Standard Arabic Is Alive And Well And Is Here To Stay

This posting is a sequel to the one posted on this blog two days ago under the title "'Linguistic Democratization' of the Arabic Language is not the Way" and which was written in response to an article that was published in the English language UAE-based newspaper The National, titled "The death of Arabic is greatly exaggerated", by author of the Lebanese politics Qifa Nabki blog Elias Muhanna. My posting resulted in additional interesting discussion, including comments by Elias Muhanna (including this comment, and this comment) and by Benjamin Geer (including this comment and this comment). You can read my replies here, here and here.

In one of his comments, Benjamin Geer commented on the situation of Fus'ha (Modern Standard) Arabic in Egypt (in response to my comments on the situation in Syria) by saying:

"As you’re probably aware, the situation in Egypt is very different from what you describe. It’s very rare, in my experience, to find an Egyptian intellectual who is comfortable speaking fusha. This is reflected when Egyptians participate in debates on Arab satellite TV: while a Moroccan participant will speak fusha, an Egyptian participant typically speaks only in Egyptian dialect. Moreover, this seems to cause no problems in practice." 

In my reply, I attempted to speculate on why this may be the case:

 "[--] I am aware of the situation of Fus’ha amongst Egyptians. But I do not see that as a flaw in Fus’ha Arabic. I see it as the result of how the Egyptian educational system sets its priorities. I always get the feeling that there is less public emphasis in Egypt on pan-Arabism (and as result on Fus’ha Arabic), when compared to the situation in other Arabic countries, such as Syria (or even Libya or Algeria, to mention other examples). There is celebration in Egypt of ‘Egyptness’, if you will, more than there is of pan-Arabism. And that perhaps is reflected in how Arabic is used in public life and education in that country. Fus’ha Arabic, in comparison, is nurtured at a very young age in the Syrian educational system, and the emphasis persists throughout the stages of learning of Syrian students all the way until — and including — university education. All specialties and fields in the public Syrian universities (including higher education) are taught in Fus’ha Arabic. All the curricula are in Arabic. As I mentioned previously, I studied medicine in Syria in Arabic, for example (cf. medicine is taught in English in Egypt and many other Arabic countries). But not only that. Fus’ha Arabic is also celebrated in the media and in public life in Syria. Yes, you do see the local dialects celebrated in the widely popular Syrian drama works that have made the Syrian dialect(s) familiar to other Arabs, for example, but you also find Fus’ha Arabic widely used and supported officially in Syria in the media and in other public life activities. There is no online Syrian portal that I know of that writes in colloquial Syrian. And for the readers of this blog to see how (and what kind of ) Fus’ha prevails as a language of communication in Syria, all you have to do is look at some Syrian websites, as examples (such as http://www.discover-syria.com/ or http://www.syria-news.com/). There is no way that any literate Syrian — who is living in or who grew up in Syria — would find difficulty in reading the sort of Standard Arabic used in the likes of the websites mentioned above."

 In the same comment Benjamin Geer further wrote:

“Why do you see a need for a single standardized written language? Isn’t the purpose of language to enable people to understand each other? If a Jordanian can understand Egyptian dialect, and an Egyptian can understand Jordanian dialect (at least when it is somewhat formal, or “moderate”, as you put it), why shouldn’t each person speak and write in their own dialect?

Moreover, hasn’t this already been happening for a long time? Egyptian films are popular all over the Arab world. Throughout the twentieth century, most Egyptian writers have written narrative in fusha and dialogue in ammiyya. Therefore, it is necessary to know Egyptian dialect in order to understand most modern Egyptian literature. Where is the “chaos” in this? Why should Egyptians struggle to master fusha when everyone already understands their dialect anyway?”

My response to that included the following:

Dialects in the Arab World.

Photo Credit: Arab League. Shared under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license

"[-] Let’s first start by looking at a map showing the different dialects of Arabic in the Arab World [-] . To my mind, just looking at that map makes me think that your suggestion is impractical. Yes, most Arabs understand the Egyptian dialect when it is spoken, thanks to the popularity of Egyptian television and cinema works in the past decades, but Egyptian dialect does not come in one flavor. There is “Egyptian Arabic” and there is “Sai’di Arabic” and there are probably some variants of both. I do not see it as practical that you adopt a policy in which everyone officially writes in their own dialects. But even if you want to do that, you will need standardization. You cannot in any language have people just spelling words or writing sentences any way they like. If you look at how Arabs write in their spoken dialects in social media, you will see that their spellings are so variable, and your understanding of their text will depend largely on your knowledge of their dialect and your interpretive skills that will allow you to read correctly what the writer intended to say by their spelling (based on the context of the topic they are addressing). This is hardly a recipe for success. You will eventually need standardization in the written language, and good luck standardizing the writing of the soup of Arabic dialects we have in the Arab World. Moreover, what do the other Arabs, whose dialects are so unfamiliar to other Arabs, do? How are others going to understand them if they write in their own dialect (provided that they decide on which dialect or variation thereof to adopt, and that they standardize the writing in it)?

