# Why is Arabic understudied?



## ayed

Hi, WRPs--Word Reference Pals

It seems to me that some people do not learn the Arabic language. I just want to know your own opinions. It is as other languages that could be acquired and learned. Is it difficult for one to learn Arabic? Or what?

I am curious to reading your answers and opinions

Ayed


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## Whodunit

I bet you thought I would be the first one who replies. But I'm not against learning Arabic.

Your question read if it is difficult to learn it. Well, it is more than hard! I really don't get the plurals. There are so many difficulties, but the most positive thing is, that there isn't a complicated declination of كان (be) and ل (have). The word order is easy to me because it's very similar to German.

All in all, the Arabic language is one of the hardest but most exciting languages. The vowels also set me some problems.

I hope, there'll be more people who'll be interested in learning Arabic.


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## Outsider

I do not speak Arabic, so this is a a layman's opinion, but it would seem to me that the fact that Arabic belongs to a different language family than any European language may be a difficult hurdle to overcome. The grammar and vocabulary should be too different from what Europeans and Americans are used to.


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## Dalian

I can't find any textbooks or literature on Arabic in my city, nor is there any lecture on Arabic in local colleges and universities...
Is there any good website for learning Arabic you'd recommend, Ayed?


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## DDT

I studied some Arabic...the real problem I'm still trying to cope with is the huge gap between written and spoken Arabic...I guess I'm heading soon to Tunisia or Egypt in order to practise the language!

DDT


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## Isis

Ayed, its not that I do not want to learn the language but my sister told me that it is very difficult to learn the language and she can prove that for she has been in Jeddah for 3 years now working in a hospital but she can only speak "primitive" Arabic, which she means "broken Arabic".

    Here in the Philippines, we also have Moslem friends and they really would like to share their knowledge in the language but they are having problems finding textbooks and documents in Arabic here in the country.


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## ayed

> Isis :
> textbooks and documents in Arabic here in the country.


What about Internet sites?


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## Isis

yes, that is the best resource we have in here but we can't use that when we go to the mountains to teach others, that's the dillemma!


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## elroy

DDT said:
			
		

> I studied some Arabic...the real problem I'm still trying to cope with is the huge gap between written and spoken Arabic...I guess I'm heading soon to Tunisia or Egypt in order to practise the language!
> 
> DDT



I know this is a really old thread, but I just wanted to agree wholeheartedly with you!

I think one of the most difficult challenges for foreigners must be accepting the fact that spoken Arabic and written Arabic are extremely different from each other, and that they really need to be learned separately and for different purposes.  I have met many foreigners who have studied written Arabic in their countries.  They then try to speak it to native Arabs, and while they are understood, they sound very awkward and have trouble understanding the respones (unless the natives were to deliberately produce a less than smooth oral duplication of written Arabic).  

Furthermore, the different varieties of the spoken language differ vastly from country to country, and even within countries.  That makes for a frustrating situation: even when a foreigner decides to learn "spoken Arabic," he has to choose which variety he wants to learn.  That, in turn, might depend on which one he considers to be most useful or more "universally understandable."  I've heard, for example, that the Palestinian dialect is one of the easiest to understand by speakers of Arabic across the Arab world, whereas North African dialects almost sound like a different language to me!

Just my two cents.


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## goheels

> whereas North African dialects almost sound like a different language to me!



I've actually heard of Moroccans going to the Gulf and needing a translator!


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## kifaru

Since we're digging up the past, I'll take a shot.

Arabic is not more difficult than any other language I have studied as far as reading it is concerned if it is voweled or if the words have a high amount of recurrence in speech. The pronounciation seems to be the real problem if you study in absence of a native speaker. 

For some time the lack of free study materials on the net was a big impediment to learning the language if one did not have access to native speakers. You could concieveably learn to speak French or Spanish well by using materials found on the net if you were only slightly serious. This was due to the abundance of free materials and native speakers offering free help. Even now if you tried that with Yoruba for instance you will be faced with an almost insurmountable task. I know. I have tried. Most casual learners I think, want to study so that they can converse, and not to be Quranic scholars. Most of the free material seemed to be focused on Quran or classical arabic which may seem of putting to the non muslim casual learner. Luckily for the student of arabic there has been an exponential explosion of free resources on the net that allow you study the language outside of a religious context which heretofore was the main way to access the language on the net. 

