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Is Arabic underestimated? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| daegga Tetraglot Senior Member Austria lang-8.com/553301 Joined 4510 days ago 1076 posts - 1792 votes  Speaks: German*, EnglishC2, Swedish, Norwegian Studies: Danish, French, Finnish, Icelandic | Message 17 of 75 08 July 2015 at 11:51pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
We got our fair share of Mongols too in Europe ;) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| Gala Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 4539 days ago 229 posts - 421 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Italian | Message 18 of 75 09 July 2015 at 5:24am | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
There have been many destructive "blows" from the West since. The Crusades, for example. And a long series of invasions and occupations beginning with the French and British in the 19th century and continuing into the present with the USA. Not trying to start a political debate, but the Mongols were certainly not the last to wreak havoc in the region. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 7145 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes 20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 19 of 75 09 July 2015 at 6:57am | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
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I think that the point is that the Mongol occupation was remarkable for its destructiveness, and how it set back the profile of Arabic at arguably the worst time. The successive Ottoman and Iranian empires that followed the Mongol Ilkhanate weren't Arabophone and had nothing to do with the West and colonialism. In addition the Moors by this time were well on the decline in Europe (especially on the Iberian peninsula) and the prestige of Arabic (Andalusian Arabic in Iberia) was falling too. By the time Christopher Columbus left on his first expedition, the last Islamic state in the Iberian peninsula had surrendered, and the survivors were either rebelling or dealing with the Inquisition.
Imagine if Christopher Columbus and Hernán Cortés among others had been serving Moorish rulers because the Reconquista didn't succeed. "Latin America" might have been instead something like "Arabic America" with some form of Arabic being just another language that benefited from colonialism (and incidentally acquire a lot of secular baggage). 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| kanewai Triglot Senior Member United States justpaste.it/kanewai Joined 4878 days ago 1386 posts - 3054 votes Speaks: English*, French, Marshallese Studies: Italian, Spanish | Message 20 of 75 09 July 2015 at 10:23am | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
It kind of happened anyway! Mexican and Latin American cuisine (real Mexican, not Tex-Mex or Californian "Mexican") has a far stronger Arabic influence than people realize. Mexican spices, in particular, are more Middle Eastern than Spanish. The cheeses, the meat on spits, and the meatballs are all direct descendants of Arabic foods. Even some town names, like Guadalajara (wadi al-hara) are Arabic. This is partly due to the fact that the original conquistadors emerged from centuries of Moorish rule, and partly because a lot of Middle Easterners fled to the Yucatan and other parts of S. America after the collapse of the Ottomans. The religion was Catholic, the language Spanish, and the economic system was pure medieval Spanish feudalism. But there is still a lot of "Islamic" cultural influence on the area. I have no idea if that impacted the language too, and if it could explain why American Spanish is so different from Iberian. It would be an interesting study. I'll post some links tomorrow (for some reason I can't do this from my home computer). 6 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| Doitsujin Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 5309 days ago 1256 posts - 2363 votes Speaks: German*, English | Message 21 of 75 09 July 2015 at 10:40am | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
The numbers say otherwise. According to Wikipedia, 0.8% of the websites are in Arabic. This number might seem to be low, but if you compare it with other major languages, it isn't that bad. For example, only 5.8% of all websites are in German.
The Arabic alphabet may look exotic, but it only has 28 characters and takes at most a couple of weeks to learn, while it can take years to master the most frequently used Chinese characters.
IMHO, this fear is unfounded, because many other minority languages have survived in spite of suppressive language policies. Neither will the dialects disappear, because they have always co-existed with classical Arabic.
No offence, but given the lack of knowledge of Arabic grammar and phonetics that your posts have shown so far, you may want to refrain from commenting on Arabic language topics. Arabic verbs have only two tenses, with 13 possible forms each. Of these 13 possible forms only 8 forms are commonly used. And if you only want to be able to read the Qur'an you need to know even fewer verb forms. (Arabic also has different moods and derived verb forms (II-XV), but most of them follow a predictable pattern and even the irregular verbs fall into several more or less predictable patterns. For more information see the Wikipedia entry that I linked to.)
