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zamie
Groupie
Australia
Joined 5254 days ago
83 posts - 126 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: German, Modern Hebrew
| Message 17 of 28 23 December 2010 at 3:45am | IP Logged |
Thanks WH2010, that was a really good post, I think I understand now, thanks a lot!
1 person has voted this message useful
| David18
Newbie
United Kingdom
http:/
Joined 5086 days ago
2 posts - 2 votes
Speaks: English*
| Message 18 of 28 23 December 2010 at 11:03am | IP Logged |
Hello,
I´m just found this forum and I have a question. I´m very interested to learn the arabic language but I have no money. Do you know about a free arabic course in web? Or a site where I can learn some expressions in this language?
Thanks for your help!
1 person has voted this message useful
| staf250
Pentaglot
Senior Member
Belgium
emmerick.be
Joined 5698 days ago
352 posts - 414 votes
Speaks: French, Dutch*, Italian, English, German
Studies: Arabic (Written)
| Message 19 of 28 23 December 2010 at 1:30pm | IP Logged |
This could be the answer, I wish you success:
http://www.madinaharabic.com/
2 persons have voted this message useful
| William Camden
Hexaglot
Senior Member
United Kingdom
Joined 6273 days ago
1936 posts - 2333 votes
Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, Russian, Turkish, French
| Message 20 of 28 23 December 2010 at 5:57pm | IP Logged |
WH2010 wrote:
I think many things said on this thread were more or less correct or have a kernel of
truth to them, but there have also been several misconceptions which I hope I can clear
up.
"Koranic Arabic" (aka Classical Arabic or "CA") is the same language as MSA. They use
essentially the same grammar, and MSA vocabulary is a subset of Classical Arabic's
vocabulary along with some modern loanwords and coined terms. However, MSA and CA
differ in a few ways:
(1) Stylistic differences: MSA style, especially in media circles, is noticeably
influenced by constructions and phrases from English and French. This is not
surprising since even newspapers consist largely of translations from international
press agencies.
(2) Changes in usage: some words' meanings have drifted slightly over the past 1400
years and not all people who read the Quran can recognize a word whose meaning has
shifted.
So, people who understand MSA can read the Quran easily, but that does not mean they
will understand all of it correctly and there will be many obscure or archaic words
that will require a dictionary or a commentary. Some passages are very easy to
understand, while some rare passages can seem inscrutable (not inscrutable
grammatically; just too many obscure words). Think of it as an American highschool
student today reading an article by H.L. Mencken. She'll recognize the language as
basically the same as her own, but the style will seem anachronistic and every few
sentences
she may need to consult a dictionary.
Now, as to your other question, I don't think there is any dialect that *closely*
resembles the Arabic of the Quran (it has been 1400 years after all). But there are
dialects that are more conservative -- that is, that have preserved more features from
the Arabic of the Quran's era -- than others, even though many of these archaic
features do not appear in the Quran (some are phonetic features that do not show up in
writing anyway). I believe the most conservative dialects are the non-urban dialects
of western and central Arabia along with certain dialects in Yemen (in their
traditional form). In fact, when used in vernacular poetry, the Arabic of these
dialects can feel remarkably similar to Classical Arabic!
William Camden wrote:
I understand that the Najd dialect, favoured by Saudi Arabia's upper caste, is widely
supposed to be the closest. Hejazi is a more widespread dialect in Saudi Arabia but is
strongly influenced by Egyptian and other dialects. All dialects, including Najd, have
travelled some considerable way from the Arabic of the Koran, which is what you would
expect in the course of more than a thousand years of language development. |
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Firstly, Najdi-Arabic is not "favoured by Saudi Arabia's upper caste." The Saudi royal
family is from Najd, so their traditional dialect was Najdi, but few members of the
royal family speak a true Najdi dialect except for the elderly members. Most royals
nowadays speak heavily watered-down dialects that are almost hybrids with Hejazi, Gulf
and other dialects, and royal living in Jeddah will likely speak something more like
Urban Hejazi. The "upper castes" come from many diverse regions and speak many
dialects and I would argue that most of the very rich in Saudi Arabia speak in a way
that is heavily-influenced by Urban Hejazi (I hope it comes through this paragraph that
the dialect situation in Saudi Arabia is very fluid and that the borders between
dialects are fuzzy to non-existent. We are not talking about discrete languages here
like French, English, Spanish, etc., at least not in the past 50 years or so).