There is a great lack of Arabic books to study from that are resonably priced and written in non academic English so as to be accesible to people who don't have any formal linguistic training. Most books, I think were written for the academic audience and are intended to show the writers skill in arcane linguistic formulae to impress other academians the rest being the travel guide type of book that will teach you parrot a few sentences without really explaining enough of the words to allow you to use them to form new sentences.

Finally there is the problem of learning the arabic alphabet. There seems to be a strong opinion amongst people who write arabic books that the learner needs to "read" arabic in order to learn to speak arabic. This is not necessary based on my observation that many arabic web forums are conducted entirely in the arabic language using a romanised alphabet.


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## Thomas F. O'Gara

I agree wholeheartedly with Elroy's assessment. One major problem with learning Arabic is that you generally have to learn at least two languages - Modern Standard Arabic for reading, and some dialect for speaking. 

I learned, however, that in many areas of the Middle East (but not in North Africa, aside from Egypt) you could get by very well and not sound stilted speaking Arabic with MSA pronunciation but using "modern" (in my case, Egyptian) grammar. In fact, it was my impression that this is what most Arabs from different countries spoke with each other. Generally speaking, most Arabic dialects resemble each other grammatically more than any one of them resembles MSA. The trick is watching your vocabulary, and I had to avoid using definite Egyptianisms if I wanted to be understood. Sometimes even Egyptians would correct me if I used an Egyptian dialect word, pointing out to me what the actual word was for something in "proper" Arabic!


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## elroy

Thomas F. O'Gara said:
			
		

> In fact, it was my impression that this is what most Arabs from different countries spoke with each other.


 No, Arabs from different countries speak in their respective dialects to each other, unless one of the dialects is incomprehensible to the other person.  You're generally fine learning one dialect, but you should learn at least one.  Of course, most Arabs understand MSA but it sounds strange in everyday speech.

If you're brave enough to wade through over 50 intense posts, go to this thread for more information.


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## Anatoli

My impression is (maybe I am wrong fro some dialects) that Arabic dialects are not so terribly different from MSA (after looking at some Chinese dialects), the grammar is usually easier, not harder. The number of words that are different from MSA is not large, although they are the most commonly used. Pronunciation is somewhat different but  it usually doesn't affect  the script. 

Probably there should be more textbooks teaching dialects that explain the difference between standard and dialects. I would like to always be able to identify, which word/grammar norm/expression is dialectal and which is the MSA form. There are good resources in this forum and there are some textbooks as well.

There's no point complaining, IMHO and for Arabic to be understudied. I don't think the variety of Arabic dialects is the cause for this.

It's probably the situation with many languages other than English to be understudied. You can go to any country and find an English-speaking person and not knowing the local language is not a show stopper (meaning not absolutly critical but good to have) if you want to do business in that country. Language is fun though.


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## cirrus

Quite apart from the question which version to aim for and getting your head round the alphabet there's also the image of the Arab world in much of the western media.  Increasingly the image is negative and getting worse.  Look at the US government's attitude to Al Jazeera - it's so ironic that something trying to present a voice separate from government and which could even bring about a big shift in the mentality of potential voters in Arabic speaking countries has been seen as oppositional simply because  its reporting doesn't go along with CNN/ Fox News agenda.

Many people in the West have absolutely no idea about anything outside their own country and even less outside their continent. Add to all of this the  misinformation since 9/11 and you have a bigot's charter - why should anyone want to learn a language which has become tainted with the labels fundamentalist/ terrorist?

In some Arabic speaking countries - for example in N Africa many people are fantastic linguists speaking good French, Spanish and English, let alone Berber and Arabic.  I think all of these have a role in this under appreciation and continued ignorance.


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## goheels

> why should anyone want to learn a language which has become tainted with the labels fundamentalist/ terrorist?



The first thing that my mom said to me after I told her I was taking Arabic was "Are they trying to convert you???".


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## cirrus

goheels said:
			
		

> The first thing that my mom said to me after I told her I was taking Arabic was "Are they trying to convert you???".



Were you not tempted to say yes and I'm joining the Coptic church?


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## goheels

> Were you not tempted to say yes and I'm joining the Coptic church?



Ha, no.


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## Thomas F. O'Gara

elroy:

Thanks for the redirect.  I've read that site, and I feel that I can't participate very well, since the participants are all native speakers and it looks like a pretty heated debate.  

