Arabic-L:LING:Negative Reactions to Colloquial First

[Dilworth Parkinson]

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Arabic-L: Thu 07 June 2007
Moderator: Dilworth Parkinson <dilworth_parkinson at byu.edu>
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1) Subject:Negative Reactions to Colloquial First
2) Subject:Negative Reactions to Colloquial First

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1)
Date: 07 June 2007
From:"Schub, Michael B." <Michael.Schub at trincoll.edu>
Subject:Negative Reactions to Colloquial First

hi,

       One underlying academic question is 'how low can we  
go?' [limbo having been officially been damned {darned?} to limbo].

       In about 1929(?) the Turks replaced their modified Arabic  
script with a latinized script [similar to English] because the  
former represented the phonology and morphology of Turkish as  
pathetically and as inefficiently as it does all Arabic dialects.   
Thus almost all academic textbooks worthy of the name for dialectal  
Arabic are written in phonetic [again, similar to English] script.

      The four years I taught Arabic at Yale (on a different planet),  
only FUSHA was taught, WITHOUT ANY ORAL REQUIREMENT.  Those students  
who immediately went on to Middlebury (one of them is now Professor  
of Middle Eastern Studies at MIT) reported that they were a bit lost  
for about two weeks, and subsequently they became the mentors of many  
advanced students who were clueless as to the case endings (al- 
i`raab  <  root  `\ `  r  b  \  = THAT WHICH MAKES ARABIC ARABIC) and  
were unable to look up an Arabic word in an Ar--Eng dictionary!

      Courses in pure MSA (modern FUSHA) tend to turn off students  
who are intellectually lazy and merely want to PARTY.  They have no  
desire to do academically worthwhile homework--yet some of us must  
accomodate them to have enrollment in our classes.

       Sibawayhi is spinning in his grave like an atomic dreidel.

                                  Ma`a  ssalaama,

                                                                         
             Mike Schub

P.S.  according to this proposed plan, your Arabic students will be  
totally ILLITERATE in Arabic after one entire year of university  
instruction

       Ibn Jinni is spinning in his grave like an atomic dreidel.

                                                                         
                                    ms

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2)
Date: 07 June 2007
From:"John Joseph Colangelo" <yaacolangelo at hotmail.com>
Subject:Negative Reactions to Colloquial First

I completely disagree with this. I find students who worry about  
learning

dialect completely incompetent in learning fusha and thus understanding

written material. I have colleagues who have spent years in Arab  
countries

worrying about dialect not understand classical material at all!  My

personal experience was learning MSA as well as classical Arabic  
(religious

and literary texts) through classical Arabic and then, when living  
there in

situ, learning the dialect rather quickly. And if Arabs respond in  
English

it is because they want to practise their English at the expense of the

American students. You have to be a good speaker for them to answer in

Arabic. Maybe instead of giving the classes in English, you should  
give the

classes in Arabic? Maybe when sending the students to an Arab  
country, you

should send them to a program where it is forbidden to use English. Mind

you, I do believe that dialect should be taught but after acquiring  
solid

foundations in classical Arabic not at the beginning. Which dialect  
are you

going to teach? Why that dialect? Maybe students learning that  
dialect wont

understand other dialects. Maybe using that dialect in other  
countries will

earn the annoyance of natives in that country. There are many factors to

consider.


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End of Arabic-L:  07 June 2007