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Arabic, a great language, has a low profile

economist.com

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

#251

Post by School-Cotton »

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,…

French and Spanish aren’t mutually intelligible with each other, despite both being dialects of Latin.

That’s a better analogy.

There’s no scientific reason to say all the Arabic dialects are “the same language” whereas all the modern Latin dialects are “different languages”.

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

#252

Post by Koshkin »

appleflaxen wrote: post #236
616c wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You might think that but I decided to major in it in college and it led to many crazy life choices I sometimes regret, but I go to the Arab world often as a result of them. I'll never regret what Arabic has taught me directly and indirectly about the world. I have seen a lot of the contrast of the myopic sheltered culture of middle class Northeast US I grew up in. And I learned Europeans borrowed and saved a lot of i…

What is the meaning of the quote? that when someone teaches you to read, that you have a huge philosophical debt to them (that can never be repayed)?

> philosophical debt

Perhaps, not so much philosophical...

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

#253

Post by JBReefer »

pjmlp wrote: post #75
toomanybeersies wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Sicilian is still spoken a bit in the New York Metro area - a lot of New Jersey Italians that speak fluent Italian have trouble communicating with people in Italy, because it's Sicilian!

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

#254

Post by School-Cotton »

Annatar wrote: post #71
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.

That script is used in several languages that are unrelated to Arabic though, like Urdu for example.

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

#255

Post by Brockenstein »

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 mean I guess I don't know, and some people have disagreed with you. But how do Arabic dialects compare to all the English dialects. I mean U.S., U.K. and Australians can all understand each other mostly, but there's all those little differences too (that I personally enjoy). And even within English speaking countries there are dialects.

So are we talking almost different languages, or minor differences?

As for your other criticisms, I mean they sound a lot like English criticisms. Because English has a lot of those problems too, at a greater or lower scale I can't say. But I wonder.

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

#256

Post by School-Cotton »

nealdt wrote: post #134
titanomachy wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting that he says MSA is further from region arabic than Latin is from Spanish. Provides useful context for people familiar with European languages.

It's a somewhat misleading comparison because nobody uses Latin today. MSA however is the language of the news, media and academia so everyone can understand it.

People did use Latin even into the 1800s for a similar purpose in western countries.

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

#257

Post by eudora »

biggio wrote: post #171
Insanity wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any arguments as to why that is so?

Turkish is regular and straightforward. Arabic, not so much. As for speaking, you have to speak like something stuck in your throat and it doesn't sound that pleasant to be honest.

Arabic sounds lovely https://youtu.be/WEwgafTDrOU

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

#258

Post by eudora »

EliRivers wrote: post #114
bshimmin wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would love an answer to this too - Arabic always sounds beautiful to me and I would love to learn at least a little bit. It seems like learning both MSA and a dialect (perhaps Egyptian) might be the way to go, at least from what I can infer from this thread, the article, and conversations I've had with people in the past, but it's probably not as simple as that. It would perhaps be an easier question to answer if t…

Arabic always sounds beautiful to me When I was speaking it, which was a long time ago and I remember almost nothing, I sounded like a footballer clearing his throat :)

Arabic sounds lovely https://youtu.be/WEwgafTDrOU

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

#259

Post by Cyph0n »

eudora wrote: post #247
simias wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love learning languages and learning about languages. I considered seriously learning Arabic but I eventually decided against it mainly because, as the parent points out, there seem to be many variations between countries and also between formal, literary arabic and the spoken dialects. Given that learning the language (in any form) is probably going to be a huge challenge the prospect of spending years studying th…

You would just learn Egyptian or Lebanese arabic, everyone would understand you. Written (formal) arabic is a different story though, I think that's what's commonly taught for non arabic people

I would add Syrian to that list.

But even within these dialects, there are regional dialects that might be difficult to understand even for native speakers from that same country.

For example, Tunisian Arabic can (roughly) be divided into northern and southern dialects. I've met people in the north who think I'm from Libya because of some words that are shared with southern Tunisian Arabic. Tunisia is a relatively small country, so imagine the variation in dialects in Egypt!

If you're interested in learning Arabic, don't let this scare you! The "generic" Egyptian, Lebanese, and Syrian dialects will easily be understood by most Middle Easterners and a fair chunk of North Africans.

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