What I can say is that I never heard anybody speak MSA outside of news broadcasts and programs that were produced in the West or Japan and dubbed in Arabic.  I particularly found that curious about cartoons - how could a four year old understand MSA?  But my Arab friends assured me that they did, since they heard the Quran from the time they were babies.  

That was a while ago, maybe things have changed.


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## eac

I disagree. If anything, the political crisis between the Western and Arab worlds should encourage the study of Arabic, because it is useful for employment, especially government work. In my college, after 9/11, it was very hard to get into the beginning Arabic classes because they were always full.

I think many people become discouraged and quit before they get a real grasp of the language for two reasons. First, there are few cognates. If I'm studying French, I know there are certain vocab words that are so recognizable I don't have to learn them (information, possible, certain). Same thing with German (Arm, Hand, Fisch). In Arabic, there are only a few like انترنت، فلسف، كمبوتر and even these aren't immediately recognizable. Second, Arabic rhetoric can be very bombastic and intentionally complex. I'm reading an article now with one sentence that's 18 lines long. I understand that's style, but it's very tough to understand, let alone translate, clauses within clauses within clauses within clauses.


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## elroy

Thomas F. O'Gara said:
			
		

> Thanks for the redirect. I've read that site, and I feel that I can't participate very well, since the participants are all native speakers and it looks like a pretty heated debate.


 I guess you could say it's a pretty heated debate, but the participants are by no means all native speakers. In fact, only two of the participants so far are.


> What I can say is that I never heard anybody speak MSA outside of news broadcasts and programs that were produced in the West or Japan and dubbed in Arabic.


 Unsurprising. 


> I particularly found that curious about cartoons - how could a four year old understand MSA? But my Arab friends assured me that they did, since they heard the Quran from the time they were babies.


 I don't think the Qur'an has much to do with it. First, not all children listen to it (I didn't, for example) and second, the Arabic of the Qur'an is far more poetic and elaborate than that of cartoons (and that's an understatement!). Children pick up MSA through repeated exposure to cartoons and other channels in which MSA is used (mainly, other TV shows). Children are young enough to develop a passive understanding of MSA if exposed to it early enough. After all, that's what makes the difference between (most) native speakers and other foreigners who also get their formal MSA instruction in the classroom. Native speakers are exposed to MSA much earlier on, and therefore develop an ear for it that it takes foreigners much longer to attain, if ever.


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## walkerw8

Greetings Friends, 

More digging up of the past. I wouldn't have replied here but something I saw resonated with me: 



> The first thing that my mom said to me after I told her I was taking Arabic was "Are they trying to convert you???".



Sometime this summer I decided to start studying and learning the Arabic language. 

My grandmother, whom is devoutly Christian, when I told her, she said "You better watch out, they'll be trying to convert you". 

Anyways, maybe the current crises have something to do with my newfound interest, they definitely raised my awareness to the Arabic world for sure. I also have an Kurdish Iraqi coworker friend here (working at a University) who spent most of his life here in USA, he's also learning Arabic too, bringing in Arabic music and playing it from time to time, I thought, "what a beautiful language", so that further inspired me. I also do not want to be the typical American who lives their whole life knowing only English. 

But I would never attempt to undertake such a grand task as learning a totally foreign language without some guidance. 

As it turns out, I found some Arabic class being offered at a community Baha'i faith center here in Nashville, Tennessee, USA. I went there a couple months back, and found 1.) the class was free (maybe they are trying to convert!) 2.) that it was actually an intermediate/advanced level course being taught by a middle aged Arabic man from Iraq to a handful of Persian Baha'i who already know the Farsi, and wanted to learn Arabic because the Baha'i prophet revealed many of his writings in Arabic as well as Farsi. 

So after I realized there would be classes available, and a few weeks prior to attending the classes, I found this GREAT web resource for learning how to read and write the Arabic script (Islamopas.com something; it wont let me post a link. Oh Well). 

Took a little bit of that each night, and have nearly completed all of the lessons. Of course it didn't help much with the language but that is what the class is for. After going to the class for the few weeks, and the teacher realizing that about 90 percent of the class material was wayyyyy over my head, but that I was seemed to be very dedicated to learning, the teacher offered to give me a seperate class once per week at the beginners level, again, for free (Do you know how much "private" lessons like that SHOULD cost?? So much for the myth that nothing is free anymore). And that just started last week. I still go to the intermediate class, if for nothing else, to just be around the people speaking Arabic, so I can absorb it, and as I said, it's probably 90 percent above my head, but there are still things I pick up on there. 
So the teacher, this past Tuesday (advanced level class) looked at my notebook, and simply said "Amazing" (twice for effect), being very impressed with my writing, for someone who had not grown up with the language. I think my Arabic handwriting might actually be better than my English. Haha. It seems that me being a lefthanded, writing the Arabic right-to-left almost feels quite more natural to me than the English which is left-to-right. 