My problem in accepting your reasoning is that I see Fus’ha Arabic in action elsewhere and all over the place. Fus’ha is the standard version of Arabic. Yes. Arabic is diglossic, but that is the nature of the language. If there are deficiencies in how some Arabs are learning or using the language, the flaw is not in the language, but rather in the people and in the educational systems. Fus’ha Arabic (and not any other dialect) is the officially recognized language in the United Nations and other international bodies. It is the language of media and literature. It is a beautiful and expressive language that is deeply rooted in Arabic culture and history. Abandoning Fus’ha Arabic and replacing it with the written colloquial or any beautified version of the latter to make it look and sound close to Fus’ha will not succeed. One reason for this may also be that religion is important in the traditionally conservative Arabic societies in most Arabic countries, and you would see, if you flip through the Arabic satellite channels in the current month of Ramadan, that Fus’ha Arabic is not only the language of communication of news and other educational and informational programming, but it is also the main version of Arabic used in religious programming and religious speech. That will definitely not change."

One of the points raised by Elias Muhanna was that being able to read and comprehend Fu'sha Arabic is not the same as being able to write in grammatically correct Fus'ha:

"Receptive competencies are different than productive competencies. It’s one thing to be able to read a newspaper, but it’s quite another to be able to write a newspaper article, or even a grammatically correct Facebook message!"

This is true, but is it really a reasonable expectation that all Arabic-speakers should be equally good Arabic language writers? This is how I said that in my comment:

"[--] not all Arabs really, need to be professional writers, who are proficient in writing excellent and perfect Fus’ha Arabic. Not all Americans, for example, are proficient in writing essays or novels in English. Why should our expectation be different for Arabic speakers?"

At the end of my comment, I mentioned the Arabic-language drama series Thākirat al-Jasad which is currently showing on Arabic TVs.

"It may be too early to tell, but I would like to mention as an example, that the Arabic television series Thākirat al-Jasad [Memory in the Flesh] (based on the book by Algerian author Ahlam Mosteghanemi) showing this month on some Arabic channels like Abu Dhabi TV, uses Fus’ha as its language [-], and the series appears to me to be quite popular amongst Arab viewers. I wonder if there are many Arabs watching that series who find the language to be difficult. I strongly doubt it.

Fus’ha is alive and well and is here to stay, and the only way forward, in my opinion, is to improve the systems and the curricula that teach it."

Actors in the Arabic language series Thākirat al-Jasad speak Modern Standard Arabic

'Linguistic Democratization' of the Arabic Language is not the Way

I read with interest yesterday the piece titled "The death of Arabic is greatly exaggerated" in the English language UAE-based newspaper The National written by author of the Qifa Nabki blog Elias Muhanna. Many thanks to Portland-based Arabic language teacher Sarah Standish who brought it to my attention. It was enjoyable to read that piece, but the line of reasoning towards the end of the article started to contradict what I believe in. And when I saw that piece being retweeted today in my Twitter timeline, I found myself coming here to write these words. I agree with the title of the piece that "The death of Arabic is greatly exaggerated", but I disagree with the details that you see in the argument laid out in the article (more towards the latter part of it).

The author quotes Kristen Brustad, a professor at the University of Texas who alludes in her argument to the variety of communicative styles Arabs use in their interaction on the non-traditional media platforms such as online social networking sites and to the language used by Arabs on the many satellite television channels that broadcast in Arabic (there are more than 500 such channels). The argument goes to call for bridging the gap (between the familiar spoken Arabic and the unfamiliar Standard or Fus'ha Arabic) in language instruction in the Arab World by "incorporating material from the spoken idioms into language instruction". Kristen Brustad is quoted again as saying that what schools need is “the same kind of linguistic democratisation that is pervading communicative spaces like the internet and satellite television.” 

