ever bothering or requiring to learn the local language. Which is what most expatriates do. They live, work and move all their lives in limited spheres of their own communities without ever trying to understand the host country or society.

That is no excuse for not learning Arabic though. So when an opportunity to do so presented itself recently, I gratefully grabbed it. Given the lazy hours of my current job, I couldn’t have hoped for a better chance to quench a lifelong thirst for the glorious language that the Arabs believe — and many linguists agree — to be the mother of all languages.

The past couple of months learning the basics of Arabic with the help of my irrepressibly cheerful Egyptian teacher have been an enriching experience. In a class of 40, most ‘students’ are from Europe and increasingly remind me of that classic BBC comedy, Mind Your Language. And it’s immensely instructive to see Europeans go to great pains to master a language that is so different from theirs.

Different shades

I kind of believed I had a thing for languages and convinced myself that picking up Arabic would be as easy as learning English or Urdu. Especially when I am already familiar with the Arabic script, the language of the Quran, as most Muslims are. Besides, my mother tongue, Urdu, is based on the same script and is heavily indebted to Arabic, just as it is to Persian and Sanskrit, in terms of vocabulary. So I thought I could pick up Arabic in no time, if not master it. Boy, was I wrong!

Arabic is not just an ancient, rich language, it is easily the most complex and nuanced one I’ve ever come across. Every new lesson has been humbling, illuminating the distant boundaries of my infinite ignorance.Unlike in English, in Arabic every object and everything, living or inanimate, has a gender and sentences are formed accordingly. The whole sentence structure changes with each pronoun and helping verb.

More important, the written and spoken Arabic are totally different species. It’s not just the dialect that changes from region to region but words acquire totally different shades of meaning and interpretation.Then there’s its rich repertoire of vocabulary built and accumulated over thousands of years in a region that has been the cradle of world civilization. No other language, with the exception of Sanskrit perhaps, can boast of a literary heritage as great as that of Arabic. The Arabic language and literature have directly or indirectly contributed to all great literature in languages around the world.

It is a shame then like so many great languages from the East, Arabic has been in a steady decline. As much as I love Queen’s English, I have to say this: The growth of English as global lingua franca has come at the expense of great languages like Arabic.

Thanks to the ascendency of Western civilisation and Mac cultural invasion, more and more people are abandoning their ancestral languages for English.As a result, ancient languages have been dying at an unprecedented rate. Indeed, we may be living in a century that could prove decisive for the future of hundreds of languages. It’s feared that by the end of this century or the next, seven thousand of world’s languages could be reduced to just about 600.

It’s all the more alarming in ancient societies of Asia, Latin America and Africa. In America, most languages of native Indians, its original inhabitants, are already dead. Last year, with the death of Boa Senior in India’s Andaman Islands, the last surviving speaker of Bo, one of Asia’s oldest languages, died an unwept death. And there are many others out there that face a similar fate.

Languages are part of our collective heritage and a testament to and chronicle of mankind’s long journey. They must not be allowed to die, especially not by those who have inherited it and are born with it. Especially not a divine language like Arabic. 

Aijaz Zaka Syed is a widely published commentator. Follow him on twitter/aijazzakasyed.

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Very thorough despite the fact that he is not a linguist, he understands what we call language conservation and maintenance, happy reading!

Source: http://gulfnews.com/opinions/columnists/say-it-in-arabic-please-1.830807

Reading Arabic ‘Different’ for the Brain, New Study Suggests

Well it’s been a few nice days and the weather is getting warmer here, which is always nice considering the amount of work I have to do! I came across a link to this post from a tweet earlier today and as usual thought I’d share it. The article is based on the findings of a PhD student (this year 2011 still fresh) who was investigating the areas of the brain used by Arabic readers….the findings are fascinating read on to see what they were..

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ScienceDaily (May 19, 2011) — Arabic readers recognise words in a different way from readers of other languages, a new study suggests.

