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Arabic hyped up vs. Persian and Turkish? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| SamD Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 6660 days ago 823 posts - 987 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish, French Studies: Portuguese, Norwegian | Message 25 of 71 27 August 2009 at 9:54pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I have to agree with JasonBourne on this one. I also live in the Midwest, and even in my little town, there are a fair number of Arabic speakers. I've encountered a couple of Turkish and Farsi speakers at the university, but far fewer of them.
The university offers Arabic classes, but nothing in Farsi or Turkish. Materials for Arabic are much easier to find in libraries and bookstores. People here seem to be only vaguely aware--if at all--of the very existence of Farsi or Turkish. Iraq is in the news far more often than Iran, so Arabic may be seen as a helpful language in a way that Russian or Vietnamese was seen years ago. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| hamada Triglot Newbie Western Sahara Joined 5569 days ago 5 posts - 20 votes Speaks: Arabic (Written)*, French, English Studies: Mandarin, Esperanto | Message 26 of 71 28 August 2009 at 1:38am | IP Logged | |||||
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In the Arab world most people know classical Arabic, though it is not widely spoken out side of "official sphere" (e.g education, TV, literature), but rest assured that all literate people in the Arab world and immigrant know and perfectly understand classical Arabic as it is taught in school.
The dialects are different from the original language, and each country have its own, and generally people never try to learn them unless they are going to deal with illiterate people in remote area in the countrysides, like the Peace Corps and other humanitarian organizations. 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Sennin Senior Member Bulgaria Joined 6035 days ago 1457 posts - 1759 votes 5 sounds | Message 27 of 71 28 August 2009 at 2:25am | IP Logged | |||||
I also find it off-putting that Turkish uses the Latin script. All in all, the only thing I like about Arabic is the beautiful script. Turkish doesn't use it, so for me the chic factor is very low. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| !LH@N Triglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6822 days ago 487 posts - 531 votes Speaks: German, Turkish*, English Studies: Serbo-Croatian, Spanish | Message 28 of 71 29 August 2009 at 1:59pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Me too I think that the Arabic script is very beautiful, but there are certain very understandable reasons for not using it anymore. The most important for me is that the Latin alphabet just fits the sounds of Turkish better than the Arab and makes reading a lot easier.
I don't know Arabic, but as far as I have read the majority of people (who are, unfortunately, uneducated and/or illiterate) do not know Classical Arabic. And Classical Arabic would only help you with written communication, to really be able to speak to somebody you'd have to learn a dialect, or am I wrong? So this argument too I think is not really convincing (for me). Regards, Ilhan 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Mithridates Newbie Korea, South pagef30.com Joined 5677 days ago 21 posts - 36 votes | Message 29 of 71 18 September 2010 at 4:04pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Chic factor for Turkish: that's easy. Just learn Turkish and then learn how to read
Ottoman Turkish. There are even some courses on archive.org that teach Turkish as it was before Atatürk's reforms. Overall it's not a great deal different than Turkish today, just with more loanwords and written in a different script. I also agree with the main premise of this thread. Arabic is a bit overrated, and is much harder to learn - not just the language itself but the fact that you need to learn both MSA and a regional variant just to be able to 1) understand the news and 2) talk to people. With Turkish and Persian you can get 1) and 2) just by learning the standard language. 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 30 of 71 19 September 2010 at 3:10am | IP Logged | |||||
I fail to see how learning any language is overrated. If you have a strong command of MSA you can still be a translator.(Being a translator means you translate texts. This shouldn't be confused with an interpreter who translates spoken word.) Edited by CaucusWolf on 19 September 2010 at 3:12am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| LatinoBoy84 Bilingual Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 5576 days ago 443 posts - 603 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish*, French Studies: Russian, Portuguese, Latvian | Message 31 of 71 19 September 2010 at 4:57am | IP Logged | |||||
Actually if one learns Turkish well enough as well as Arabic script...wouldn't one gain access to much of the literature of Iran? Isn't the second most used language (40%) a Turkic language that uses Arabic script? 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 32 of 71 20 September 2010 at 4:34am | IP Logged | |||||
Knowing MSA makes it easier to learn Turkish and Persian so I imagine it's mutual. I don't know about 40% though. Edited by CaucusWolf on 20 September 2010 at 4:35am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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