IMHO, this argument is flawed, because you can think logically in any language and dialect. Dialects and MSA might be missing some important words, but the Israelis have shown that neologisms can be more or less seamlessly integrated into a language brought back from death. If they could do it so can the Arabs. 7 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| Luso Hexaglot Senior Member Portugal Joined 6050 days ago 819 posts - 1812 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, French, EnglishC2, GermanB1, Italian, Spanish Studies: Sanskrit, Arabic (classical) | Message 22 of 75 09 July 2015 at 11:39am | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
On a very, very inferior scale. The Mongol invasions were the worst thing that befell the Islamic world, hands down. Imagine kingdoms larger and more evolved than the Holy Roman Empire or France reduced to ashes (quite literally, I'm afraid) in a few years. It has been said that, after the conquest of Baghdad, the Tigris river ran red (the blood) and then black (the ink from the books of the many libraries thrown away) for days. I respect your "Kingdom of the East" point of view (I know a bit of your people's role in stopping some other such advances) but, unless you were Russian or Ukrainian, you wouldn't really know. The Russians, having been sandwiched for centuries between the descendants of the Mongols (to whom they had to pay tribute) and powerful European kingdoms (who took large chunks of their homeland at will) got paranoid about conquering land (cf. 19th Century's "Great Game" and beyond). Of course, the Crusades were one large, unmitigated crime against humanity, unleashed to quench an European Christian problem, not solved by the "Trêve de Dieu": basically, local nobility had been at each other's throats for more than a century, when the Church decided they should turn on someone else: the "infidels". But enough of History (if only it were just History...): I'd like to thank hp230 for his posts. Nothing new for me, I'm afraid: my former Arabic teacher is from Tunisia and, being now a good friend, keeps me posted about recent developments in Arab countries, since the "Arab Spring" fad is not selling anymore (which is a shame). As for literature, maybe you're being a bit hard on yourself: Arab book prizes seem to showcase vibrant minds. And some details are wonderful: just recently, a woman got an award for a piece of work denouncing women's living conditions. The award was delivered in a country not known for a progressive stand in favour of women's rights (it was their turn to host the event, I guess), and in the end it all went very well. :P In any case, it's always best to have the view of an insider. Welcome to the discussion(s).
I think it depends on where you're from, since there are nuances to that "European mentality". I'm not disagreeing, just adding. ;) When I went to Morocco, it was all mildly exotic (albeit being just a day to get there by car). In the group there was a Croatian lady who "felt right at home". Since they had the Turks over there until not so long ago, some habits crept up on them. So, as you can see, it's a matter of degree.
I don't recall the posts, but it sounds like me. ;) Unfortunately, in my country the Reconquista was made when things were at a low point: mosques had to be converted into churches or tore down (and vice-versa), etc. Not a lot of cultural preservation going on at the time. However, things were considerably less acute than in the Crusades (in which Portuguese and Spanish did not participate, having been making "God's work" in the Peninsula for a few centuries): in any case, it's different to take a neighbour's land (most of the times, you had traded with him in the past, or even been allied with him against other kingdoms) than it is to cross the seas to make war against someone whom you've never seen (but have been told to hate). Nice points from kanewai (once more). Just one note: of course the language was impacted. When you end some 750 years of occupation and cast off to a distant land during the very same year, you ensure two things: a) you carry a lot of baggage; b) it's all very fresh. Edited by Luso on 09 July 2015 at 11:51am 9 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6586 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 23 of 75 09 July 2015 at 1:44pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
Same was said about Dnepr river after the Battle of Kulikovo. Although the casualties were more even.
??? (simply confused over what you mean and whether you're addressing me or daegga) Edited by Serpent on 09 July 2015 at 2:05pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| Luso Hexaglot Senior Member Portugal Joined 6050 days ago 819 posts - 1812 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, French, EnglishC2, GermanB1, Italian, Spanish Studies: Sanskrit, Arabic (classical) | Message 24 of 75 09 July 2015 at 2:09pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
I was addressing daegga => Austria => Österreich => Kingdom of the East Russia => Rus => "rods" => Old Norse for "rower", apparently As much as I would like, the Princes of Kiev and the Russians didn't manage to hinder the Mongol advance much. Neither did the Poles or the Hungarians. In spite of the occasional (minor) defeat, they kept on coming. Had the Great Khan not died, and no one knows where they would have ended (maybe our fair shores). EDIT: The beginning "quote" was missing, rendering the text difficult to read. Sorry. I just put it back. Edited by Luso on 09 July 2015 at 9:27pm 5 persons have voted this message useful |
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