Note: This post is very long. So long, in fact, that there's more coming - I had to break it up into a few parts. It's mainly focused on something that I (and, I think, some of you) find fascinating, but many of you probably just aren't interested in. I'd encourage you to at least skim this first post, as it will make a lot of our other entries make more sense. Beyond that, though, you have my full permission to skip it. I won't be offended!
Although I've known since high school that I wanted to study Arabic, I had no idea just what an undertaking it would be. Sure, I'd realized that it's widely considered one of the world's most difficult languages for English-speakers to learn, but I've always had a knack for languages, I love learning them, and I've been studying them for as long as I could remember. I knew it would be a challenge, but it was one that I welcomed.
The fact that it uses a completely different alphabet didn't really concern me. I'd taught myself the sign language alphabet when I was 8 and, although I've since forgotten it, my dad had taught me the Greek alphabet at about the same time. I knew that it would be challenging at first but would quickly become second nature - which it has.
All the strange sounds in the Arabic language didn't particularly worry me, either. They were challenging but fun, and I'd spent enough time studying singing to know how to analyze sounds, figure out how they were made, and, in time, be able to closely imitate them.
I welcomed the fact that the language was based on an entirely different logical structure than English. I guess I'm enough like my (philosophy-studying) brother that paradigm shifts make me happy: I like being confronted with the fact that what I've always accepted unquestioningly is not necessarily "normal," nor is it the only possible approach. Some days it makes my head hurt, but some of my favorite moments in studying foreign languages come when I suddenly realize that, gee, the Latin/Greek-root system isn't the only way to go! Nouns and adjectives can actually be really fluid concepts! It can be totally logical for the numbers 11-99 to be followed by singular nouns, while the numbers 3-10 are followed by plural nouns of the opposite gender of the numbers themselves, and for non-human plural nouns to be treated as though they were feminine singular!*
Anyway, I welcomed all of those challenges, both the expected and the unexpected, in studying Arabic. For me, the ultimate purpose of studying a language is being able to communicate with the people who speak it (and on their terms), but I still thrive on the process of getting there. What really got to me was the realization that, for my purposes, what I was pouring myself into at school was practically useless.
As anyone who has taken high school Spanish and then tried to go to Mexico already knows, studying a language in school is very different from actually being able to use it in the real world. Much of that is due to problems with how we teach foreign languages in the U.S., but that's another story entirely. Anyway, I've studied (and at least tried to use in the real world) Spanish, French, Turkish, and American sign language as well as Arabic, so I'm quite aware of that phenomenon. The issue with Arabic, though, goes way beyond issues like "they speak too fast" or "they use lots of slang."
Basically (and this is definitely an over-simplification), the Arab world has been politically and socially fractured for quite a long time. It has been divided into more than 20 countries that often have poor relations with each other, and many of those nations have experienced long periods of European colonialization. Over time, these different countries have seen some very significant shifts in the way they speak Arabic, and obviously those shifts have been different in different parts of the Arab world.
Today, the Arabic language is typically viewed as having a number (at least 4, depending on who you ask) of different dialect families. If they are divided into 4 groups, they would be Maghribi (covering northwestern Africa), Masri (mostly Egypt) Shamsi (Syria and the surrounding countries) and Khaliji (the Gulf states.) You could, however, keep dividing the dialects almost indefinitely - there are often significant differences between, say, the Arabic dialect spoken in Rabat and the one spoken in Fes, just a few hours away.
Anyway, these "dialects" really only all fit under the heading "Arabic" for political, religious, and sociological reasons. In reality, it is often very difficult, if not outright impossible, for Arabs from one region to understand Arabs from another. Just to give you an idea, here's how to say a few basic phrases (randomly chosen) in Maghribi, Masri, and Shamsi (I don't know any Khaliji, so I have to skip that one):
As you can see, in many cases the expressions have absolutely nothing in common. In no case are they exactly the same. So...which dialect did I study in school?
Well, none of them. See, there's a sort of "standardized" Arabic called Modern Standard Arabic (MSA), or (in Arabic) Fusha. It's actually much closer to the language of the Qur'an than to any modern dialect, and while theoretically it's the dialect that you're supposed to be able to use anywhere in the Arab world, the reality is much more complicated than that for a number of reasons:
1) Fusha is essentially an artificial language (it's not the native language of any country) and its grammar rules are extremely complex (much more so than the grammar rules for any of the modern dialects.)
2) Although students throughout the Arab world are supposed to learn Fusha in school, educational attainment in a lot of these countries is low enough that many students never really master it.