This doctoral research at the University of Leicester is analysing the reading differences of individuals as well as across languages — and has shown dissimilarities in how Arabic readers recognise words. Conducted by Abubaker Almabruk from the School of Psychology, the study has shown there are clear differences in how the right and left sides of the brain recognise Arabic words. Almabruk’s study is one of the first to examine the cognitive and physiological processes underlying word recognition and reading in Arabic, providing important insight into the effects of direction of reading, the form of the script and the construction of the language. His research reveals the intricacies of an everyday behaviour that most people find relatively easy and will help explain why some people find it difficult to read and provide insights into how these difficulties might be remedied. Almabruk commented: “Differences in left and right brain function influence the recognition of words each side of where a reader is looking on a page but only when these words are outside of central vision — this reveals both left/right brain specialisation for reading and evidence that the two halves of the brain collaborate when making sense of words in central vision. Native Arabic readers recognise Arabic words most efficiently when they fixate these words at their very centre.” “This shows that where we look in a word is very important for reading and the findings for Arabic are different from findings for English and other western languages, which are read most efficiently by looking at a location between the beginning and middle of the word.” On the possible causes for the reading differences, he said that “this might have happened because Arabic is read from right to left and words are formed from cursive text (i.e., the letters in Arabic naturally join together, even in printed formats, much like hand-written text in English).” Dr Kevin Paterson from the School of Psychology added: “Arabic is one of the oldest and most beautiful languages, and the second-most widely used language in the world, yet how it is read and understood has received surprisingly little attention. The experimental approach that Abubaker has taken in his research promises to reveal a huge amount about how this language and other languages are read and understood.” This research is being presented at the Festival of Postgraduate Research on Thursday, June 16. The annual one-day exhibition of postgraduate research offers organisations and the public the opportunity to meet the next generation of innovators and cutting-edge researchers. More than 50 University of Leicester students will explain the real world implications of their research in an engaging and accessible way. The event is open to the public and free to attend. More information at http://www2.le.ac.uk/offices/ssds/sd/pgrd/fpgr.

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Sometimes people imagine PhD students do crazy unimportant research well it seems this PhD student found a huge gap in the psychology of reading and filled it with excellent knowledge that was needed. Although Arabic language is popular for research students there are still so many areas to look into apart from literature, translations and politics. This new research, is one that gave attention to a neglected area in Arabic language studies; it claims that readers of Arabic read differently from readers of English or other western languages (i.e: Romanized orthography) and that this finding can determine for other researchers how people with reading difficulties can be helped. Researchers in fields such as speech therapy or those working with children/adults who suffer from dyslexia are always looking for specific real research and findings to help them to assist readers/speakers of languages other than English. As always I am wondering what it might mean for reading of Arabizi, reading Arabic words through Latin script mmm?! I am hoping to follow this research and hopefully get a copy of the thesis I am sure it will make good reading when I become less busy.

Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/05/110518080109.htm

Does language shape thought? The results are in

Image by Eyesplash via Flickr

A few posts ago I mentioned that The economist was running a live debate asking us, its readers to vote on whether we thought language shapes the way we think or not. After that over the next few days different scholars and linguists debated for or against the claim,  and we had the chance to agree or disagree with their view. Well now the results are in and all the arguments for both for and against are available to be read 🙂 so if you are interested please go ahead and read about it here:http://www.economist.com/debate/debates/overview/190.

Apologies for the short post I am away at the moment but someone just showed this to me and I thought I had to post it- happy break and I hope the new year will be good for everyone.

Thanks

Does language shape your thought? Join the debate

Image via Wikipedia

Once again the debate has resurfaced- does language shape thought? I think it will always be a question and each time both sides of the argument have some type of evidence. This time it is  The Economist who are currently running a live debate on this question. They allow for readers to vote on the website asking for people’s view on this somewhat complicated question. Two brilliant scholars represent each side, Dr. Lera Boroditsky [whom I have mentioned before on this blog] and she is for the motion that yes language does shape thought. In opposition is Prof. Mike Liberman a linguist at Pennsylvania, who sees that we shape language to a certain extent, and that language cannot shape the way we think.

I thought I’d share this with the readers as the voting ends tonight and the results will be announced on Thursday. If Linguistic Relativity interests you, this is where you need to go as there are recommendations on what to read, and a summary of the whole idea from both the linguistic and psychological perspectives.  Go and read and vote- enjoy.

The link- http://www.economist.com/debate/days/view/626

The power of words- a lesson from Taylor Mali

The power of words? Yes, words have power, power to move our emotions, power to make us think differently, and even to shape the way we see the world {in the loose sense or if you like in the Linguistic Relativity sense}. All through? Yes, you got it, through language. Which begs the question, what would we lose if we had no language? Apart from culture, ways of doing things or seeing the world, we’ll lose the power to influence others {positively of course} in an easy and natural way.

