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Why Arabic is Terrific

idlewords.com

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Re: Why Arabic is Terrific

#181

Post by wbruce »

idlewords wrote: post #180
wbruce wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It really wasn't so much the politics of the post that bothered me (I'm a "pre-occupation" Arabic DLI graduate whose politics probably closely match your own) -- it was your mischaracterization of the 63+ week program there as limited to "hobbies and the weather," said from the comfort of a (somehow more extensive?) 9 week program at MIIS. I have a stack of Arabic books, about as tall as me, from the DLI course that…

I intended that more as a comment on how frustrating it can be to study Arabic, where years of effort leave you barely able to follow a TV broadcast, and not as a slight on the DLI, which is probably as intensive a program as anyone can pursue. I can see how you can read that comment as a dig at the DLI, but that wasn't my intent.

Thanks, good to hear (worth noting that I didn't mean my reply as a dig at MIIS, either). I really did enjoy the article in other respects; I have a severe love for the language, even to this day.

Re: Why Arabic is Terrific

#182

Post by hetman »

Cushman wrote: post #113
cletus wrote: post #104

I'm a native English speaker. I studied a little French and speak (and can read/write) some German (with limited vocabulary). For the English speaker, German grammar is painful enough (3 genders, agreement of nouns and adjectives by case, number and article, separable verbs, etc) but, based on what reading I've done, German is still "Latin lite". A friend of mine (also native English speaker) lives in Taiwan and has…

I don't know if it's completely true that English has less character variation than Arabic— as you say, in English there is a choice of upper or lower-case, with occasional changes in meaning. In Arabic, the form of a letter is completely determined by the letter it follows. It's purely a display difference, not a separate character set. There are the diacritics to think about, but outside of the Quran they are simpl…

Someone more familiar with Arabic may need to correct me, however I was under the impression that the shape of the letters is not at all affected by the letters it follows, but by their position in the word.

Arabic letters look different depending on whether they are in the initial, medial, final position in a word (as well as having a 4th form when they appear in isolation). However, there are patterns of similarity so it's not as difficult as having to learn 4 completely random shapes for each letter.

Re: Why Arabic is Terrific

#183

Post by drinian »

bluishgreen wrote: post #79

"The combination of numerous dialects and a formal/informal continuum is pretty much unique to Arabic and gives rise to fascinating situations watching Arabs calibrate their language based on the situation and the linguistic background of their interlocutor." Nope, not unique. Tamil ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tamil_language ) is the same way. I am a native tamil speaker.

Going back in history about five hundred years, I wonder if you could compare the Arabic dialects vs. classical Arabic to Romance languages vs. Latin.

Re: Why Arabic is Terrific

#184

Post by mortenjorck »

blahedo wrote: post #172
cletus wrote: post #104

I'm a native English speaker. I studied a little French and speak (and can read/write) some German (with limited vocabulary). For the English speaker, German grammar is painful enough (3 genders, agreement of nouns and adjectives by case, number and article, separable verbs, etc) but, based on what reading I've done, German is still "Latin lite". A friend of mine (also native English speaker) lives in Taiwan and has…

There is a certain amount of misinformation in this post that I'd like to clear up: 1) In the 10th century, (Old) English and (Old) German were already somewhat divergent, and not really mutually intelligible, but closely related. 2) The same goes for Norman and French. While in the same language family, these were not quite the same language. 3) Have you read any Chaucer? I'm not sure I'd call Middle English "mostly…

Actually, isn't the concept of a kana-only character system how early, domestically-marketed microcomputers in Japan did in fact work? The only example I can think of is a home entertainment console, but the Nintendo Family Computer generally used kana with a few highly common kanji.

Re: Why Arabic is Terrific

#185

Post by hetman »

bluekeybox wrote: post #117
johnyzee wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think that is true. Learning another language sets you up with a grammar vocabulary that is very useful when learning any other language later on. We learn Latin in high school specifically because it is like a key to learning other languages.