How's that for an introduction to this forum. I hope to be able to pick up some things on here to help me with my studies, in addition to my classwork and other books I've taken from the libraries. 

Shukran, 

Will


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## unefemme1

I guess for people here, since NZ is a multicultural nation,and English is the main language, we only learn other languages if we actually want to, ie there is no pressure. In school, they do encourage 13 year olds to take up different languages then choose their language preference. But the languages on offer are often European ones, such as Italian, French, Spanish etc. Or a few Asian languages, mainly korean or Japanese. I don't know why they don't have Arabic-not enough resources perhaps??
I like Arabic though; it sounds nice when spoken, and the writing is an art itself. It is very different to European languages who use the standard alphabet, thus it may be difficult due to that reason. I don't know any Arabic at all, so I guess it will be hard for me to learn, or maybe not. 
Also, maybe its just that it looks hard to learn, so people may be put off by it...? The same with chinese; there is no alphabet, so you can't put words together. All in all, I would encourage learning of Arabic. It is widely used. It all depends on your preferences really. Like *eac* has said, Arabic writing is recognisable, but hard to read, if you have never seen it before.
And few Arabic words are used internationally although I can't think of any right now...


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## jimreilly

Someone in my generation never had much opportunity to study Arabic when young. I knew no one who studied any language other than English before high school, although I heard a little Italian at home. My high school offered two languages besides English--Latin, and French, and I took all the years I could of both of them. I also managed to get to Panama for three months in high school and learn a little Spanish. I've been "stuck" in the Romance languages ever since, with some study of Norwegian (for work reasons) thrown in the mix, and a pronunciation ability in several others for singing purposes.

If I had been able to study Arabic in high school I might have--I still wanted to learn everything in those days and I thought I had the energy for it, too. Not now!

Even today there are many high schools in the US that do not offer languages other than English, or only Spanish (certainly a fine language to offer!). There are a minority of schools which are better, of course. And there are some--not nearly enough--school systems which teach languages to younger students. Not many programs for those kids in Arabic, I'm sure!

My first contact with anyone who had ever studied Arabic was when I was in my late twenties when I spoke with a woman who had studied more than twenty languages, including some non-European ones. She assured me that Arabic was the hardest (I can't say if she was correct or not). So I've always been afraid of it, as I am of other non-European languages, and I assumed gaining any reasonable facility would be beyond me. My friends who havebegun study, as adults,of such languages as Japanese, Chinese, and Hebrew have never gotten too far. I have great respect for anyone who tries.

Obviously it's going to take a while to change this situation, if it does change. Since the US is bad at encouraging the majority of young people to study languages at all, no one should expect miracles over night. It's a pretty frustrating situation for those of us who value language study!
But just as the study of Russian was encouraged during the "Cold War", the government will probably see to it that some people study Arabic now because of the world situation. A shame that this will be reason....and it probably won't result in fourth grade Arabic-language immersion schools, either.

Maybe, if we're lucky, some people will also study Arabic because they want to relate better to other people in the world. At least a few! More power to those of you who are doing it!


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## unefemme1

Well, for me, I decided to learn French simply because I loved it, and still do. I don't know if there are even privately run Arabic-learning programs here. In schools here, I think there is far too much focus on European languages-not that there's anything wrong with being interested in them- but what about languages of the Middle East? Or Asian languages? Now is a good time to introduce Arabic in colleges (high schools for you Americans ). It may be sad, but at least we all learn more about other cultures before we judge, right?


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## Abu Bishr

Why is Arabic understudied?

Well, I think it depends on the angle. If we are talking about non-Arabic speaking Muslims, I think the situation is quite different. Muslims whose native language is not Arabic have always dispayed a tremendous interest in Arabic. Here I'm referring to Malaysians, Indonesians, Indians, Pakistanis, Muslims living in Western countries. This I know from experience since I'm one of them. Moreover, this phenomenon is increasing by the day & I know this from personal experience. Often what helps Muslims with learning Arabic is that many of them already know how to read Arabic script due to Quranic reading classes they attend from an early age. Also,their motivation is high because after being able to read the Quran (only the script though without understanding) they now want to know what it is that they are reading. This is often a very powerful motivating factor. Thus, they already have an interest kindled in them from an early age to learn Arabic because it is part of religion to at least learn how to read the Quranic script. The logical step therefater is then to learn it for the purpose of understanding.