I like poetry and one type that really fascinates me is spoken word, and one of my favourites is one by Taylor Mali called ‘what teachers make’. Recently, I came across a CNN clip that shows how through Taylor’s poetry, many people have become teachers [to be precise 499]. So the question that came to mind for me was, how did he do it? Did he describe the excellent financial reward of being a teacher? Or maybe the glorious praise and respect from students? NO, all he did was show the passion he had for being a teacher, and showed the true nature of how important teachers are even though society does not acknowledge it. All this was done through the use of words, through the use of language, he moved people to change their lives forever- the true power of words and it doesn’t get better than this. He in effect not only changed the life of those 499 individuals but the also the lives of their many thousand students, because these teachers have passion, and when you have that anything you do will be no less than excellent. Here is the CNN clip.

Once we acknowledge the power of words and hence the importance of language preservation then we will understand why language ecologists are running and working hard to save languages from extinction- without words and language we are quite literally- nothing. That’s why the proper use and learning of Arabic is very important because if future generations lose the ability to understand and use language, they cannot therefore be affected by its power or influence others through it. Without language we could not function, we could not make our points clear, you would not be reading this post and digesting its meaning, negotiations could not take place, peace talks could never happen…..and the list continues.  Arabic may not be dying but it might one day and if it does so much will go with it and so much will be lost without it, or any other language for that matter. Language is power- a power we underestimate.

 Below I have put the original poem Taylor read at the Def poetry for HBO- enjoy and your comments are always welcome.

DEF POETRY

Al Qasmy: “Arabic is key to identity” the fight to revive Arabic in the UAE

Another post showing the importance the rulers in the UAE are putting into reviving Arabic language among their people. Below is a post about showing that, slightly different from the previous post about Jordan. —————————–

SHARJAH // Arab parents should encourage their children to express “joys, sadness, defeats and victories” in Arabic, or risk separating their young ones from a rich cultural heritage, Dr Sheikh Sultan bin Mohammed, the Ruler of Sharjah, said yesterday. Celebrating Arabic Language Day at the Cultural Palace in Sharjah, he said, “It is very important for Arabs to learn Arabic as it is part of their identity.”

A study by Zayed University last year showed 80 per cent of young Emiratis believed the Arabic language defines their identity. The study was conducted among 200 students at the university. However, it also revealed that 53 per cent of the respondents preferred to watch television shows in English. “Regrettably, focus on the Arabic language is waning despite being the major component of the Arab identity and the strong preserver of our heritage,” the state news agency WAM quoted Dr Sheikh Sultan as saying.

“Increasing care of the Arab communities about the foreign languages to communicate with the world should not eclipse our attention about our Arabic language”, he said, citing common Arabic language errors and frequent use of foreign languages among youth. “The language we use to express our joys, sadness, defeats and victories is inseparable part of our own selves.” The UAE was among several countries that celebrated their language as part of the global Mother Language Day, initiated by Unesco.

Dr Sheikh Sultan has written several books and plays aimed at protecting the Arabic language. He promised financial and moral support to help Arabic language projects in the emirate.As part of the celebration, the Sharjah Museum organised an exhibition, “Calligraphy as an Art”, in which tools used in Arabic calligraphy were displayed.

“The Arabic language with its distinguished linguistics holds the strength to promote nation building and strengthening cultural ties,” said Manal Ataya, director general of the department. “Arabic is also the language of the Holy Quran, the basis of our unity, and the mirror of our present and future.”————————————- END

The study at Sheikh Zayed university is interesting in that 80% of the students felt Arabic defined their identity and yet they preferred watching tv in English. It might be because there is no good tv in Arabic? That’s an uneducated statement with over 100 satellite channels can one really not find something to watch? Mind you maybe that’s the problem?!  It might be because the education system does not encourage or support them to use Arabic and instead rewards the use of English? All these factors play a role in determining how a person views their language in reference to other languages. At least Sultan al Qasmy is taking serious steps to address this problem that he and his fellow rulers find disturbing. So maybe in the future Arabic language will re-flourish once again in the Emirates…who knows? Thanks for reading!  

source: http://www.thenational.ae/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100222/NATIONAL/702219846/1342/FRONTIERS

Arabic dying? Not in Egypt

As I was reading I came across this blog posting which sort of affirmed what I said in the last post and what I keep saying- that Arabic native speakers will lose their language if they do not make efforts to learn the language. Once again just to re-affirm Arabic as a language will NOT die not now not EVER, but the people will lose out, especially the native speakers. My claim is always this: Arabic will remain among Muslims as a language of religion but the cultural aspects will be lost, because without native speakers there is no sense to the proverbs or the historic aspects of why words are the way they are. What’s wrong with this? Nothing much but there will be an absence of culture and without culture a people or their way of being will be erased. It’s something that we can discuss forever, language and culture and does it really matter anyway! I have pasted the posting below, and at the bottom I make some comments.

