Arabic, a great language, has a low profile • Hacker News Board

Re: Arabic, a great language, has a low profile

#71

Post by Annatar » Thu, Oct 25, 2018, 6:43 AM UTC

theprotocol wrote: post #64

I am a native Arabic speaker. It is an awful language. As the article points out, the dialects are just too numerous for it to gain any kind of critical mass of adoption. But beyond that, I'd say the biggest problem with it is that there are just so many exceptions that knowing the rules of grammar is nowhere near enough to speak it correctly. edit: I also wanted to mention that written Arabic differs from spoken Ara…

All that aside, I find the script flowing and incredibly elegant and beautiful, purely from an aesthetic point of view.

Re: Arabic, a great language, has a low profile

#72

Post by getcrunk » Thu, Oct 25, 2018, 6:44 AM UTC

jl6 wrote: post #57

gumby wrote: post #22

I learned MSA and some Egyptian and there really are things you can say in it that are almost impossible to express in English (or the other European languages I know). This is true of any pair of languages of course but structurally the root system allows much more nuance and overtone than more workmanlike languages like English. I believe Hebrew (which I don't speak!) has a similar structure though I've been told b…

Have you got some examples?

I have very limited knowledge on the topic so take what I say with some skepticism, but one thing is that most words are formed by a variation of a three or four letter root word. So this gives a lot of flexibility and subtlety to the language. Context is everything. A root word for example made up of the letters d - r - b in its most basic form means to hit. But that same root can be used to mean depress (as in a pedal) or separate things (sort) or ring a bell or to agree on a time and place for a meeting, to be unrealistic, to make and example or analogy. The dictionary entry is multiple columns. And this is common in the language.

Further to the competent speaker this results in no difficulty understanding the language give the next point which is its grammer. Words and therefore phrases and scentences have their grammatical role signified by Vowels.

Re: Arabic, a great language, has a low profile

#73

Post by brusch64 » Thu, Oct 25, 2018, 6:47 AM UTC

nerdponx wrote: post #65

diminish wrote: post #53

Somehow the sound of Arabic accents are quite harsh among all languages I know to my ears. Only German is somewhat harsh - I have a lot of pleasure with Rammstein the metal/rock band sound in German. I always thought metal music would sound quite nice in Several Arabic accents as opposed to let's say a softer language like Italian. In short metal/hard rock in Arabic would sound wonderful whereas in Italian not.

There is a great punk band from New York with all Arabic lyrics: https://haramharam.bandcamp.com/

Wow - they are great. Thank you for that link! And I don't think it sounds any harsher than other hardcore punk in English.

Re: Arabic, a great language, has a low profile

#74

Post by pjmlp » Thu, Oct 25, 2018, 6:49 AM UTC

msvan wrote: post #10

Chinese also had the same "issue": it is more of a family of languages rather than a language. But the Chinese government has been pushing pretty hard for Mandarin over the past 100 years, such that it has now become the Chinese language. It has cost them a lot of linguistic diversity, but they probably think it pays off in the long run.

Just like Spanish was actually the language of Castilla region, and all other Iberian languages had to struggle for survival.

During multiple times throughout the history, it wasn't healthy to speak other Iberian languages in public.

Re: Arabic, a great language, has a low profile

#75

Post by pjmlp » Thu, Oct 25, 2018, 6:51 AM UTC

toomanybeersies wrote: post #62

rvense wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

French was a minority language in France until the 20th century. The other languages were basically beaten and shamed out of school children.

Same situation with Italian. The introduction of the radio and the television played a big part in the shift to Italian and French becoming the normal languages for their respective countries over the multitude of regional languages.

I really enjoy that Napolitan and Sicilian dialects are kind of still being spoken.

Re: Arabic, a great language, has a low profile

#76

Post by unhammer » Thu, Oct 25, 2018, 6:52 AM UTC

theprotocol wrote: post #64

I am a native Arabic speaker. It is an awful language. As the article points out, the dialects are just too numerous for it to gain any kind of critical mass of adoption. But beyond that, I'd say the biggest problem with it is that there are just so many exceptions that knowing the rules of grammar is nowhere near enough to speak it correctly. edit: I also wanted to mention that written Arabic differs from spoken Ara…

> knowing the rules of grammar is nowhere near enough to speak it correctly

So just like every other language.

Re: Arabic, a great language, has a low profile

#77

Post by Uberphallus » Thu, Oct 25, 2018, 6:52 AM UTC

theprotocol wrote: post #64

I am a native Arabic speaker. It is an awful language. As the article points out, the dialects are just too numerous for it to gain any kind of critical mass of adoption. But beyond that, I'd say the biggest problem with it is that there are just so many exceptions that knowing the rules of grammar is nowhere near enough to speak it correctly. edit: I also wanted to mention that written Arabic differs from spoken Ara…

I'm a polyglot, and what keeps me from trying to learn Arabic is precisely that.

Back in the day I worked in a very international environment, two Tunisian colleagues spoke Tunisian to each other, but when the Moroccan or Lebanese guys from the other teams came to ask some questions, everybody switched to French. If was small talk, they would stick to Arabic with the Moroccan though.

It's pretty amazing that Arabic, technically spoken in a contiguous region from Morocco to Saudi Arabia isn't mutually intelligible with itself, whereas English, French or Spanish, separated by oceans for centuries, even if they grew different variants, stay intelligible.

Re: Arabic, a great language, has a low profile

#78

Post by s3graham » Thu, Oct 25, 2018, 6:55 AM UTC

joaodelvalle wrote: post #35

Duolingo has been postponing its launch of Arabic for English speakers for a while. Now, next date is March 1st 2019. https://www.duolingo.com/course/ar/en/Learn-Arabic-Online

I had been using that as an excuse too :) but I've made some progress with Mango (may be available via a local library).

Re: Arabic, a great language, has a low profile

#79

Post by curiousgal » Thu, Oct 25, 2018, 6:58 AM UTC

Uberphallus wrote: post #77

theprotocol wrote: post #64

I am a native Arabic speaker. It is an awful language. As the article points out, the dialects are just too numerous for it to gain any kind of critical mass of adoption. But beyond that, I'd say the biggest problem with it is that there are just so many exceptions that knowing the rules of grammar is nowhere near enough to speak it correctly. edit: I also wanted to mention that written Arabic differs from spoken Ara…

I'm a polyglot, and what keeps me from trying to learn Arabic is precisely that. Back in the day I worked in a very international environment, two Tunisian colleagues spoke Tunisian to each other, but when the Moroccan or Lebanese guys from the other teams came to ask some questions, everybody switched to French. If was small talk, they would stick to Arabic with the Moroccan though. It's pretty amazing that Arabic,…

The fact that the Tunisian dialect is infused with French words doesn't help with communication either, especially with someone from the middle East.

Re: Arabic, a great language, has a low profile

#80

Post by findyoucef » Thu, Oct 25, 2018, 6:59 AM UTC

z92 wrote: post #68

To me Arabic seems to have two dialects mainly. Egyptian and the rest. Egyptian being so different as to sound like a separate language. And as for Iraqi, Syrian, Gulf, Arab or rest of North African Arabic -- those are more or less the same. And if you learn MSN you can cover those.

You think Iraqi, Syrian, Gulf arabic is the same as Maghrebi arabic? As an Algerian I have yet to meet anyone east of Tunisia who can understand the Maghrebi dialects without us heavily modifying our speech to mimic MSA.