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 Language Learning Forum : Philological Room |  | |
| Jappy58 Bilingual Super Polyglot Senior Member United States Joined 4423 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 9 of 9 24 August 2012 at 7:04pm | IP Logged | ||
Arabic dialects have certainly always existed (of course, differently than they do now). In the Pre-Islamic area, different groups and tribes had different dialects, though most Arabic speakers were confined to the Arabian Peninsula. Eventually the Qurashyi dialect became the most important because of their acceptance of Islam )when Islam was introduced). That being said, you are correct in stating that as Arabic spread with Islam throughout large parts of the Middle East and North Africa, the language began to change more. In what is now called the Maghreb (Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia, etc.), there were distinct cultures versus the ones that existed in the Levant. As a result, they adapted features from the respective languages and cultures (unsurprising). Egyptian Arabic, for example, has a solid Coptic substratum compared to other modern Arabic dialects. The Maghrebi dialects (except for Libyan and Mauritanian/Hassaniya) have a stronger Berber influence, which is not something that applies to any of the other Arabic dialects. Maghrebi Arabic is often considered "extremely divergent" from MSA compared to other dialects. After extensive experience with Moroccan, I disagree (to an extent). The main feature that makes Moroccan (and Algerian and Tunisian) difficult for Mashriqi Arabs to understand is the phonology. Moroccans speak with a speech pattern much more similar to the Berber languages than to the "typical" Arabic speech pattern. Many people also put the blame on French and Berber loan words. While this also contributes to the limited mutual intelligibility, I'd say it's to a lesser extent than the pronunciation and speech patterns. While Moroccan does indeed borrow more French than most other dialects, EVERY dialect borrows more from another language than some other dialects: Iraqi and Gulf dialects borrow more from Persian and Hindi-Urdu than Egyptian; Levantine leans towards Turkish loan words, etc. Furthermore, many Arabic dialects borrow from French - yet mutual intelligibility is high among most Middle Eastern dialects. Berber loan words have more of an impact, IMO, since they don't really exist in other dialects. Despite this, Moroccan is still overwhelmingly Arabic-based, lexically speaking. Grammatically speaking, Moroccan is no more divergent than Middle Eastern dialects and actually shares most features even with Middle Eastern dialects. A Middle Eastern individual would think I'm crazy, but it's true. XD If Moroccan Arabic were written using Arabic script in a certain situation, there is no doubt that intelligibility would increase exponentially (similar to how Spanish and Portuguese can display high mutual intelligibility when written, though between the Arabic dialects it would arguably be higher). That's why the statement "Moroccan is not Arabic" is nonsense. In all, Moroccan IS more divergent than most other dialects - but it's not by a mile. It's only more divergent by a little bit. Anyways, back to the core of this topic: will Arabic dialects diverge to the point of separating? Again, I doubt it, especially when it comes to Egyptian, Sudanese, Hijazi, Levantine, Iraqi, Gulf, Najdi, Yemeni, and Libyan. However, the Arab world is diverse and feelings towards the diglossia situation vary. In Egypt, as I've stated other times, there is particular pride among the speakers of the Cairene dialect. Students who visit Egypt speaking in elaborate MSA will often encounter chuckling at the formal language being spoken on the streets (though this doesn't necessarily mean the Egyptians are making fun of the student - they're usually laughing at MSA on the street). Among writers, Egyptians were often opting to include colloquial language the most in plays and novels. In Lebanon, the situation is similar - there's even a website called "ABC Lebanese" that stands on the view that Lebanese and MSA are separate languages with common roots. Frankly, I disagree - but my point is that there are some Arabs that are starting to view them as different (though closely related) languages, although these Arabs are still in a very minute minority. @montmorency: I see, I hadn't considered the English spoken in India. The dialects I had in mind were American, British, and Austrailian, and it is between these that I doubt there would be divergence significant enough to be considered separate languages (on linguistic grounds). 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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