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 Is Arabic a dying language?

From where I sit, in Cairo, the question seems a bit laughable. Dying? True, English is a “higher status” language here. Often, when I read a menu, I will find something like this: الآيس كريم That particular word (ice cream) has legitimately made its way into the Arabic language, but you can also find the transliteration of cheese instead ofجبنة and so on. Still, Egypt is a country where life and literature are conducted (by and large) in Arabic. Of course, if I squint at the question sideways, I can say: Sure, sure. After all, I’m dying. You’re dying. We’re all dying! But scholars in the Emirates mean this in a much more urgent way—and perhaps this is part of the reason why so much Emirati money is being laid down for culture: book prizes, poetry channels, literary fairs.

 In the Emirates, Tom Hundley writes, Arabic is “no better than the third most-spoken language” after English and Hindi. And since Arabs are a minority in the laborer-laden Emirates, that’s hardly a surprise.

 But apparently even Emiratis aren’t interested in their language. Hundley reports that last fall, only five new students enrolled in UAE University’s Arabic language and literature program. And most university students, he says, take their instruction in English.

Hundley says the Emiratis are aware and concerned: A new national plan, unveiled earlier this month and aimed at 2021, the United Arab Emirates’ 50th anniversary, highlights the concern: “Arabic will re-emerge as a dynamic and vibrant language, expressed everywhere in speech and writing as a living symbol of the national Arab-Islamic values,” the plan said. But it offered few specifics on how this would occur. Hundley said that some have called for laws enforcing the use of Arabic.

 But he quoted Professor Kamal Abdel-Malek, a professor of Arabic literature at the American University in Dubai (AUD) as disagreeing with this sentiment: “We shouldn’t end up with language police,” he said. “Laws cannot maintain the vitality of a language. I don’t think you force people to preserve a language.”

Agreed. (Although I might like to read a novel where this was happening.) How, then, are we to preserve languages? Perhaps, as the Emiratis are doing, with more money for culture? After all, the death of a language is no small thing: a number of social scientists liken the deaths of languages to the deaths of species. Could we end up in a world with only a few languages, and thus fewer ideas, fewer ways of structuring existence?

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I like the way the post ends with powerful questions, we might not have the answers but at least we can begin thinking. I am not sure if money is the answer, it does help, but can it save a language? I think not. It is all to do with how people see their language, what are the benefits of me learning and deeply understanding this language? If the speaker sees no real benefit they will not ‘waste’ their time learning language. Maybe it’s only us linguists and those who love languages, who learn language for the sake of loving words and how they are similar or different from each other (like trying to see the similarity between Spanish and Italian)?! He is right that the death of a language is a serious issue, though I don’t think Arabic will ever make it to that list. He touches on an issue that has gained much attention recently – that of the connection between language and ideas or the perception of reality. I have written on it before, the linguistic relativity theory, so based on the claims of this theory we could say: if Arabic becomes weaker among its native speakers then the ideas encapsulated in Arabic language will also be weakened and not understood so well? Interesting, like I always say I have not made my mind up yet as I am reading on the subject – does language affect the way we think? And if so to what extent? I read a New York Times article on this issue so I will put it up on the next posting. Thanks for reading!

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Source: http://arablit.wordpress.com/2010/02/24/is-arabic-a-dying-language/

Death of Arabic language- a myth?

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The month of Ramadhan is now over, how sad, looking forward to the next one! All Muslims have now celebrated Eid (to mark the end of Ramdhan), a nice time to meet family and friends and exchange gifts, oh and not forgetting eating special food.  

So once again I could not help myself but comment on yet another article about the so-called “death”  of Arabic language, or rather the question of is Arabic dead or in danger?  I came across this article written very well on Middle East Online, in which the writer clearly states that the whole idea that Arabic is dead (or dying or in danger) is a myth and greatly exaggerated for that matter. The more I read on this topic the more interesting it becomes, seriously, so  many people investing their time in writing about a concern or a myth or the demise of a language- that has to get people interested! What’s all the fuss about? As I always say again and again on this blog, I wonder what the situation of Arabic language will be in 10, 20 or 30 years’ time. Who will be right? The optimists or those warning over the “death” of Arabic?