As for those who come from a different background (Anglo-Eurpean for example), I think Arabic is definitely understudied there. The main reason I think goes back to not being sufficiently interested, motivated and having the patience for a language that is not easy on the anglophone tongue. Also, their circumstances are different from those of the previous group. In addition, I think that Arabic is not as popular with the masses as some of the other languages. I think we would do well if we can enumerate the reasons why people of Anglo-European background generally learn Arabic and this would give us some indication as to where Arabic stands in relation to other languages.


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## cirrus

Abu Bishr said:


> Muslims whose native language is not Arabic have always dispayed a tremendous interest in Arabic. Here I'm referring to Malaysians, Indonesians, Indians, Pakistanis, Muslims living in Western countries. This I know from experience since I'm one of them. Moreover, this phenomenon is increasing by the day & I know this from personal experience. Often what helps Muslims with learning Arabic is that many of them already know how to read Arabic script due to Quranic reading classes they attend from an early age. .


 
I agree this is definitely a motivator. However the model used in many medrassas here (eg for Urdu or Bengali speakers in London) is simply learning to chant the Quran rather than actually understand the language.  This always strikes me as a hugely missed opportunity.  

What I don't know is whether this is simply a Southern Asian phenomenon or is it also the case in Africa and SE Asia?


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## Hibou57

kifaru said:


> Finally there is the problem of learning the arabic alphabet. There seems to be a strong opinion amongst people who write arabic books that the learner needs to "read" arabic in order to learn to speak arabic. This is not necessary based on my observation that many arabic web forums are conducted entirely in the arabic language using a romanised alphabet.


 
Bismillah Kifaru.. I'm not sure I've understood your means. When you end saying « This is not necessary based on my observation that many arabic web forums are conducted entirely in the arabic language using a romanised alphabet » did you mean that doing so is a good or a bad thing ? ... I personaly think it's a bad way, but despite of that, I would be interested in your opinion even if it was the opposite of mine 

Baraka'l-llahu fika/ki 



Anatoli said:


> There's no point complaining, IMHO and for Arabic to be understudied. I don't think the variety of Arabic dialects is the cause for this.


It seems to me that the more realistic reason is an economic reason : indeed, not a very long time ago, I've shouted against a guy pretending that it is unuseful to learn arabic beceause learning arabic does not give you money (in his opinion, learning english is a promise of money). This is a simplified reporting, but a good abstract of a common practical opinion.

Further more, Arabic langage is frequently associated to poverty... and even if the langage is not it self responsable for the poverty, tnings go on like in every days life : loose your job, and all so called « friends » run away... it is the with langage. If most native speaker of a langage are not rich, then people do not to be associated with them in anyway, and so do not want to know anything about the langage.



elroy said:


> What I can say is that I never heard anybody speak MSA outside of news broadcasts and programs that were produced in the West or Japan and dubbed in Arabic.
> 
> 
> 
> Unsurprising.
Click to expand...

You are joking, aren't you ?



			
				Jimreally said:
			
		

> She assured me that Arabic was the hardest (I can't say if she was correct or not)


I can't let say that , simply because it's a matter of spirit constitution _(correct me if I had not choose the best words). _Imagine a software developer creating a new language, a new « natural » language... he/she will create one which will be easy to learn for some one who think like a software engineer. Imagine some one who prefer chemistry or who think like a chemist... she/he would probably create a language with cognitive schema easily understandable for any one who practice/love chemistry.

Arabic is not easy, but it is not hard. It depend on the way you approach it, and it depends on the cognitive schemas you think with. It is like math, or social science, or any things else.. it is easy or not, depending on the existing schemas in your spirit.


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## abmateen

Asslam-u-Alikum,
Arabic is not so hard as some people here is saying.I am a Native Urdu speaking and have a nice practice reading Arabic.But still I am not learning Arabic in Urdu but in English My first book was W.Wright Grammar I have made my basic from this book which by some people is very hard.But not for me basically depend upon you.As my intention is to understand Quran so Allah is helping me


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## elroy

Hibou, I was not joking.  I don't know why you thought I was.  Use the search feature to find the threads we've had about where and when MSA is used.


