Do Almost All Muslims Speak Arabic? (Specific Languages) Language Learning Forum

Do Almost All Muslims Speak Arabic?
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Darklight1216
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Message 17 of 29

28 September 2014 at 2:54am | IP Logged

robarb wrote:

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?

That sort of reminds me of the Catholic church's insistence upon Latin versions of the
Bible.

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fiolmattias
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Message 18 of 29

28 September 2014 at 5:59am | IP Logged

robarb wrote:

fiolmattias wrote:

Medulin wrote:

....and non-Muslim users of Arabic
are treated with suspicion.

By whom?

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

I have spoken arabic with muslims and others and in Egypt, Jordan, Malta, Spain, and all
over the Scandinavia and I have never met that attitude.
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Doitsujin
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Message 19 of 29

28 September 2014 at 8:46am | IP Logged

fiolmattias wrote:

robarb wrote:

fiolmattias wrote:

Medulin wrote:

....and non-Muslim users of Arabic are treated with suspicion.

By whom?

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

I have spoken arabic with muslims and others and in Egypt, Jordan, Malta, Spain, and all over the Scandinavia and I have never met that attitude.

I've also never met that attitude. On the contrary, most Arabs appreciate it if foreigners try to speak their language.

BTW, Medulin often uses blanket statements that seem to reflect only his personal experience and/or prejudices.
For example, in the Indicative vs Subjunctive in English Grammar, English thread he claimed:

Medulin wrote:

We recommended she book her flight earlier (subjunctive).

L2 learners of English never get this right, preferring obsolete Briticisms like:
We recommended her to book her flight earlier.

However, IIRC, neither I nor my fellow English students used Britishisms instead of the subjunctive, which isn't that complicated in English.
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Ari
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Message 20 of 29

28 September 2014 at 10:59am | IP Logged

So, seeing that the original question has been answered, I'd like to pose a counterquestion: How many Arabic speakers are non-muslims? AFAIK, there's no Arabic-speaking country that is not also a muslim country (with commonsense definitions for both), but there are non-muslim Arabic-speaking minorities, as has been mentioned. How many of these are there? And what's their proportion in relation to the total number of speakers?
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fiolmattias
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Message 21 of 29

28 September 2014 at 3:26pm | IP Logged

Ari wrote:

So, seeing that the original question has been answered, I'd like to pose a
counterquestion: How many Arabic speakers are non-muslims? AFAIK, there's no Arabic-
speaking country that is not also a muslim country (with commonsense definitions for
both), but there are non-muslim Arabic-speaking minorities, as has been mentioned. How
many of these are there? And what's their proportion in relation to the total number of
speakers?

That is not an easy question to answer. One of the reasons is what do you mean by
speaking? If you mean the official language we have to add Israel where 13% is muslims.
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Medulin
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Message 22 of 29

29 September 2014 at 2:47am | IP Logged

Doitsujin wrote:

fiolmattias wrote:

robarb wrote:

fiolmattias wrote:

Medulin wrote:

....and non-Muslim users of Arabic are treated with suspicion.

By whom?

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

I have spoken arabic with muslims and others and in Egypt, Jordan, Malta, Spain, and all over the Scandinavia and I have never met that attitude.

Medulin wrote:

We recommended she book her flight earlier (subjunctive).

L2 learners of English never get this right, preferring obsolete Briticisms like:
We recommended her to book her flight earlier.

However, IIRC, neither I nor my fellow English students used Britishisms instead of the subjunctive, which isn't that complicated in English.

Why are many people from a unified country so opinionated, defensive and descending into personal attacks?
Is it a mentality thing?

Edited by Medulin on 29 September 2014 at 2:49am
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Doitsujin
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Message 23 of 29

29 September 2014 at 9:54am | IP Logged

Medulin wrote:

Why are many people from a unified country so opinionated, defensive and descending into personal attacks?
Is it a mentality thing?

You do realize that you've just made another blanket statement, don't you?

I'd appreciate it, if you stayed on topic.
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Luso
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Message 24 of 29

29 September 2014 at 7:28pm | IP Logged

I'm afraid I've been busy in the last few days, but I still think I must address the following statement:

Medulin wrote:

Too bad Arabic is such a religion-oriented language, and non-Muslim users of Arabic are treated with suspicion.

From what I've seen, the second part of the statement has already been disproven, so I'll leave it at that.

Concerning the first part, it couldn't be less true: in pre-Islamic times (to which Muslims call "the time of ignorance") there was an annual truce between tribes, during which there was a poetry contest. The winner had his poem hung in letters of gold in the walls of the Kaaba.

I don't know about other forum members, but for me the idea of stopping the permanent (and inevitable) infighting between desert tribes to hold a poetry contest ranks high in terms of civilised behaviour (another case is the well-known Olympic Truce).

Anyway, I was just disputing the claim that Arabic is a religion-oriented language. This would be the same as saying that Greek is so, too, just because the New Testament was written in Greek.

Edited by Luso on 29 September 2014 at 7:50pm

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