In general, the writer in his lengthy article (that’s why I did not paste it here),  gives a historical background to the whole situation of how actually Arabic has never really had so many speakers, even in the days when it occupied the status of the language or culture and civilization. Based on that claim, he asserts that today Arabic has so many more speakers than even then, so why the panic now? Why the fear that Arabic is in demise if it has an unprecedented number of speakers today? An issue that constantly comes up – the belief that the more speakers a language has the less likely it is to become weak, or in extreme cases for it to die.  As I have said before, any linguist working in language revitalization or language ecology will disagree with this popular belief, and perhaps even show languages with more speakers facing danger of extinction whilst languages with fewer speakers remain strong and face no danger.

The writer cites many of the language revival efforts which I have quoted/ discussed in this blog too; such as the Beirul F’il Amr organisation, some Gulf countries’ efforts to revamp interest in the Arabic language and so on…and how these are all reactionary ways of dealing with the fear that Arabic is in danger. He then quotes experts who share his opinion that Arabic is in no danger, and he then balances it out by including the opinion of other experts who express concern over the education policy in schools in the Arab world and call for that to be revised if Arabic language is to be used correctly- and by extension if it is to avoid “death”.  So to be fair he does try to show both sides even if only just.

I liked the way he qualifies all his statements either by historical examples or instances of Arabic use today by people, this always adds a touch of veracity.  For example, he uses the case of Ibn Mandhuur (author of the most respected Arabic dictionary- which spans 25 volumes, but now these are available on CDs, I have to say I prefer the hard copies) in which Ibn Mandhuur writes in the preface of the dictionary that he fears the demise of Arabic.  The writer here argues that there is no way that Arabic was in danger at the time, which is right, because it was the lingua Franca of the part of the world from as far as India and to the Iberian Peninsula. It was the language of education, culture and business and yet this scholar thought to put down his fears over its demise. The writer says here that Ibn Mandhuur feared that people were not using the FuSHa (Classical/Qur’anic Arabic) and were using their spoken Arabic dialects which in turn was affecting their use and understanding of the original Arabic. Having read Ibn Madhuur’s words myself, I always think if he was here today what would he say about the situation of Arabic?  If during its peak and enlightenment, he thought Arabic was in danger and his primary concern was the FuSHa, would he even consider some of today’s Arabic as Arabic?  One might say that his fear drove him to compile a dictionary that would stand the test of time and a dictionary that actually played a crucial role in the preservation of Arabic language.  His type of fear I think is the same type of fear some people have today, if you keep promoting the spoken and not study the classical you will lose touch with your language for sure.

The writer insists that today Arabic is in more use that it has ever been before in history because of the available channels by which communication can take place, such as satellite TV, internet, forums and blogs.  Claiming that 300 million speakers guarantee that Arabic will never be in decline and that merely going through these forums one can see the different, local and idiosyncratic ways in which Arabic language is being used- something unprecedented. Unprecedented indeed! There has never really been a time in which communication across the world has been so easy or managed to break linguistic, social and economic barriers like today.  But does that mean that just because so many people are writing, texting and blogging in ‘Arabic’ (however one wishes to define Arabic) that the language is in no danger of being under threat or at least facing what linguists call ‘shifting’?  I have to say here that Arabic is greater demand today for many different reasons, religious/liturgal (which is the primary one, because this extends to non-Arabs too, so we could exaggerate and say over a billion people will do some type of Arabic learning during their lifetime ), political, security reasons, and maybe even cultural reasons. In relation to this point, let’s ask (apart from religious reasons) who else is interested in Arabic? In my experience (as a student and teacher) definitely non-native speakers are the ones investing their time and money in studying and understanding the Arabic language. Apologies if this statement offends anybody, it does not take much to come to my conclusion, simply browse the internet and you will see the number of centres, academies and places in which Arabic can be taught, none of the adverts are in Arabic!  How many university students from Europe, America and Australia are in the Arab universities studying Arabic language, either for one term, one academic year, summer courses, Easter courses, Christmas language breaks and so on? So although the author says that Arabic is now studied in a way that it never has been before, I agree but not by its native speakers, at least in the Gulf countries. And those who are concerned over the demise of Arabic are worried that native speakers are losing the language. One might say well that’s like English, as a native English speaker I don’t invest in studying English, I might study stylistics or academic rhetoric but those are advanced levels for someone who has mastered the language. In school it is one subject that a student studies throughout their life, it’s one of those subjects that if students could opt out of they would; but the whole education system ensures that all students who leave school need to have a certain level of linguistic competence. In England, as I am not sure about other English speaking countries,  if one fails English at school they may not be able to do their desired course at A- level or nowadays get a job!  To reinforce this all subjects are taught in English, and the education policy introduced something called ‘literacy across the curriculum’ where students needed to be competent in writing or expressing themselves in English in all subjects. Therefore, I don’t need to invest in learning English, I can linguistically afford to learn Chinese or French- it makes sense.  But Arabic language policies are apparently not so clear-cut, at least based on my research of Gulf countries (but that is a topic for another post). There are different types of schools for different types of people, for different types of aims so the education system is one that is unique- hence any language policy would need to be written coherently and implemented by the letter.