3) Even for those who do, in my experience it's a lot like students who master advanced algebra in high school: they might be really good at it at the time, but it doesn't take long for them to forget almost everything.
4) Some people try to argue that Fusha must be widely understood because it's the written languages (the modern dialects are almost never put to paper) and the language of newscasts, formal speeches, and the like. While that's true, illiteracy rates are alarmingly high in many (although certainly not all) parts of the Arab world (more on that in an upcoming post) and many people never listen to TV and radio shows where Fusha is spoken. Indeed, just the other day I heard a Moroccan man rather sadly joking that when the king speaks to his people [in Fusha] no one understands what he's telling them.
5) Even for those who do read and listen to Fusha, they rarely hear it enough to be able to understand it when Americans come in and try to speak it with their broken grammar and heavy accents. To get some idea of the effect, try to imagine a Chinese man approaching you on the street and trying to speak to you in (Chinese-accented) Chaucer English. Even if you were a English literature scholar, you'd have quite some trouble understanding him.
6) Even when they can understand you, it's very difficult for them to respond in Fusha. After all, Arabs are rarely expected to use the language actively, and there's a big difference between understanding Fusha when someone else speaks it, and being able to speak it yourself (to return to the Chinese man, even if you could understand what he said, could you respond in kind?)
I could go on, but I think you get the point. Almost anyone who has exclusively studied Fusha and then tried to interact with native Arabic speakers (and I've talked to many, many of these people) will share similar stories: that people didn't even realize they were speaking Arabic, that they were outright laughed at, that (at best) they were understood but responded to in a dialect that they couldn't follow at all.
Oh, by the way, remember that chart up above comparing a few phrases in the various Arab dialects? Here's that same chart, with Fusha thrown in:
While you can pick out a few similarities here and there, it's certainly not enough to successfully communicate with. And while I have met the occasional Moroccan (including the owner of our riad) who both understands and speaks excellent Fusha, it's very unusual. I've met far more people here who speak excellent English.
That's not to say that Fusha is worthless. Many Arabs passionately defend the value of Fusha, and their reasons resonate with me. I'll talk more about that in a later post, but briefly, Fusha is - at least theoretically - one of the strongest bonds besides Islam between Arabs of different nations. In addition, because of its similarities to the classical Arabic that the Quran is written in, knowing Fusha brings Muslims much closer to being able to understand the Quran.** As the written language, Fusha is also incredibly valuable to anyone from academic scholars (as A wants to be) to people who simply want to understand their daily Arabic newspaper.
So, it definitely has its value and I understand why schools teach it. Certainly, I want to be able to read and write Arabic as well as speak it. That being said, it can be incredibly frustrating to devote massive amounts of time over the course of four years (I started in my senior year in high school) to a language, often involving extremely complex and nuanced grammar points, all the while knowing that none of this will allow me to have even the simplest of conversations on the street or in a taxi anywhere in the Arab world.
Anyway, that's why, when I'm here, I'm studying the local Arabic dialect (called Darija.) It's also why I'm having to start at the very beginning, even though my Fusha is actually quite respectable. A is, of course, continuing his Fusha studies because he's mainly interested in Arabic for academic purposes (and besides, he's got a free live-in translator!) Sadly, most people (even many Moroccans) are pretty dismissive of Darija because it's one of the least widely understood Arabic dialects, but it just happens to be the dialect of one of my favorite places in the world, so I can't say that I mind too much.
*Ok, I'm lying about that last bit. Numbers really do work that way in Arabic (in fact, it gets even more complicated than that), but I don't think I'll ever be able to accept it as logical.
** While most Muslims have no problem with the Quran being translated into other languages, at that point it is no longer considered the Holy Quran. It is, rather, seen as a commentary on the original book. Only the Arabic version is considered the "true" version. Given the incredible richness of the Arabic language and how much of it is necessarily lost in translation, I have to say that I think they have a point.
Although I've known since high school that I wanted to study Arabic, I had no idea just what an undertaking it would be. Sure, I'd realized that it's widely considered one of the world's most difficult languages for English-speakers to learn, but I've always had a knack for languages, I love learning them, and I've been studying them for as long as I could remember. I knew it would be a challenge, but it was one that I welcomed.
The fact that it uses a completely different alphabet didn't really concern me. I'd taught myself the sign language alphabet when I was 8 and, although I've since forgotten it, my dad had taught me the Greek alphabet at about the same time. I knew that it would be challenging at first but would quickly become second nature - which it has.
