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French or Arabic for North Africa | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| aodhanc Diglot Groupie Iceland Joined 6259 days ago 92 posts - 130 votes  Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: Spanish | Message 25 of 26 23 November 2012 at 8:59pm | IP Logged | ||
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French has more prestige.
2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Jappy58 Bilingual Super Polyglot Senior Member United States Joined 4637 days ago 200 posts - 413 votes Speaks: Spanish*, Guarani*, Arabic (Levantine), Arabic (Egyptian), Arabic (Maghribi), Arabic (Written), French, English, Persian, Quechua, Portuguese Studies: Modern Hebrew | Message 26 of 26 23 November 2012 at 9:40pm | IP Logged | ||
After some experience with some Libyan friends, I agree that several Libyan dialects are closely related to the Egyptian dialects. When I first spoke to them, they responded almost exclusively using their Libyan dialect (they each came from different areas, such as Benghazi, Tripoli, etc.), and although it definitely sounded distinct from Cairene (the only dialect I had under my belt at the time, aside from MSA), I understood most of what was said to me. Granted, there were some expressions I was unfamiliar with, and a few words that were distinct to Libyan, but comprehension was surprisingly high, especially considering that Libyan is usually classified as a Maghrebi dialect family. That being said, Libyan seems to be highly intelligible with Tunisian and Algerian, though they sometimes had trouble understanding my Moroccan friends because of the speed in which they spoke. It could be argued that Libyan is a sort of "middle" dialect in that it shares features with both Mashriqi and Maghrebi dialects. On one hand, it doesn't have as large of an influence from Berber like some other Maghrebi dialects, but still remains close to them. Tunisian has given me different experiences. On one hand, with only MSA and Egyptian I could understand some Tunisian, moreso if they spoke it slowly to me. However, if I wanted to understand it as well as I understoof Libyan, they would have had to simplify their dialect further, in this case meaning that it wouldn't have been the everyday language they used. After learning Moroccan, however, all of the Maghrebi dialects I've had experience with are highly intelligible. As for French having more prestige, I would not make it so black and white. On one hand, it is true that some speakers of Darija consider their dialect inferior to MSA (and the fact that some elitists from the Middle East view the dialects, especially Moroccan and Algerian, as corruptions does not help). Despite this, there are also many that don't have anything in particular against their own dialect. MSA is a strong rival of French in terms of "prestige" for many of the people, due to its importance to their culture. The main advantage French would have over any variant of Arabic is that workers and some of the youth may view it as a ticket to the world beyond the Maghreb. This is one of the reasons some individuals, such as merchants at souqs, for example, initially prefer French for their business. This is slowly changing, however, in that there is no an increased interest in English rather than French, and efforts are being made to "Arabize" certain areas of business. Beyond prestige, however, Arabic is unmatched for those hoping to explore the Maghreb more extensively. I stick to my initial recommendation: French should be the OP's main focus now, due to time constraints, but some basic Arabic should certainly be studied anyways. 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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