Another point he brings up is that today people are more literate than ever before and that even the great cultural civilizations such as Egypt until recently had less than half their population classed as illiterate.  My question, really not just to the writer but in general- how do we define literacy? Does it mean that if I cannot read a language, therefore I am cultureless or therefore I cannot be considered to be academically sound? What if my culture is one of an oral tradition? Can I not participate in culture or add anything to the arena of civilization?  Arab culture has always been an oral one and information by their greatest scholars and poets was stored by way of a rote system. These people had, and in some parts of the Arab world this still happens, what we might call photographic memories; I discussed this is the ‘Preservation of the Arabic language revisited’ post, where committing to memory 10,000 lines of rhyming poetry was no great task! It was the revelation of the Qur’an and it subsequent writing down and the recording of hadith (sayings of the Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him) that transformed the Arab culture from an oral one to a literary one- hence its survival until today.

To end, I think that numbers of speakers is no indicator of the whether a language will survive or not, rather it is the quality and accuracy by which its speakers use it that will determine the robustness and shelf-life of a language.  Perhaps it is a myth that Arabic language is dying, but I don’t think it is a myth that Arabic proficiency is very weak among some native Arabic speakers.

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Source: http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=40566

Now the writing too?

It’s been a while since I wrote about the linguistic situation of Arabic language! I came across this post and I thought I’d share it with everyone- this is quite serious actually because as the writer points translations are wrong and even the spelling is wrong. I’m just thinking would that happen in England?   I am sure that when we all travel to non-English speaking countries we always find  the English signs amusing because of the wrong spelling or because of the semantic implications of the English (quite comical actually)! But that’s pardonable because English is not their native language that they would know how to correctly translate and respect the semantic parameters right?  But if the officials are not worried about correctness in the use of Arabic language in the public sphere how do we then expect their people to respect the language? If the linguistic landscape is not in accordance with grammar I would say that is a reflection of the linguistic situation among the population. Therefore,  all the language revival efforts/festivals can be put on, all the passionate speeches and articles can be written but for what? What’s the incentive? It’s all confusion, on the one hand to know your language is part of your identity but in practice you can’t even read a menu in Arabic! When will you be confident in using Arabic language?  Once again I am not suggesting that this is true in all Arabic speaking countries, it is not, but it is the true in some  as the post below will illustrate- enjoy!

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  The Arabic language is in danger, as a member in the English Sabla forum pointed out. Everywhere we go in an Arab country, whether in Oman or outside Oman, we find some signs with incorrect Arabic spelling, incorrect Arabic grammar, mistranslation from English to Arabic and finally some signs with a bit of Arabicization of the English language.

For example, this member from English Sabla took a picture of the menu of The Crepé Café in Muscat City Center. The menu in Arabic looks seriously messed up. I don’t really get it. Isn’t there anyone from the municipality whom is supposed to check those signs, menus and whatever before publishing them? It’s obvious that those signs are done by people whose first language is not Arabic. Maybe they don’t even know a bit of Arabic, but they still get the work of translation and writing those signs in Arabic, and since they know nothing about the Arabic language, they end up messing the signs upside down. But what’s really pathetic is that there is nobody with Arabic origins who double-checks those signs before getting published.

The Arabic language is indeed in danger.

P.S: I know that I’ve had more than one similar post before about Arabic signs in Oman which make no sense, but my point here is till when are we going to see such signs with incorrect Arabic? I can’t believe that nobody from the municipality is taking actions over this… or even noticing it?

[Picture by lost from English Sabla]

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It seems everyone everywhere is worried about the linguistic situation of the Arabic language- and rightly so! Not sure if you see the menu clearly (you can go to the original source to see it closer) but I myself don’t know how they got away with such a huge mistake?! Finally, two questions that will not go away for me: Is there no one who checks these signs/menus?  Do we take this as evidence of the extent to which Arabic language is neglected at least in this country? Still thinking……

Source:http://www.amjad248.com/2008/04/arabic-language-in-danger.html