Arabic-L:LING:Characterizing MSA/Egyptian

[Dilworth Parkinson]

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Arabic-L: Mon 04 Aug 2003
Moderator: Dilworth Parkinson <dilworth_parkinson at byu.edu>
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1) Subject:Characterizing MSA/Egyptian
2) Subject:Characterizing MSA/Egyptian

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1)
Date: 04 Aug 2003
From: Robin Thelwall <eubule at telusplanet.net>
Subject:Characterizing MSA/Egyptian

Dear Arabic List
Michael Akard's claim that RP has no native speakers is just plain
wrong.
My father and mother both spoke RP and I spoke it as my first spoken
language.  I was never taught it formally, and went to private schools
from
the age of 8!
Robin Thelwall

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2)
Date: 04 Aug 2003
From: Maik Gibson <maikgibson at yahoo.com
Subject:Characterizing MSA/Egyptian

I wonder about the analogy proposed by Michael Akard. To start with, RP
is
an accent, and contrary to what is said here, is spoken natively by
around
3% of the British population (I am not one of that 3%), and is not
taught to
British students: we all get along with our own accents, without much
direct
interference from the education system. What is taught is the dialect
'Standard English', spoken natively by around 12% of Brits (and I think
I
qualify here!)

The problem with using modern-day varieties of English is that it
drastically understates the difference between MSA and the living
vernaculars: the best Western parallel I can find, both linguistically
and
sociolinguistically, is the difference and relationship between Latin
and
Italian in the Middle Ages. If we must use English, then if modern
English
(whether from the US or UK) is seen as analogical to Egyptian, then the
equivalent distance from MSA would be found somewhere between the
Anglo-Saxon of Beowulf and the Middle English of Chaucer.

Maik Gibson

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End of Arabic-L:  04 Aug 2003