Distribution of Arabic as a Majority language in the Arab World. [Public domain image on Wikipedia]

I cannot disagree more. This proposal sounds like annoying heavy metal music to my Syrian ears. I do not know what satellite channels Kristen Brustad is looking at, but the vast majority of those 500 Arabic-speaking satellite television channels are not of good quality, and the most credible and popular pan-Arab satellite channels that I know of (such as the Al Jazeera Arabic Channel for example) use Fus'ha almost exclusively as their language of communication. Channels like these not only prove that Modern Standard Arabic can be successfully and brilliantly used as a standard communication medium amongst Arabs regardless of their country of origin, but that also the language is flexible enough to accommodate the continuously proliferating new technical foreign-language terminology, that the opponents of Arabic point to as one big obstacle that faces the Arabic language today. For me as a native Arabic speaker who grew up in a country that strongly promotes Fus'ha Arabic, the original new foreign language terms are as unfamiliar to me as the corresponding newly-Arabized or newly-coined Arabic terms. It is all a matter of habit in using the terms. If all you will do is look at the terms as a critical outsider and never attempt to use them or improve them, they will forever remain unfamiliar to you.

And I cannot even start to imagine how mediocre a curriculum of any subject in school will be in an Arab country if they start incorporating material from the spoken idioms in the formal language of instruction. It is unimaginable that that will ever happen, and especially not in Syria! And just to clarify, we are talking here about the language of instruction in the Arabic countries for the native Arabic speakers. Teaching spoken dialects to the non-native Arabic speakers is a whole different issue!

Here is my comment on this that I left on the Qifa Nabki blog quoted here for completion:

Why do you all ignore the Syrian example in this? The Syrians have done something right to make Fus’ha easy and accessible to Syrians. Think what you may of the Syrian education system, but Syrians can probably use Fus’ha with much more ease compared to some Arabs in other Arabic countries.

I enjoyed reading the piece in The National, but the author lost me towards the end. I disagree with the conclusion and with the premise of Kristen Brustad’s opinion on this as quoted in the article. “linguistic democratisation” is not the solution, and especially not for native Arabic speakers.

The solution is in teaching Fus’ha the way it should be taught. The Syrians have a good thing going in that area in my opinion, and their example should be examined and perhaps followed. Yes. I agree that Arabic is healthy, but in a different way. Isn’t the Fus’ha-speaking Al Jazeera Arabic the most watched news channel in the Arab World? Don’t all its competitors in the Arab World and the West use Fus’ha to speak to Arab viewers. Don’t all [respectable] media portals in the Arab World write and publish in Fus’ha? What version of Arabic do you all read in the ubiquitous Arabic-language newspapers that are published in or outside the Arab World?

The brilliance of the Syrian example is that Fus’ha and the spoken dialect co-exist seamlessly in communication both in daily life and in instruction, but when it comes to published material and curricula, Fus’ha is what rules.

For clarification, I was born in Syria. I lived there most of my life. I studied medicine in Arabic in Syria before moving to North America in the late 90s.

Yes to Arabic! No to "Hi.. Keefak.. ça va?"!!

Photo credit: Aieman Khimji

It is no secret. I am big fan of Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) and I oppose all efforts to marginalize it and to replace it with the regional spoken dialects of the differnt countries in the Arab world. And I consider all moves by the regionalists as nothing else other than lack of knowledge of MSA and its capacity to capture the pulse of life on the Arab street. Yes. The spoken Damascus dialect is beautiful. Yes. The Egyptian accent is cute and popular. Yes. The Moroccan accent is intriguing to us, Levantine Arabs for the fact that it uses terms and phrases we are so unfamilar with. Yes. Gulf Arabic is so interesting to listen to when you get used to it (with its own regional variations!). But Modern Standard Arabic is the only version of Arabic that has the potential to pull us all together in communicating using our one Arabic language.

The British, the Irish, the Americans, the South Africans, the Aussies and the Kiwis all use one written English language, generally speaking, in their literature and general mainstream media, and we should be doing the same in the Arab world! Modern Standard Arabic is already an excellent medium of communication that has proven its capacity to accommodate the explosive growth of knowledge and information that we are witnessing today globally. This is clearly evident by the many existing pan-Arab media outlets (some of which are wildly popular across the Arab world) and that exclusively use MSA as their language of communication.

I cringe when I see arguments defending the use of the local spoken dialects in Arabic writing and literature and I especially puke when I see a defense of the use of foreign-language terms in daily life communications amongst Arabs, wherever they may be. The usual justification levelled against us, the proponents of Arabic in general (and MSA in particular), is that the spoken Arabic (sometimes mixed with English or other foreign-language words) better captures the meanings, because it is more commonly used by people in their homes and on the street. This in my opinion is nothing other than the result of what one gets used to growing up. I grew up watching children's programming in Syria in Modern Standard Arabic and I am totally comfortable with using that Arabic in communication. I can express myself perfectly in it and I do not feel that I lose anything by using it as opposed to using the local spoken dialect of the region my parents came from in Syria (which happens to be Sweida, in Southern Syria). It is one thing to know MSA very well and use it effectively when needed while at the same time strive for excellence in knowing and using other languages (such as English or French for example), and quite another not to be taught MSA well growing up, and then hide behind the thin veil of convenience and conformity with the customary in defending the use of a local spoken dialect admixed with foreign-language words and phrases.