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## Brioche

There are only five universities in Australia which offer courses in Arabic. 

I cannot give the current figures, but there were only 120 university students studying the language in 2001.

From the Australian point of view, Arabic is not seen as economically important, compared to Japanese or Chinese, which are the most popular non-European languages in Australia.

Even though there are Arabic-speaking Christians in Australia, Arabic and Islam are practically synonymous here. 

As far as I know, the only Arabic language courses, taught as part of the normal school curriculum, are in Islamic schools. Muslims are less than 2% of the population in Australia.


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## Hibou57

elroy said:


> Hibou, I was not joking. I don't know why you thought I was. Use the search feature to find the threads we've had about where and when MSA is used.


There was an error in my quote _(dunno how it occurs)_... I correct it right now.


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## Anatoli

Brioche said:


> There are only five universities in Australia which offer courses in Arabic.
> 
> I cannot give the current figures, but there were only 120 university students studying the language in 2001.


I had trouble finding an Arabic short course in Melbourne, I know there are some in Sydney.



Brioche said:


> From the Australian point of view, Arabic is not seen as economically important, compared to Japanese or Chinese, which are the most popular non-European languages in Australia.
> 
> Even though there are Arabic-speaking Christians in Australia, Arabic and Islam are practically synonymous here.
> ...


There should be more promotion of Arabic as a language and not only that of Islam because there is a perception that you learn Arabic only if you are interested in Islam - that's the kind of questions I get when I enquire about books, CD's, etc. in Arabic.

Agree with economical importance but also the instability in the Middle East is not helping it to make it important, travelling to a number of Arab is not advised by the Australian government for safety reasons, even the ones considered more or less stable because of some terrorist acts against Westerners in the last few years. Still there are some great job/business opportunities in some Gulf countries and some other Arab countries as far as I know.


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## kifaru

Hibou57 said:


> Bismillah Kifaru.. I'm not sure I've understood your means. When you end saying « This is not necessary based on my observation that many arabic web forums are conducted entirely in the arabic language using a romanised alphabet » did you mean that doing so is a good or a bad thing ? ... I personaly think it's a bad way, but despite of that, I would be interested in your opinion even if it was the opposite of mine
> 
> Baraka'l-llahu fika/ki


To clarify, what meant was it is not necessary to learn the alphabet if you want to speak. I have no opinion about whether it is good or bad just that it is not necessary. Reading is one skill speaking is another and they need not be conflated. If you can read one alphabet and words can be transliterated it seems to me a waste to learn an entirely new one if your goal is to speak. I'm basing this on research that written words are not "read" as individual letters unless they are new and the letters just act as cues for pronounciation. The words actually form a symbol in the mind of the reader that the reader associates with the sound of the whole word not the indivdual letters. If a person has someone pronounce the word first and then
they see the word the two become associated.  

I'd also like to add something in reference topic. I think that the western learners would benefit if Arabic study materials used the same method and format that is used to teach European languages in schools. One such series is "Como se dice" which is designed to teach English speaking students to speak spanish.


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## Anatoli

I share your frustration with the quality of many Arabic textbooks available, Hibou and Kifaru and I have experience learning foreign languages. The textbooks that _continuously_ use both Arabic text and romanisation are the best (among other qualities, of course). The script should be learned but it's a different skill - I am combining both. I go through Arabic script but I find it too difficult to follow if listening to CD's, need to use romanisation then.

The *Ultimate Arabic* teaches MSA in the first 15 lessons (followed by dialects), you might want consider that one - it has both Arabic script and the romanised scripts, audio is available (a little too fast, IMHO but read naturally). I am not too happy with some exercises but otherwise it's not bad.


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## Qcumber

I think one of the shortcomings of Arabic, that makes it difficult, is its alphabet.

1) It is a cursive alphabet without non-cursive equivalent. 
2) Its vowels are not written. 
3) It has no capital letters. 
4) Words are not entered in their alphabetic order in dictionaries, but according to their roots, and sometimes the root is nearly impossible to find.

I think the first step to progress would be the invention of non-cursive types as clear as the Latin ones, the printing of all vowels and the use of capitals as in English.


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## mujahid7ia

Whoa. Those all sound like major changes in the language. I doubt any would help, though.

Capital letters? Why would that help? Instead of almost 30 letters to learn, there would be almost 60!