The *traditional* Najdi dialect (which is rapidly being watered-down) is indeed one of
the most conservative, but the dialects of the rural/tribal areas of Hejaz, Asir and
Yemen are probably equally conservative.
As for Urban Hejazi (which is not the same as the lesser-known non-Urban Hejazi), it is
by no stretch of the imagination spoken by the "majority." It is actually one of the
most localized dialects in the country because it is spoken only by certain communities
in the major cities of the Hejaz (Jeddah, Mecca, Medina and Yanbu). It is, however,
widely understood and used in the media and is influential out of proportion to its
number of speakers (it probably helps that it is the most easy to understand for people
in Egypt, Syria, etc.). The fact that it is a simpler dialect in many ways means that,
in the modern era, many dialects have been watered-down to be "compatible" with it (by
"simpler" I don't mean "inferior" of course. Many speakers of Urban Hejazi refer to
their dialect as "simple" and regard this as a positive trait).
Huliganov wrote:
[QUOTE=CaucusWolf] [QUOTE=Doitsujin] [QUOTE=clumsy]
The question of whether Shia and Sunni are really as diverse as different branches of
Christianity I would perceive differently to you.
There is no disagreement between these two factions about the contents of the Koran,
that it needs to be read in Arabic, that it is infallible, that Allah created the
world, etc. All they differ on is one two opposing points of view on which of two
people was the successor of Mohammed in leading Islam.
They don't have different pillars of wisdom, they don't have different verses or texts
or parts of the Koran they say are not authoritative. They all pray in a similar way,
go to mosque on the same day, use similar attire.
I believe that between Sunni and Shia you have no more real doctrinal difference than
would exist within different parts of Roman Catholicism alone, and that the doctrinal
pick 'n' mix available across the whole denominational spectrum in Christian churches,
even those broadly following the Nicene creed, is of a totally different order of
magnitude to that in Islam, and pretty much always has been, if you look at the
discussions going on among the Church fathers.
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I know this is off-topic, but I feel compelled to respond here because I believe your
views on this are very misinformed. The differences between Shi'ites and Sunnis are
huge and cannot be underestimated. I have studied the differences between Christian
sects and I think it can be argued that Sunnism and Shi'ites differ even more greatly
from each other than Protestants and Catholics. The succession to Muhammad may be the
seminal issue, but out of this issue entire universes of dogma, doctrine, theology,
ritual and political outlook were developed over 1300 years. The examples are too
numerous to outline here. Just as one example (since you mentioned it), there has
always been a school of thought among Shi'ites that accuses the Quran of being tampered
with to omit verses that support the Shi'ite point of view. Today, most Shi'ites
disavow this belief but their interpretation of Quranic verses can be so wildly
different from the Sunni interpretation that they might as well be reading different
books. Plus, most Islamic dogma and law comes not from the Quran but from the Hadith,
and the Sunnis and Shi'ites each have their own separate Hadith collections with zero
overlap, so even if they believe in the same Quran, that does not really amount to as
much as you think.