I thought of all of this as I read this piece [AR] that was published recently in the Al Arabiya [AR] news website, reprinted [AR] from the Kuwaiti newspaper al-Qabas [AR]. Thanks to Egyptian blogger Tarek Amr (@gr33ndata) who brought it to my attention by retweeting a link to it on Twitter.

Here is an English translation of that piece which was written by Kuwaiti writer and blogger Dalaa al-Mufti [AR](pictured below)(I added some hyperlinks to the translated text for completion and for additional references):

"Hi .. keefak .. ça va?" 

Photo credit: al-Qabas

 "Hi .. keefak .. ça va?" is a phrase that people borrow and say jokingly from the spoken language used by the youth in Lebanon. The phrase mixes the three languages (English, Arabic and French) in one sentence [Keefak means "how are you?" in Arabic]. The problem however is no longer confined to Lebanon alone. The reason for this is that the foreign-language invasion has spread to all Arab countries from one end of the Arab world to the other. Squeezing in some foreign-language words in one's speech has become a sign of development and modernity. And those who speak Arabic only (oh, pity them), on the other hand, have become associated with backwardeness and ignorance!  

Charbel Rouhana, a fine Lebanese artist, has written and recorded a song titled "Hi .. Keefak .. ça va?" in which he criticizes those who cannot complete a conversation in Arabic without stuffing it with foreign-language words. He calls on people to express their feelings in Arabic. He says: "Hi .. keefak .. ça va .. where did you get this from, oh Lebanese? What's wrong with marhaba [hello in Arabic] or sabah el kheir [good morning in Arabic]?". I remembered this song when I heard an anchor on a private Kuwaiti television channel as she struggled to use a language that was a mixture of Arabic and English .. she kept repeating the word "coin" without being able to find its Arabic equivalent ('umla ma'adaniyya عملة معدنية). Most of our anchors have become like her, reliant on foreign-language terms in their television programs, leave alone the names of the programs themselves, most of which have become foreign-language names per se. 

The misfortune in all of this is that "Arabish" (or Arabic mixed with English) has become common in all Arab countries and in all parts of society, even amongst those who speak no other language; some for example would use a few foreign-language words to show off in front of people. Most adolescents write Arabic in Latin charaters in their electronic communications and on Facebook. 

Experts say that the side to blame first and foremost in this is the family. The reason for this is that it is customary for parents to use a foreign language at home in their communication with their kids. And when the kids go to school, they face difficulty in learning Arabic (and the teachers suffer the most because of this). Some parents even find it necessary to cancel Arabic language classes from their kids' curricula if they were holders of foreign passports (despite the Arab blood running in their veins!). 

There are those howerver who are blowing the whistle.. In Morocco for example, there is a Moroccan blog called "Bla Francia!" [AR] ("Without French!", in Arabic) that aims to shine the light at the gravity of the situation that the Arabic language has reached in Morocco. The blog calls on companies and the media in Morocco to spread the use of the national language (Arabic) in public life and in education. And in Lebanon, a campaign was launched by a society called "Feil Amr" [AR] (name literally means "command verb") in association with The Arab Thought Foundation [AR] to protect the Arabic language. The campaign was called "Behkeek min esh-shark, betred min el-gharb" [AR] «بحكيك من الشرق بترد من الغــرب» ("I talk to you from the East, you reply from the West") [this is a spoken dialect proverb that is used when your answer has nothing to do with the question I am asking- it is used here though with pun intended]. The campaign aims to strengthen the native (Arabic) language amongst people of the new generation, and to motivate them and encourage them to use Arabic in speech, in reading as well as in writing. 

Our speech is now foreign, as are our actions, our meals, the names of our stores and malls, and our television programs .. And until our Arabic language regains its glory of a bygone era, we might as well all sing with Charbel Rouhana .. "Express your happiness in Arabic, express your sadness in Arabic, sing about your love in Arabic .. talk about your nation in Arabic". 

*via the Kuwaiti al-Qabas newspaper

And perhaps nothing is more fitting than to end this posting with Charbel Rouhana's "Hi, keefak? ça va?". Here it is. Take a listen:

Video credit: Bla Francia