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Do Almost All Muslims Speak Arabic? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| Doitsujin Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 5130 days ago 1256 posts - 2363 votes  Speaks: German*, English | Message 9 of 29 05 September 2014 at 4:12pm | IP Logged | |||||
If you're a grammar geek, you might find the following DLI book helpful: A Contrastive Study of English and Arabic Since it uses transliterated Arabic, it doesn't require any Arabic reading skills. However, it takes some time to get used to the somewhat weird transliteration scheme (ALA-LC + IPA). 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Principiante Senior Member United States lucasgentry.com Joined 6068 days ago 130 posts - 138 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 10 of 29 05 September 2014 at 6:20pm | IP Logged | |||||
1) I am a grammar geek, so thank you. 2) I am conceptually familiar with IPA, but I haven't worked with ALA-LC before. Thank you for introducing me to this. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| DaisyMaisy Senior Member United States Joined 5190 days ago 115 posts - 178 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish Studies: Swedish, Finnish | Message 11 of 29 27 September 2014 at 2:40am | IP Logged | |||||
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There is an interesting documentary on a contest held annually in Cairo where Muslims memorize as much as they can from the Koran and then recite it. Many of the contestants (most were children) came from non Arabic speaking countries and spoke not a word of Arabic. There were people from Senegal, the Maldives, Tajikistan, and I forget where else.
It was quite impressive how much the kids had memorized. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Medulin Tetraglot Senior Member Croatia Joined 4478 days ago 1199 posts - 2192 votes Speaks: Croatian*, English, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Norwegian, Hindi, Nepali | Message 12 of 29 27 September 2014 at 4:38am | IP Logged | |||||
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Too bad Arabic is such a religion-oriented language, and non-Muslim users of Arabic are treated with suspicion.
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| fiolmattias Triglot Groupie Sweden geocities.com/fiolmaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6499 days ago 62 posts - 129 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, Arabic (Written) | Message 13 of 29 27 September 2014 at 5:50am | IP Logged | |||||
By whom? 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| robarb Nonaglot Senior Member United States languagenpluson Joined 4869 days ago 361 posts - 921 votes Speaks: Portuguese, English*, German, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, French Studies: Mandarin, Danish, Russian, Norwegian, Cantonese, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Greek, Latin, Nepali, Modern Hebrew | Message 14 of 29 27 September 2014 at 7:55am | IP Logged | |||||
By Muslim speakers of Arabic, obviously. Now as to whether this is true, it is probably so in some circles and not in others. I don't have any personal experience, but the Arab-speaking world is huge and Arabic isn't even really one language- a blanket statement like that is unlikely to be either true or false for the entire Arab world. Plus, there are millions of Christians among the Arabic speakers of Lebanon and Egypt. If they are treated with suspicion it certainly has little to do with them speaking Arabic. As an Arabic-speaking Croatian, Medulin could probably pretend to be a Bosnian Muslim if necessary... though this might be out of the question as a matter of principle, I don't know. However, this thread is about the degree to which Muslims speak Arabic, not what Arabs think of non-Muslim foreigners. So when non-Arabophone Muslims read the Koran, how do they do it? Do they use translations? Do they have a teacher explain to them the meaning, line by line? For the parts they haven't memorized, how do they go back and reference a section? Edited by robarb on 27 September 2014 at 8:21am 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Doitsujin Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 5130 days ago 1256 posts - 2363 votes Speaks: German*, English | Message 15 of 29 27 September 2014 at 9:05am | IP Logged | |||||
AFAIK, many of them use special Qur'an editions that contain the Arabic text, translations into their native languages and pronunciation guides. There doesn't seem to be a universally accepted English translation and translating the Qur'an isn't a trivial matter either. For more information, see this article.
AFAIK, this depends on the region and the teacher, Muslims are expected to say at least some commonly used phrases and prayers, for example the first surah, in Arabic and often use Arabic Qur'an terminology even if they don't speak Arabic. Some non-Arabs even manage to memorize the whole Qur'an phonetically (often without understanding it) and take part in international competitions. For more information see this interesting documentary. 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| robarb Nonaglot Senior Member United States languagenpluson Joined 4869 days ago 361 posts - 921 votes Speaks: Portuguese, English*, German, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, French Studies: Mandarin, Danish, Russian, Norwegian, Cantonese, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Greek, Latin, Nepali, Modern Hebrew | Message 16 of 29 28 September 2014 at 12:37am | IP Logged | |||||
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Interesting, I'd heard that they don't like translations, so I wondered how it worked in practice.
Wikipedia says, "According to modern Islamic theology, the Qur'an is a revelation very specifically in Arabic, and so it should only be recited in the Arabic language. Translations into other languages are necessarily the work of humans and so, according to Muslims, no longer possess the uniquely sacred character of the Arabic original. Since these translations necessarily subtly change the meaning, they are often called "interpretations"[2] or "translation[s] of the meanings" (with "meanings" being ambiguous between the meanings of the various passages and the multiple possible meanings with which each word taken in isolation can be associated, and with the latter connotation amounting to an acknowledgement that the so-called translation is but one possible interpretation and is not claimed to be the full equivalent of the original). For instance, Pickthall called his translation The Meaning of the Glorious Koran rather than simply The Koran." So it seems like they do use translations, but (unlike as occurs with translations of the Christian Bible) such translations are not themselves considered to be the Koran. So you use the translation to read it for meaning, but for it to function as a sacred text or to be recited it must be in Arabic. Anybody have personal experience in such a situation? 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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