Stop sign in Arabic
- muslimaa
- biogardener
- rkhen
- biogardener
- rkhen
- pseudoerasmus
- jk78
- rkhen
- biogardener
- biogardener
This archived discussion is "read only".
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» muslimaa - ??????
Rhken, that is very amusing about "Spencer and his auto." It is just amazing how the mind works sometimes....I was just thinking about how I was almost 20 years old before I realized that the word "nothing" is NO and THING put together.pseudoerasmus, thanks for reading my article and for taking the time to comment on it. You are very right that the "dialects" of Arabic are borderline languages, so this makes it all the more important to choose the appropriate dialect when learning Arabic. The Cairene dialect is probably the most widely understood dialect for the reasons you mentioned but each person should make a decision on which dialect to learn based upon his unique needs. For example, it would not make a lot of sense for me to converse with my Palestinian in-laws in Cairene. But a traveller who is not confining himself to a particular country or region of the Middle East may find Cairene to be extremely useful.
By the way, do you speak Arabic? since you seem to know a lot about the issues.
Kindest regards,
A. Abdullah, editor of Muslim Women
-- posted by muslimaa
» biogardener - baseball
I remember a poster in Quebec City buses giving all the French translations for baseball terminology, encouraging people to use those. It was an effort, but it didn't work. For one thing, people who like baseball, watch it on American stations. That is where they learn the terminology. After all, baseball is an American sport. Might as well use the American terminology.The one area that bothers people the most is the use of more than one language by air traffic controllers. I prefer safety to diversity in the air. And safety requires speed of directions. No time for translations.
-- posted by biogardener
» rkhen - Actually, I've found that Canadians are remarkably adept at tal
Actually, I've found that Canadians are remarkably adept at talking baseball in French, at least compared to Europeans. When I lived in France, baseball was becoming a fad, and the French were entirely incapable of discussing anything about it in their own language. "Quand tu battes la ball, le pitcher va essayer de l'attraper, mais s'il ne le fait pas, c'est au shortstop de le faire. Sinon ca peut aller jusqu'au center fielder." Set my teeth on edge. With that queer French stubbornness, my friends refused to use the proper French terms, even when I told them what they were.The air traffic control problem was a little more complex than the media led us to believe. Québécois towers mostly insisted that pilots from francophone countries communicate with the tower in French. Problem is, European pilots are completely incapable of functioning professionally in their own language, and sneered at the very suggestion that French might be usable in that capacity. This knee-jerk acceptance of the inferiority of one's own language is distressing, and one good reason not to use English as "the international language."
However, even if pilots from France, Monaco, Belgium, Ivory Coast, etc, were to learn how to speak their own language in the cockpit, it would still be dangerous; other pilots listening in wouldn't know what was being said, and that could lead to a disaster. But I've often wondered how many accidents happen because foreign air crews don't speak English well enough, or because the cacophony of heavy foreign accents on air radio loses some second-language speakers.
-- posted by rkhen
» biogardener - that was not my experience
I have been in air traffic control towers and was amazed at their command of the English language.I am not at all happy with the development of European languages either. English language teachers in Germany told me that is was mainly due to the influence of rock music. In the 70s and 80s, the teenagers in Germany, for example, were most anxious to speak the best possible English, which, of course, delighted the English teachers. The big attraction at that time was rock music. Many of the top bands were German, and the teenagers were singing their songs everywhere. In the 80s, the radio stations in Germany broadcast nothing but rock music with English text. To be able to hear music with German text, I had to tune in to Austrian stations. I also heard much better German music on Manitoba's ethnic radio stations than on any radio station in Germany.
