Arabic-L:PEDA:Dialect Materials in Script Discussion

[Dilworth Parkinson]

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Arabic-L: Fri 09 Jun 2006
Moderator: Dilworth Parkinson <dilworth_parkinson at byu.edu>
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1) Subject:Dialect Materials in Script Discussion

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1)
Date: 09 Jun 2006
From:srpkole at EUnet.yu
Subject:Dialect Materials in Script Discussion

To Martha and Neal:

If one is fluent in a spoken Arab dialect, s/he will find reading a
dialectal text far easier if it is written in the Arabic script than  
by any
of transliteration methods, despite the typological difference of  
fuSHa and
3aammiyya. Of older collections a good example is Littmann's Modern
Arabic Tales (Leiden, 1905), which is printed in the Arabic script,  
as well as
Muhawi-Kanaana's "quul ya Teer" (Institute for Palestine Studies, Beirut
2001), of the newest. Yet you cannot read it normally if you don't  
know the
relevant Palestinian dialect(s). It becomes still clearer if you try  
to read
Bruno Meissner's rendering in Neuarabische Geschichten aus dem Iraq
(Leipzig, 1903), which is highly precise "Latin" representation of south
Iraqi, but almost impossible to read, for it relies greatly on  
diacritical signs
and special characters. I found it easier to retype those tales in
Arabic, all with the "p", "ch" and "g" before I started translating  
them, just to avoid the problems with the vowels and other alophones.

On the other hand, in McCarthy Richard and Faraj Raffouli: Spoken Arabic
of Baghdad (Oriental Institute of al-Hikma University, Beirut, 1965),  
where
the texts are not only genuine, but also presented both in Arabic and  
a quite acceptable Latin rendering, the researcher is given the  
possibility to read
the text, too, no matter does s/he know Baghdad and/or Mosul dialect  
or not.

The Arabic script cannot represent the pronunciation of a spoken  
dialect.
So if one does not know pretty well the dialect in question, it is of  
no use
to even attempt the reading (aloud) of a folk tale or similar piece  
of text
written solely in Arabic script.

Therefore students who study both fuSHa and a spoken dialect (which  
is far the best to be started at a time -- I myself call it "the  
total approach") should be trained to read both ways from the very  
beginning.

Best,
Srpko Lestaric

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End of Arabic-L:  09 Jun 2006