Root order is one of the best features of language, and the dictionaries.


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## Qcumber

mujahid7ia said:


> Whoa. Those all sound like major changes in the language. I doubt any would help, though. Capital letters? Why would that help? Instead of almost 30 letters to learn, there would be almost 60!


 
I'm afraid you are confusing the language and its alphabet. These are not major changes in the language, but major steps forward in the Arabic alphabet.


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## Anatoli

I had some trouble reading certain Arabic fonts, especially when letters are too to each other and sit on top of each other, now I got used to it but occasionally it could be a problem. Also, when the vowels ARE written, I may not be able to tell what they are (depends on the font), if they overlap with the actual letters, sometimes it's really cluttered.

I know that some languages, (like Uyghur) use Arabic letters to write all vowels but I am not sure if they have distinction between long and short vowels, though. Arabic script is the second frequently used script after Roman. The reform, if needed, could be done without moving to a different script but using the existing one with some modifications and simplifications.

I don't think Arabic will ever move into the Roman alphabet or create a new one but if does, it would need extra diacritics for some letters and/or letter combinations, like e.g. Maltese or Turkish.

The very interesting examples of writing reforms are Vietnamese, Korean (characters to Hangul) and Turkish.

It's doubtful that the writing system is the reason for the language to be understudied. Indonesian uses Latin and has 200 mln speakers, is it studied well? Chinese and Japanese have much more complicated writing system but they are very popular. In some cases, I think figuring out how to read an Arabic word correctly (with all the right vowels) can be more challenging than in Chinese or Japanese, though


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## mujahid7ia

Qcumber said:


> I'm afraid you are confusing the language and its alphabet. These are not major changes in the language, but major steps forward in the Arabic alphabet.



Yeah, I guess you're right. But still, do you eally think capitals would help? There would be more letter forms to recognize.



			
				walkerw8 said:
			
		

> So after I realized there would be classes available, and a few weeks prior to attending the classes, I found this GREAT web resource for learning how to read and write the Arabic script (Islamopas.com something; it wont let me post a link. Oh Well).



Can you PM the link? Thanks.


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## Outsider

Don't change your script. It's beautiful. People are even using it for tattoos, around here.


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## MarcB

mujahid7ia said:


> Can you PM the link? Thanks.


learn arabic online
Also look at our Arabic Resources | موارد للغة العربية


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## mujahid7ia

Thank you, MarcB.


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## majlo

I first became interested in Arabic language as well as the culture when I first went to London in 2005 and acquainted two guys from Jordan. Then I had the opportunity to hear the language live, and I must say it sounded almost better than RP to me. 
However, it wasn't until a few days ago when I decided to take up Arabic. Fortunately, there are a lot of resources on the Web, so for the time being I can do without even buying a textbook.
Not only did I decide to commence learning Arabic on the grounds of my interest, but also to try out my determination. I have a flash in the pan, and it's about time I changed it.
As a titbit I can add that in Poland Arabic studies are very besieged. At the major universities they accept about 15 people out of, say, 400 candidates.


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## elroy

Moderator Note: I'd like to remind everyone to stick to the topic: *Why is Arabic understudied?* 

Information presented in the attempt to answer this question is welcome, but should not be discussed as an independent topic outside the context of the topic in the title of the thread.

Thank you for your understanding!


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## Abu Rashid

Qcumber,



> I think one of the shortcomings of Arabic, that makes it difficult, is its alphabet


Although the alphabet can be a little challenging at first I think it's one of the most fun parts of learning Arabic. A whole new writing system, and one which is very beautiful and stylish and decorative and in reality it's really not all that hard. Anyway there's so many books now which use transliteration (I really hate this personally, as you can't get the proper sound from them) that the alphabet obstacle is almost irrelevant.



> 1) It is a cursive alphabet without non-cursive equivalent


This is perhaps a valid point. A non-cursive form of the alphabet which could compliment the cursive form might be a wise thought to consider.



> 2) Its vowels are not written


They can be, and are, written in many cases. However, in most cases they're just not necessary, and this is in fact one of the great advantages of Arabic, once you learn it sufficiently, you can do away with unnecessary "training wheels" like this. However, as a beginner, I'd suggest using kids books, which almost always have full vowelisation.



