Arabic-L:PEDA:More on which dialect to teach

[Dilworth Parkinson]

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Arabic-L: Mon 26 Feb 2007
Moderator: Dilworth Parkinson <dilworth_parkinson at byu.edu>
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1) Subject:More on which dialect to teach
2) Subject:More on which dialect to teach
3) Subject:More on which dialect to teach

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1)
Date: 26 Feb 2007
From:Joseph.Bell at msk.uib.no
Subject:More on which dialect to teach

Arabs who understand Egyptian dialect _can_ in fact also generally speak
it enough for a foreigner who only knows Egyptian to understand. For
students who don't know where they are going to be staying, Egyptian is
the only reasonable alternative.

Joseph Bell

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2)
Date: 26 Feb 2007
From:JMaria Persson <Maria.Persson at ling.lu.se>
Subject:More on which dialect to teach

On the subject "Which dialect to teach" Bill Young wrote:
---
Not all Arab countries have programs for teaching Arabic to English
speakers, however.  There is a new one run by Georgetown in Qatar but
nothing in Kuwait or Oman or Sudan or Algeria, as far as I know.  I
think that there are programs in Saudi Arabia but they have religious
restrictions.
---
To you and anyone else that might not know it I'd like to tell you  
that there is a language school of good quality in the Buraimi oasis  
on the border between Oman and the UAE. I realize that I am in a way  
recommending myself by saying so, but since I do not work at the  
colloquial department, and that was what you were interested in, I  
hope no one will mind ;) As for me I am responsible for the MSA  
program while at the same time doing research in the area. The full  
program combines MSA using the al-Kitaab with Gulf Arabic but the  
school will tailor courses for any student or group of students that  
want to do, say, only colloquial. The teachers are Omani but material  
from other counties is included in the curriculum. For more  
information go to: http://www.gapschool.net/

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3)
Date: 26 Feb 2007
From:"David Wilmsen" <dww22 at georgetown.edu>
Subject:More on which dialect to teach

I generally make the argument for teaching the Cairene vernacular
precisely because, as Bill Young points out, speakers of other
vernaculars who understand Egyptian Arabic, while they certainly do
not speak it with each other, may indeed use it - or at least approach
it - when dealing with Egyptians or foreigners.   This is, in fact, a
very good reason to teach our students to speak that variety as a
default form.  All other the considerations that Bill Young points out
are valid and should be considered as much as is feasible.  If, for
instance, students are planning to ship off to Iraq, it would be
better if they were to learn the Iraqi vernacular.  If they plan to do
anthropological fieldwork with the Tuareg or to work with development
organizations in rural Palestine, it would be better that they learn
those local vernaculars.  But such things are special conditions that
departments must address on an individual basis, if they are able to
How many instructors competent in any rural or Bedouin varieties would
be be able to find anyway?

In considering a strategy for the profession as a whole, however, it
seems prudent to aim for graduates leaving school with competence in a
more-or-less universally understood spoken vernacular, that being
Cairene.  At least they will be able to speak something as soon as
they land on Arab soil, and their interlocutors (most of them) will be
able to understand them (once they get over their initial surprise at
a very obviously non Egyptian speaking to them in Cairene Arabic).
Once learners have learned one variety well, it is not too hard a task
to begin switching to another and certainly to understand it, even if
they never gain complete control over it.

There, of course, is the rub:  learning it well.  Not enough time is
spent teaching spoken vernacular Arabic of any variety.  Two terms (as
it seems are devoted to the vernacular in those programs where it is
even taught) are generally not sufficient to impart any sort of
realistic proficiency in any language, not even Spanish or Dutch.
Granting greater exposure to vernacular Arabic could be solved easily
without too much interruption to the curriculum by simply beginning
with the study of a vernacular, and then after two terms teaching MSA
using the vernacular as a medium of instruction.  I am convinced that
after studying two terms of a vernacular, students would have gained
enough skill to be able to contend with that.  This would solve two
problems.  It would, as I mentioned, ipso facto give students greater
exposure within the classroom to vernacular Arabic, and it would also
preclude the need to lapse into English to explain grammar, as seems
to be unavoidable now, regardless of how hard we try not to.

David Wilmsen
Arabic and Islamic Studies
Georgetown

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End of Arabic-L:  26 Feb 2007