Arabic-L:PEDA:Colloquial First Discussion

[Dilworth Parkinson]

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Arabic-L: Mon 16 Jul 2007
Moderator: Dilworth Parkinson <dilworth_parkinson at byu.edu>
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1) Subject:Colloquial First Discussion
2) Subject:Colloquial First Discussion

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1)
Date: 16 Jul 2007
From:"Schub, Michael B." <Michael.Schub at trincoll.edu>
Subject:Colloquial First Discussion

But to do any serious study of subjects related to 'Orientalism' the  
traffic is, as it is with massive emigration, ONE WAY:  from THERE to  
HERE.  miish  heek?                                                  ms

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2)
Date: 16 Jul 2007
From:"John Joseph Colangelo" <yaacolangelo at hotmail.com>
Subject:Colloquial First Discussion

I wanted to ask Jeremy if those of us who do not base their comments  
on "empirical research" could base them on personal experience instead.

In relation to Prof. Giménez´s comment on the nineteenth century  
orientalists, if Caspari and Wright could be considered  
representative of their 19th century colleagues then it would be fair  
to say that they were much more prepared than late 20th and 21st  
century Spanish orientalists who I have observed in situ. Again, from  
personal experience late twentieth century orientalists, generally,  
are what you would call those people that claim classical Arabic is  
like Latin or ancient Greek. These are the people that cannot speak  
MSA nor "aamiyya" of any kind.

Those students who learned how to speak Arabic (and then a dialect)  
while studying in the classrooms of Filología Semítica were the nerds  
who invested more than triple the class time after class hours  
studying Arabic: reviewing grammar, conducting an exchange with Arab  
students (My  very good friend Naser from ِAl-Khaleel used to  
come to my house every Sunday morning where we would sit down  
speaking in English for an hour and a half and then in Arabic for  
another hour and a half. By the way, one of the advantages of living  
in Granada), reading Arabic newspapers, listening to the BBC in  
Arabic everyday. Of course, not everyone has the buena suerte to live  
in Granada which is really a blessing for a very applied student of  
Arabic where it isn´t difficult to find an Arabic tutor.

But before I go off topic here, let me propose a few questions here.  
What if we were to radically change the Arabic program? What if we we  
could teach 2 hours a day, five days a week? Wouldn´t 2 hours a day,  
five days a week, from September to May using MSA and a dialect (or  
October to June if you study in Europe)  for the first two years of  
university study give the student the foundations he or she needs so  
they may benefit from their year abroad in the Arab world hence  
returning with a solid command of the language for the 3rd and 4th  
year of university study? Please excuse this foolish proposal but it  
seems that one of the greatest problems we are facing (besides the  
non-native teachers who cannot speak Arabic and native Arab teachers  
who prefer not to speak Arabic in the classroom) is of a bureaucratic  
nature: university syllabi that do not take into consideration the  
nature of different languages.

Let me illustrate the latter with a real life example: At the  
Translation & Interpreting Faculty of the University of Granada, all  
C languages (languages we only translate or interpret from and not  
to) are taught the same number of hours. This means that all C  
languages whether they be Chinese, Arabic, French, German, Italian or  
English are taught the same number of hours per week. Is this problem  
common in US universities as well?

John Joseph Colangelo

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End of Arabic-L:  16 Jul 2007