Studying these things thoroughly can take years, but just to give you a flavour, the
Shi'ites hold that Muhammad was succeeded by 12 infallible "imams" whose words are
equivalent to the Quran itself. This in effect extends Islam's revelation period by
almost 300 years and adds an entire body of theology and law attributed to these 12
imams that the Sunnis simply don't have. It's almost like the difference between
Judaism and Christianity if you think about it! That's not to mention the widely
divergent attitude towards saints (Shi'ites are like Catholics with a long list of
saints and demons, while Sunnis are more like Protestants), the Islamic state and
community (the Shi'ites consider most of Islamic history to be illegitimate and even
view Saladin himself as a villain), the attitude towards Jihad and proselytization
(Shi'ites are concerned almost entirely with converting other Muslims rather than
converting non-Muslims, and Jihad is frowned-upon in the absence of the 12th imam, who
is in occultation), etc. Having studied Shi'ism and Sunnism closely I really consider
them to be two separate religions for all practical purposes, even though they share
the same roots and have a few rituals in common. |
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The introduction to FSI Saudi Arabic specifically states that Najdi is relatively close to Classical Arabic, and is favoured by the Saudi royal family. The introduction then goes on to say that, nonetheless, Urban Hejazi was chosen as the preferred Saudi colloquial for the course. This course was published in the 1970s and things may have changed since then, but my remarks on Najdi were based on that. Also, the Wikipedia article on Najdi notes that unlike many Arabic dialects, Najdi does not appear to have a non-Arabic substratum underlying it (whereas Coptic underlies aspects of Egyptian Arabic, for example, and there appear to be Aramaic influences on Levantine Arabic). It may, in that sense, be closest to Classical although this is no doubt a disputable point.
Urban Hejazi does seem to be a good choice if you are looking for a widely understood colloquial version of Arabic.
1 person has voted this message useful
| CaucusWolf
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5273 days ago
191 posts - 234 votes
Speaks: English*
Studies: Arabic (Written), Japanese
| Message 21 of 28 24 December 2010 at 5:10am | IP Logged |
WH2010 wrote:
Having studied Shi'ism and Sunnism closely I really consider
them to be two separate religions for all practical purposes, even though they share
the same roots and have a few rituals in common. |
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=
I think you could say the same about Catholics and all types of protestants. There are many who think they're different religions and yet there are many people within each of these different groups who believe "We're all Christians." Similarly there's Muslims who believe "We're all Muslims."....
1 person has voted this message useful
| David18
Newbie
United Kingdom
http:/
Joined 5086 days ago
2 posts - 2 votes
Speaks: English*
| Message 22 of 28 24 December 2010 at 9:11am | IP Logged |
staf250 wrote:
This could be the answer, I wish you success:
http://www.madinaharabic.com/ |
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Thanks! I´m looking it now. I was searching and I found another very interesting course in http://www.learningarabic.eu/ What do you think about this course?
Thanks again, I hope to improve my Arabic quickly.
1 person has voted this message useful
| staf250
Pentaglot
Senior Member
Belgium
emmerick.be
Joined 5698 days ago
352 posts - 414 votes
Speaks: French, Dutch*, Italian, English, German
Studies: Arabic (Written)
| Message 23 of 28 24 December 2010 at 11:12am | IP Logged |
Hi David,
http://www.learningarabic.eu/
seems better than all I've seen !!!
2 persons have voted this message useful
| Huliganov
Octoglot
Senior Member
Poland
huliganov.tvRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 5356 days ago
91 posts - 304 votes
Speaks: English*, Polish, French, German, Russian, Spanish, Esperanto, Czech
Studies: Romanian, Turkish, Mandarin, Japanese, Hungarian
| Message 24 of 28 25 December 2010 at 3:12am | IP Logged |
WH2010 wrote:
I think many things said on this thread were more or less correct or have a kernel of
truth to them, but there have also been several misconceptions which I hope I can clear
up.
Huliganov wrote:
The question of whether Shia and Sunni are really as diverse as different branches of
Christianity I would perceive differently to you.
There is no disagreement between these two factions about the contents of the Koran,
that it needs to be read in Arabic, that it is infallible, that Allah created the
world, etc. All they differ on is one two opposing points of view on which of two
people was the successor of Mohammed in leading Islam.
