Arabic-L:PEDA:Large vocabulary response

[Dilworth Parkinson]

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Arabic-L: Thu 05 Dec 2002
Moderator: Dilworth Parkinson <dilworth_parkinson at byu.edu>
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1) Subject:Large vocabulary response
2) Subject:Difficulty  response
3) Subject:Large vocabulary response

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1)
Date:  05 Dec 2002
From: shawky at aucegypt.edu
Subject:Large vocabulary response

Dear colleague,
My Ma thesis dealt with Arabic learning difficulty areas , major area
was
having to cope with a large number of lexis in order to acquire Arabic.
Please
see Holes ,C (1995)pp127-129 speaking of- ishtiqaq-where Holes declares
that
Arabic language is enriched with lexis that emerges out of a derivatinal
system that allows several words from the same meaning. No wonder one
the
items included in the study questionnaire was stated by one of Arabic
learners."  learning Arabic is learning enourmous vocabulary. I hope
you find
my response helpful.
Nehad Shawqy

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2)
Date:  05 Dec 2002
From: Michael Akard <michael_akard at hotmail.com>
Subject:Difficulty response

I, too, used to wonder about why Arabic-speaking students seemed to
master English so rapidly. A Saudi friend went so far as to tell me
that because Arabic is such a difficult language, all other languages
come easily to speakers of Arabic. And when I asked him how I could
learn Arabic, he paused, studied me for a few moments, and replied,
"Oh, I don't think you can!" The Arabic language, he explained, was
simply too difficult.

However, consideration of the respective roles of Arabic in English
society and English in Arab society sheds a little more light. Most
Anglo-Americans, for example, do not speak Arabic, have never studied
Arabic, and probably could not distinguish an Arabic text from a Farsi,
Assyrian, or Amharic text. Those who begin such language study
typically do so during their college years, long after the window of
opportunity for gaining native-like fluency has closed, so Arabic, for
them, will always be a "foreign" language.

Middle-Eastern Arabs, in contrast, typically begin studying English as
a required subject in high school or elementary school. Many attend
schools in which English is the primary language of instruction. Even
if Arabic is spoken, and even if their English language instructors are
Egyptian or Lebanese, these students are quite comfortable with the
Roman alphabet and have a broad, working knowledge of English from an
early age, so a foundation of knowledge is built that allows quick
advancement to functional fluency in English at a later time. In
addition, many professional fields, such as medicine and aviation, use
English, so the idea is present from an early age that English fluency
is part of their destiny because of its importance for future
professional success.

But even if an Arab never actively studies English until that one year
you mention in your question, English language and text is ubiquitous
in the Arab world. I speak from personal experience: when I first went
to Kuwait (where I spent three years), I looked forward to immersing
myself in the local language. But the road signs were in English, the
newspapers were in English, the television stations broadcast English
progamming -- it was practically impossible not to use English. And
since most Kuwaitis I met spoke English better than I spoke Kuwaiti
Arabic, our conversations often defaulted to English. So much for
language immersion!

These are, I believe, some of the factors involved in the relative
rapidity with which Arabic speakers learn English.

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3)
Date:  05 Dec 2002
From: suma99 at att.net
Subject:Large Vocabulary response

What Haidar Moukdad put forth as an explanation of the vocab. question
does not work for me, and the script comments don't hold up well either.
If we count vocabulary in the sense of words linguistically or
etymologically
pure to either of the respective two languages, keeping at least to a
minimum
foreign loan words, then I think Arabic is the winner. We have in
English
dictionaries words that are utterly foreign and un-anglocized, many
such words
in fact! (hors d'oeuvres, rapprochment, siesta, savoir-faire, nee, modus
operendi, etc.)Should words like these really be counted as English?

As for the reasons why maybe learners of English have an easier time
learning
to speak it than learners of arabic do; I think it's got to do with the
fact
that English has become so universal, as a lingua franca (no pun
intended), so
every one is exposed to it in some way or another. Then there is the
diglossia
problem in arabic which students must overcome.

Ismael

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End of Arabic-L:  05 Dec 2002