> 3) It has no capital letters


Capital letters are really over-rated. They serve pretty much no practical purpose in English and in fact are more of an impediment to learning, as people become confused about them and their useage, when they're really not necessary anyway. How on earth this point got in here, I don't know... perhaps you were trying to make your argument look a little more numerically greater than it actually is?



> 4) Words are not entered in their alphabetic order in dictionaries, but according to their roots, and sometimes the root is nearly impossible to find


This one has already been countered. The root system is one of the great advantages of the Arabic language (this is not really an alphabet issue), once you've become proficient in using it, which really shouldn't take that much time. What is more ridiculous is having to look in all different sections of a dictionary to find all the different variations of a word as you do in English. If you know the basic process of reducing a word to its root letters, then using a dictionary is so easy and so much more efficient in Arabic than in other languages.


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## Anatoli

Well, availability of schooling is one of the reasons of Arabic being understudied (or an argument against this statement).

I posted a table in cultural discussions showing number of web-sties and amount of material per language.
The data is very out-of-date (2000) but showed that Arabic was behind a lot of small languages like Hungarian, Slovenian, etc. I heard the Arabic input method was invented not so long ago and many Arabic texts on the web were graphical - too slow and search was impossible. Arabic is not heavily used in Wikipedia either. Some older sites (only a few years ago) mentioned there were some African Arabic countries where Internet is heavily censored or even absent - e.g. Djibouti, Eritrea.

My thread was closed because it is a research (!?), I think.

I wonder if you could share ideas why Internet has still a long way to go in the Arab world. Well, the more Arabic contents there is, the more justification there is to learn this language.


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## MarX

cirrus said:


> I agree this is definitely a motivator. However the model used in many medrassas here (eg for Urdu or Bengali speakers in London) is simply learning to chant the Quran rather than actually understand the language. This always strikes me as a hugely missed opportunity.
> 
> What I don't know is whether this is simply a Southern Asian phenomenon or is it also the case in Africa and SE Asia?


I hope this won't be deleted because I'm gonna answer the original question. 

To answer the question:
In Indonesia people also only learn to read Arabic, but not really the language itself.


Some reasons why it's understudied in Indonesia:

1. There is a widespread belief in Indonesia that Arabic is extremely hard.
2. Most of the people don't see the need of learning Arabic for religious purposes. They let the ulamas do that (but somehow even most of the ulamas I know don't really speak Arabic)
3. There is not much exposure to Arabic there, whereas you hear English everywhere.
4. In addition to that, European languages have somehow more prestige. Don't ask me why.


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## Zeidan

Hi everyone, 

I know I'm too late, but I like to say that languages, all languages, are part of our humanity and we should take part in protecting them. 
I think also that there's no difficult language, I mean that all languages are equally learnable, and Arabic compared to other languages has many positive areas(Linguistically speaking) that encourage people to learn it.
I do agree with elroy that the Holy Qura'n is not responsible for children understanding of the MSA, even though the child whose parents are careful to teach him/her the Qur'an will be better in Arabic, I mean his tongue will be wonderful for the standard Arabic ( and I know many examples) but on the other hand, the children understanding for the MSA is an evidence that it's not so different from the colloquial Arabic, and they are evidently mutually understood, because there is no child in these days acquires the MSA but we all acquire the colloquial one. 
I hope to teach Arabic and serve this language and other languages as well.


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## Andrew___

elroy said:


> I know this is a really old thread, but I just wanted to agree wholeheartedly with you!
> 
> I think one of the most difficult challenges for foreigners must be accepting the fact that spoken Arabic and written Arabic are extremely different from each other, and that they really need to be learned separately and for different purposes.  I have met many foreigners who have studied written Arabic in their countries.  They then try to speak it to native Arabs, and while they are understood, they sound very awkward and have trouble understanding the respones (unless the natives were to deliberately produce a less than smooth oral duplication of written Arabic).
> 
> Furthermore, the different varieties of the spoken language differ vastly from country to country, and even within countries.  That makes for a frustrating situation: even when a foreigner decides to learn "spoken Arabic," he has to choose which variety he wants to learn.  That, in turn, might depend on which one he considers to be most useful or more "universally understandable."  I've heard, for example, that the Palestinian dialect is one of the easiest to understand by speakers of Arabic across the Arab world, whereas North African dialects almost sound like a different language to me!
> 
> Just my two cents.



I am delighted Elroy that it seems that you (used to) agree with me that there is a large difference between spoken and written Arabic.  I wholeheartedly agree with you. 

Andrew


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