They don't have different pillars of wisdom, they don't have different verses or texts
or parts of the Koran they say are not authoritative. They all pray in a similar way,
go to mosque on the same day, use similar attire.
I believe that between Sunni and Shia you have no more real doctrinal difference than
would exist within different parts of Roman Catholicism alone, and that the doctrinal
pick 'n' mix available across the whole denominational spectrum in Christian churches,
even those broadly following the Nicene creed, is of a totally different order of
magnitude to that in Islam, and pretty much always has been, if you look at the
discussions going on among the Church fathers.
|
|
|
I know this is off-topic, but I feel compelled to respond here because I believe your
views on this are very misinformed. The differences between Shi'ites and Sunnis are
huge and cannot be underestimated. I have studied the differences between Christian
sects and I think it can be argued that Sunnism and Shi'ites differ even more greatly
from each other than Protestants and Catholics. The succession to Muhammad may be the
seminal issue, but out of this issue entire universes of dogma, doctrine, theology,
ritual and political outlook were developed over 1300 years. The examples are too
numerous to outline here. Just as one example (since you mentioned it), there has
always been a school of thought among Shi'ites that accuses the Quran of being tampered
with to omit verses that support the Shi'ite point of view. Today, most Shi'ites
disavow this belief but their interpretation of Quranic verses can be so wildly
different from the Sunni interpretation that they might as well be reading different
books. Plus, most Islamic dogma and law comes not from the Quran but from the Hadith,
and the Sunnis and Shi'ites each have their own separate Hadith collections with zero
overlap, so even if they believe in the same Quran, that does not really amount to as
much as you think.
Studying these things thoroughly can take years, but just to give you a flavour, the
Shi'ites hold that Muhammad was succeeded by 12 infallible "imams" whose words are
equivalent to the Quran itself. This in effect extends Islam's revelation period by
almost 300 years and adds an entire body of theology and law attributed to these 12
imams that the Sunnis simply don't have. It's almost like the difference between
Judaism and Christianity if you think about it! That's not to mention the widely
divergent attitude towards saints (Shi'ites are like Catholics with a long list of
saints and demons, while Sunnis are more like Protestants), the Islamic state and
community (the Shi'ites consider most of Islamic history to be illegitimate and even
view Saladin himself as a villain), the attitude towards Jihad and proselytization
(Shi'ites are concerned almost entirely with converting other Muslims rather than
converting non-Muslims, and Jihad is frowned-upon in the absence of the 12th imam, who
is in occultation), etc. Having studied Shi'ism and Sunnism closely I really consider
them to be two separate religions for all practical purposes, even though they share
the same roots and have a few rituals in common. |
|
|
You make your points with conviction, and they are presented differently than in books I have read on the matter and in discussions I've had before now.
Out of interest, do any of the main pillars of Islam get viewed differently by Shia and Sunni? Do either of them officially believe that God didn't literally make the earth, but that he used evolution for example (as per the Papal encyclical making evolution kosher for Catholics)? Do either of them go to a different place for Hajj or pray in a different direction than the other? Do they pray at different times of day or have services where the Koran is recited in languages other than Arabic?
It's hard to argue whether, in two religions as different as Islam and Christianity are, a certain divergence of opinion in a doctrinal point in the one is bigger than or smaller than a doctrinal divergence in the other. But I also feel that Christianity is made up of different religions, and that even within Protestantism, even within a single denomination of Protestantism, you can have sufficient doctrinal divergence to effectively have two different religions. Within Baptists you have Arminians and Calvinists, and when you dig into their views of salvation you really have two very different approaches to the question of salvation. That's before you get into all the issues of the sacraments and how many there are, who should have them, how churches should be governed, worship styles, approaches to alcohol, etc, and a bunch of other issues people can pick and mix their take on.
It's hard for me to even imagine how Islam could be more diverse than that. They certainly don't look it in my eyes, but maybe it's because I look from a distance.
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