All the strange sounds in the Arabic language didn't particularly worry me, either. They were challenging but fun, and I'd spent enough time studying singing to know how to analyze sounds, figure out how they were made, and, in time, be able to closely imitate them.
I welcomed the fact that the language was based on an entirely different logical structure than English. I guess I'm enough like my (philosophy-studying) brother that paradigm shifts make me happy: I like being confronted with the fact that what I've always accepted unquestioningly is not necessarily "normal," nor is it the only possible approach. Some days it makes my head hurt, but some of my favorite moments in studying foreign languages come when I suddenly realize that, gee, the Latin/Greek-root system isn't the only way to go! Nouns and adjectives can actually be really fluid concepts! It can be totally logical for the numbers 11-99 to be followed by singular nouns, while the numbers 3-10 are followed by plural nouns of the opposite gender of the numbers themselves, and for non-human plural nouns to be treated as though they were feminine singular!*
Anyway, I welcomed all of those challenges, both the expected and the unexpected, in studying Arabic. For me, the ultimate purpose of studying a language is being able to communicate with the people who speak it (and on their terms), but I still thrive on the process of getting there. What really got to me was the realization that, for my purposes, what I was pouring myself into at school was practically useless.
As anyone who has taken high school Spanish and then tried to go to Mexico already knows, studying a language in school is very different from actually being able to use it in the real world. Much of that is due to problems with how we teach foreign languages in the U.S., but that's another story entirely. Anyway, I've studied (and at least tried to use in the real world) Spanish, French, Turkish, and American sign language as well as Arabic, so I'm quite aware of that phenomenon. The issue with Arabic, though, goes way beyond issues like "they speak too fast" or "they use lots of slang."
Basically (and this is definitely an over-simplification), the Arab world has been politically and socially fractured for quite a long time. It has been divided into more than 20 countries that often have poor relations with each other, and many of those nations have experienced long periods of European colonialization. Over time, these different countries have seen some very significant shifts in the way they speak Arabic, and obviously those shifts have been different in different parts of the Arab world.
Today, the Arabic language is typically viewed as having a number (at least 4, depending on who you ask) of different dialect families. If they are divided into 4 groups, they would be Maghribi (covering northwestern Africa), Masri (mostly Egypt) Shamsi (Syria and the surrounding countries) and Khaliji (the Gulf states.) You could, however, keep dividing the dialects almost indefinitely - there are often significant differences between, say, the Arabic dialect spoken in Rabat and the one spoken in Fes, just a few hours away.
Anyway, these "dialects" really only all fit under the heading "Arabic" for political, religious, and sociological reasons. In reality, it is often very difficult, if not outright impossible, for Arabs from one region to understand Arabs from another. Just to give you an idea, here's how to say a few basic phrases (randomly chosen) in Maghribi, Masri, and Shamsi (I don't know any Khaliji, so I have to skip that one):
Phrase
|
Maghribi
|
Masri
|
Shamsi
|
I am American
|
Ana merikani
|
Ana amriki
|
Ana amerki
|
How are you?
|
La bas?
|
Izzayak?
|
Kiifak?
|
[Response]
|
La bas
|
Kuwayyis
|
Ana mniH
|
Excuse me, sir
|
smH laya, as-sidi
|
La mu'akhaza, efendim
|
3afwan, ya akh
|
How much is this?
|
B-shHal had?
|
Bi-kam da?
|
B-ad-dish hada?
|
My husband
|
rajli
|
goozi
|
jozi
|
As you can see, in many cases the expressions have absolutely nothing in common. In no case are they exactly the same. So...which dialect did I study in school?
Well, none of them. See, there's a sort of "standardized" Arabic called Modern Standard Arabic (MSA), or (in Arabic) Fusha. It's actually much closer to the language of the Qur'an than to any modern dialect, and while theoretically it's the dialect that you're supposed to be able to use anywhere in the Arab world, the reality is much more complicated than that for a number of reasons:
1) Fusha is essentially an artificial language (it's not the native language of any country) and its grammar rules are extremely complex (much more so than the grammar rules for any of the modern dialects.)
2) Although students throughout the Arab world are supposed to learn Fusha in school, educational attainment in a lot of these countries is low enough that many students never really master it.
3) Even for those who do, in my experience it's a lot like students who master advanced algebra in high school: they might be really good at it at the time, but it doesn't take long for them to forget almost everything.