> We learn Latin in high school specifically because it is like a key to learning other languages I would say that this concept that Latin is a key to European languages is a big fat lie. In the former Soviet block (which is where I'm from), Latin was not taught in schools. About half of my former high school classmates now live in a different country and are fluent in the language of that country, whether it's Engli…

That doesn't mean Latin is not a useful key to learning other languages for native English speakers.

English lacks many of the concepts that exist in a lot of European languages; no grammatical gender, almost no noun case, verb conjugation has little inflexion, etc, etc. Since Latin possesses these features it is a useful reference language for many European and even many non-European languages.

Now, I'm not sure where you're from exactly, but a lot of the languages in the former Soviet block also do tend to exhibit a lot of these features so Latin would probably not be as needed there.

Re: Why Arabic is Terrific

#186

Post by idlewords »

rdouble wrote: post #149
idlewords wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Arabic programs were tiny pre-2001, and now they are extremely oversubscribed. Curiously enough there are still very few people who make it past third-year level :-)

In any case, you may like the book I linked to in my post.

Thank you, it looks terrific! Just ordered it now and can't wait to dig in.

Re: Why Arabic is Terrific

#187

Post by cabalamat »

Cyph0n wrote: post #56
cabalamat wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Unlike with the English language, rarely do you find someone who follows grammatical rules in everyday speech. Surely they do follow grammar, albeit the grammar of whatever colloquial Arabic they are speaking, rather than the grammar of Modern Standard Arabic? In terms of colloquial Arabics, do they have less complex inflexional systems compared to MSA (in the same way that Italian and Spanish do compared with Lati…

Most Arabic dialects are just that: dialects. They have no grammatical rules, nor a official written form for that matter, and are ultimately used for nothing more than speech.

> They have no grammatical rules

Nonsense! All languages and dialects (not just prestige ones such as MSA or Standard English) have grammatical rules. If a language didn't have grammar, it would be impossible to express the distinction between "the dog bites the man" and "the man bites the dog".

Re: Why Arabic is Terrific

#188

Post by Cyph0n »

cabalamat wrote: post #187
Cyph0n wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most Arabic dialects are just that: dialects. They have no grammatical rules, nor a official written form for that matter, and are ultimately used for nothing more than speech.

> They have no grammatical rules Nonsense! All languages and dialects (not just prestige ones such as MSA or Standard English) have grammatical rules. If a language didn't have grammar, it would be impossible to express the distinction between "the dog bites the man" and "the man bites the dog".

Exactement.

Re: Why Arabic is Terrific

#189

Post by donw »

Marginally on-topic, but I just looked at the tuition for the Monterey Institute.

A summer program is $15k USD; a full semester is $16k USD.

If you want to learn a language, and have a spare $15K and the time for intensive classes, you're far better off just booking a plane ticket, going to wherever it is, and hiring a private tutor.

Let's say you wanted to learn Chinese. You can live very, very comfortably in Beijing on about $2k USD per month, including the cost of a private tutor, food, entertainment, and travel.

That means six months in-country for less than the tuition of the Institute. Six months of daily use plus intensive study will move you, terms of proficiency, ahead of 90% of people that hold degrees in Chinese.

You could do something like this even in less westerner-friendly countries, and learn a million times more than you will at any language school -- there is absolutely no substitute for actual experience.

Re: Why Arabic is Terrific

#190

Post by donw »

bluishgreen wrote: post #79

"The combination of numerous dialects and a formal/informal continuum is pretty much unique to Arabic and gives rise to fascinating situations watching Arabs calibrate their language based on the situation and the linguistic background of their interlocutor." Nope, not unique. Tamil ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tamil_language ) is the same way. I am a native tamil speaker.

Japanese and Chinese do this as well. Lots of different formality levels, and every region in either country has dialects that are incomprehensible to an unlearned outsider.

In Japan, everybody learns Standard Japanese Pronunciation, and I've never had a problem getting around even in the boonies.

In China, I believe there are still a lot of people that don't speak Standard Mandarin, but this number will continue to shrink thanks to the explosive growth of high-speed (Radio/TV/Internet) media in China.

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