-- posted by biogardener
» rkhen - The Anglo-American nature of rock music is a major reason for in
The Anglo-American nature of rock music is a major reason for interest in English (and all other things American) among teenagers around the world. It's also a major source of a lot of the highly questionable "English" you encounter in popular music overseas. Some bands, such as Sweden's ABBA, do a good job of hiding their non-nativeness; only when you listen carefully do you realise how marginally fluent their songs are. Most French acts, on the other hand, are a disaster; their "English" is usually just short of completely incomprehensible. (Jean-Jacques Goldman is a notable exception; he writes his English verses in collaboration with a Welsh musician.)French rock musician Renaud did a terrific satire of colleagues who feel compelled to sing in "English" in order to appear hip. It's called "It Is Not Because You Are," and is guaranteed to make any English-literate listener fall on the floor laughing. If you haven't heard it already, I heartily recommend it.
-- posted by rkhen
» pseudoerasmus - reply to muslimaa
reply to muslimaaSorry, for the late response, I've been travelling in odd places.
Do I speak Arabic? No, not really, if you mean whether I speak it spontaneously and without selfconsciousness, which is the standard that I apply to "speaking". Although they are third-generation atheists (and my mother a Catholic), my linguistically child-abusive parents sent me to Koranic school for several years to learn Arabic. During summers as a boy I've even sat in madrassas in Peshawar. (At the time, there hadn't yet been any Taleban!)
So, to answer your question, I can read Arabic newspapers with not too much difficulty, and can haltingly ejaculate sentences in stilted Classical or Standard Arabic but won't understand anything in reply unless it's in equally stilted and slowly spoken Standard Arabic. I find the colloquial languages completely baffling.
This is why I keep insisting on the vast gulf between colloquial and standard. With the standard language, you can make yourself understood most of the time, but the chances of your understanding the replies are much smaller!
By the way, you may find this page of mine to be of some interest: Varieties of the Arabic Script.
-- posted by pseudoerasmus
» jk78 - I LOVE UR SITE
HI ROBERT/REKHEN I am very interested in languages & I find your site very useful,thank u ! .I'm a native speaker of Arabic but I speak English,French & Spanish well.I'm going to learn Grman,Russian & Mandarin but one at a time since i don't have enough time.I just have a question for u :which language is more international/important:Italian or Spanish?
I would like to thank u again for your site.
-- posted by jk78
» rkhen - Thanks for your kind words, JK78.
Thanks for your kind words, JK78. It's great fun to write this column and I'm happy that others are enjoying it as well.In terms of whether Italian or Spanish is more important, the question is really which is more likely to serve your interests. (I wrote about this issue in some detail in "Just the Faqs, Ma'am" [http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/worl... .) If you're a Renaissance buff, a seminarian with designs on the Vatican, or an admirer of Italian movies, Italian is probably the best choice. If on the other hand you're more interested in American politics, commercial importing of leather goods from Mexico, or Spanish movies, Spanish would be your language.
Spanish clearly commands a greater share of humanity. It's the second-most spoken language in the world by some counts. (Such statistics are fatally flawed, but they have ballpark validity.) However, Italian's single-nation demographic range is misleading. There are important Italian expatriate communities all over the world. I frequently encounter Italian speakers in my peregrinations, and even out here in the Canadian bush I receive Italian-language television and radio. Obviously there are a lot of Italian speakers even here.
I hope you enjoy my FAQ on Chinese, which uploads tomorrow.
Thanks again, JK78
-- posted by rkhen
» biogardener - I agree with Robert.
I agree with Robert. Your choice of languages to learn should depend on your personal circumstances, and I will give you another very good reason for that. Unless you get lots of practice in speaking those languages, learning them is not of too much value. The languages I get to speak on a regular basis are the ones in which I am the most fluent. They are the ones which are the most important to me. What is the most important to the rest of the world is of no consequence to me.-- posted by biogardener
» biogardener - that stop sign again
I have a reader from Strasbourg, France, and I was telling him about the ARRET/STOP sign controversy in Winnipeg. I sent him the URL of this Suite site so he could look at the Arabic sign. Here is his comment:- !!!! good thing they did not change the shape!!
-- posted by biogardener
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