4) Some people try to argue that Fusha must be widely understood because it's the written languages (the modern dialects are almost never put to paper) and the language of newscasts, formal speeches, and the like. While that's true, illiteracy rates are alarmingly high in many (although certainly not all) parts of the Arab world (more on that in an upcoming post) and many people never listen to TV and radio shows where Fusha is spoken. Indeed, just the other day I heard a Moroccan man rather sadly joking that when the king speaks to his people [in Fusha] no one understands what he's telling them.
5) Even for those who do read and listen to Fusha, they rarely hear it enough to be able to understand it when Americans come in and try to speak it with their broken grammar and heavy accents. To get some idea of the effect, try to imagine a Chinese man approaching you on the street and trying to speak to you in (Chinese-accented) Chaucer English. Even if you were a English literature scholar, you'd have quite some trouble understanding him.
6) Even when they can understand you, it's very difficult for them to respond in Fusha. After all, Arabs are rarely expected to use the language actively, and there's a big difference between understanding Fusha when someone else speaks it, and being able to speak it yourself (to return to the Chinese man, even if you could understand what he said, could you respond in kind?)
I could go on, but I think you get the point. Almost anyone who has exclusively studied Fusha and then tried to interact with native Arabic speakers (and I've talked to many, many of these people) will share similar stories: that people didn't even realize they were speaking Arabic, that they were outright laughed at, that (at best) they were understood but responded to in a dialect that they couldn't follow at all.
Oh, by the way, remember that chart up above comparing a few phrases in the various Arab dialects? Here's that same chart, with Fusha thrown in:
Phrase
|
Maghribi
|
Masri
|
Shamsi
|
Fusha
|
I am American
|
Ana merikani
|
Ana amriki
|
Ana amerki
|
Ana amrikiyy
|
How are you?
|
La bas?
|
Izzayak?
|
Kiifak?
|
Kayf al-Haal?
|
[Response]
|
La bas
|
Kuwayyis
|
Ana mniH
|
Ana jayyid
|
Excuse me, sir
|
smH laya, as-sidi
|
La mu'akhaza, efendim
|
3afwan, ya akh
|
ismaH lii, ya sa'iidii
|
How much is this?
|
B-shHal had?
|
Bi-kam da?
|
B-ad-dish hada?
|
Bi-kam hatha?
|
My husband
|
rajli
|
goozi
|
joozi
|
zawji
|
While you can pick out a few similarities here and there, it's certainly not enough to successfully communicate with. And while I have met the occasional Moroccan (including the owner of our riad) who both understands and speaks excellent Fusha, it's very unusual. I've met far more people here who speak excellent English.
That's not to say that Fusha is worthless. Many Arabs passionately defend the value of Fusha, and their reasons resonate with me. I'll talk more about that in a later post, but briefly, Fusha is - at least theoretically - one of the strongest bonds besides Islam between Arabs of different nations. In addition, because of its similarities to the classical Arabic that the Quran is written in, knowing Fusha brings Muslims much closer to being able to understand the Quran.** As the written language, Fusha is also incredibly valuable to anyone from academic scholars (as A wants to be) to people who simply want to understand their daily Arabic newspaper.
So, it definitely has its value and I understand why schools teach it. Certainly, I want to be able to read and write Arabic as well as speak it. That being said, it can be incredibly frustrating to devote massive amounts of time over the course of four years (I started in my senior year in high school) to a language, often involving extremely complex and nuanced grammar points, all the while knowing that none of this will allow me to have even the simplest of conversations on the street or in a taxi anywhere in the Arab world.
 |
| I think the cat is trying to move that jar with her mind. And she might just pull it off. Oh, right - I'm supposed to be talking about Arabic... |
Anyway, that's why, when I'm here, I'm studying the local Arabic dialect (called Darija.) It's also why I'm having to start at the very beginning, even though my Fusha is actually quite respectable. A is, of course, continuing his Fusha studies because he's mainly interested in Arabic for academic purposes (and besides, he's got a free live-in translator!) Sadly, most people (even many Moroccans) are pretty dismissive of Darija because it's one of the least widely understood Arabic dialects, but it just happens to be the dialect of one of my favorite places in the world, so I can't say that I mind too much.
*Ok, I'm lying about that last bit. Numbers really do work that way in Arabic (in fact, it gets even more complicated than that), but I don't think I'll ever be able to accept it as logical.
** While most Muslims have no problem with the Quran being translated into other languages, at that point it is no longer considered the Holy Quran. It is, rather, seen as a commentary on the original book. Only the Arabic version is considered the "true" version. Given the incredible richness of the Arabic language and how much of it is necessarily lost in translation, I have to say that I think they have a point.
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