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El-jaahil 'adoww nafsoh: Arabic
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Sep 14, 1999
"The ignorant man is his own enemy," asserts this Palestinian proverb, yet Arabic-speaking peoples suffer quite a bit at the hands of the ignorant, particularly in the West. Language of what was once one of the most learned cultures on the planet, Arabic commands far less Web presence than it deserves, owing to the Internet's heavy Roman-alphabet bias. Nevertheless, this scholarly, scriptural, exuberantly living tongue has made important advances, as evidenced by Al Mashriq, a Levant-oriented site containing links to book sources and information on Arabic and Lebanon, and The Human Languages Page list of Arabic computing and language links.
From a linguistic point of view, an Arab can be anyone whose native language is Arabic. One of the most widely-spoken tongues on earth (ten Arabic dialects are listed in Ethnologue's tally of the 100 most-spoken languages), Arabic is spoken not only in the Middle East, but also by Africa's expansive arabophone and Arabic-influenced "twilight zone" cultures. As the language of the Qu'ran, it enjoys currency as far afield as Central and Southeast Asia. (Muslims believe that the Qu'ran must be read in the original Arabic to be understood properly. This linguistically-sound policy has helped Islam avoid the schismatic politics that plague other world religions, whereby one sect's misinterpretation of a paraphrasing of a committee translation of an earlier translation of scripture chafes against others.) Arabic's sacred status in Islam makes it an effective auxiliary in the many remarkably diverse cultures that practice various forms of that religion. Among the first written languages, Arabic's august literary pedigree is reflected in the number of Arabic bookstores doing business online. Dar El Ilim Lilmalayin, the oldest and largest privately-owned Arabic publishing house, and The Online Islamic Bookstore, which carries theological and devotional materials in Arabic and English, are two examples. Majm'a Al-Logha Al Arabiyya, Egypt's Arabic Language Academy, oversees the growth and development of modern Arabic, while Arabic-L, a news list dedicated to Arabic linguistics and teaching, keeps Arabic scholars in touch and up to date worldwide. Not all Arabic sites are so high-minded, of course. Tunisian National Radio's truly impressive site, available in Arabic, French, and English, offers RealAudio music and news files and a livestream port. The University of Pennsylvania offers a free 12-lesson "Learn Arabic" course, complete with downloadable RealAudio dialogues. And for choice, no-holds-barred Arabic verbal abuse, check out The Alternative Dictionary's Arabic slang glossary.
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Robert HendersonMy comments on your article were civil and constructive. Yet you seem to be offended. In fact, you seem to hate to be called on errors of fact or interpretation. I suggest you s ...
-- posted by pseudoerasmus
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You seem to have missed a few qualifiers and mistaken some generalisations for fact. For example, the line reads "has _helped_ Islam avoid," a reference to the fact that Islam hasn't suffered schism ...
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test
-- posted by pseudoerasmus
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Robert Henderson said:Muslims believe that the Qu’ran must be read in the original Arabic to be understood properly. This linguistically-sound policy has helped Islam avoid the schi ...
-- posted by pseudoerasmus
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