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Arabic or Chinese?

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solidsnake
Diglot
Senior Member
China
Joined 6839 days ago
469 posts - 488 votes 
Speaks: English*, Mandarin

 
 Message 33 of 43
06 September 2007 at 3:55pm | IP Logged 
delectric wrote:
I just got back to Beijing today from Dubai. Urgh the smog is terrible and the city is dirty ...(snip).


Are you talking about Beijing or Dubai?

Did Dubai rock or what? Give us a review..
1 person has voted this message useful



HTale
Bilingual Diglot
Senior Member
United Kingdom
Joined 6176 days ago
164 posts - 167 votes 
Speaks: English*, Arabic (Written)*
Studies: French

 
 Message 34 of 43
13 September 2007 at 8:20pm | IP Logged 
FSI wrote:
I think the Chinese dialects (Mandarin, Cantonese, etc) are similar in differences to the Romance dialects (French, Spanish, Portuguese, etc), while the Arabic dialects (Egyptian, SA, Lebanese, etc) are more closely connected, with the exception being the Maghreb dialects.


Stop picking on the Maghreb dialects! Has anyone heard full blown Iraqi arabic?! Kaaf is turned into a chaaf, amongst other things!

I for one as somebody of Moroccan descent would like to say that pure Moroccan arabic is just the shortening of vowels. There are a few loan words from Berber, granted. However, these loanwords number in the few. Of course the loan words from French always have a moroccan arabic equivalent.

This is not directed exclusively at FSI, but throughout this forum people have constantly picked out maghreb dialects as unrelated to MSA. That's unfair, there are dialects more incomprehensible (if that is how one chooses to classify an affinity to the mother dialect) than the maghreb arabic. Has anyone heard the Arabic of Sudan? Mauritania? A Jordanian bedouin?

The maghreb dialect is a DIALECT for a reason. It IS related to arabic. Examples:

Arabic: Kitaabun (Book)
Moroccan Arabic: Ktaab.

Arabic: Salaah (Prayer)
Moroccan Arabic: Slah.

Arabic: Iqraa (Read)
Moroccan Arabic: Qraa

One could write a book on this dialect, as has been done by many linguists.

I wish not to take this thread on a tangent, but I'd like to remove this common misunderstanding.

Wa shukran.

EDIT: In stating the maghreb dialect is related to MSA, it is therefore easy to infer it is related to every other arabic dialect. Besides, the arab invaders did come from the east, and we boast a dynasty with roots from the Umayyad dynasty from Syria.

Edited by HTale on 13 September 2007 at 8:23pm
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Karakorum
Bilingual Diglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 6367 days ago
201 posts - 232 votes 
Speaks: English*, Arabic (Written)*
Studies: French, German

 
 Message 35 of 43
13 September 2007 at 10:55pm | IP Logged 
HTale, my impression has always been that Maghrebi Arabic is very different from Eastern dialects, not from classical Arabic. In fact I noticed that Western dialects tend to use more words of classical origin, and in general tend to be very conservative relative to some eastern dialects. Egyptian Arabic for example is a lexical and grammatical mess when compared to e.g. Tunisian Arabic (which might as well be vowel shortened standard Arabic). The only observation I would make is that there is a (somehow synthetic) dialect compound in the East formed by Egyptian and Levantine and their pressure on sedentary Gulf Arabic. But as you pointed out, there is some mutual unintelligibility with some dialects in the East. Iraqi, Yemeni, Sudanese, and even unrestrained Gulf (particularly Kuwaiti) come to mind. But also some non-sedentary dialects in the Levant and almost all Bedwin dialects. We sometimes make the mistake of assuming everyone in the Eastern part speaks Egyptian or Lebanese, when they only understand them.

I have a question for you though. Why is it that sometimes I understand Maghrebi Arabic, and some other times I don't get a single word. Consider for example these two songs, the first of which I got on my third shot, the second I don't get even when I read the lyrics. Are they in different dialects? Does one use more Tamazight loans?


This one is pretty easy

This might as well be a different language
1 person has voted this message useful



HTale
Bilingual Diglot
Senior Member
United Kingdom
Joined 6176 days ago
164 posts - 167 votes 
Speaks: English*, Arabic (Written)*
Studies: French

 
 Message 36 of 43
14 September 2007 at 6:08pm | IP Logged 
Karakorum wrote:
HTale, my impression has always been that Maghrebi Arabic is very different from Eastern dialects, not from classical Arabic. In fact I noticed that Western dialects tend to use more words of classical origin, and in general tend to be very conservative relative to some eastern dialects. Egyptian Arabic for example is a lexical and grammatical mess when compared to e.g. Tunisian Arabic (which might as well be vowel shortened standard Arabic). The only observation I would make is that there is a (somehow synthetic) dialect compound in the East formed by Egyptian and Levantine and their pressure on sedentary Gulf Arabic. But as you pointed out, there is some mutual unintelligibility with some dialects in the East. Iraqi, Yemeni, Sudanese, and even unrestrained Gulf (particularly Kuwaiti) come to mind. But also some non-sedentary dialects in the Levant and almost all Bedwin dialects. We sometimes make the mistake of assuming everyone in the Eastern part speaks Egyptian or Lebanese, when they only understand them.

I have a question for you though. Why is it that sometimes I understand Maghrebi Arabic, and some other times I don't get a single word. Consider for example these two songs, the first of which I got on my third shot, the second I don't get even when I read the lyrics. Are they in different dialects? Does one use more Tamazight loans?


This one is pretty easy

This might as well be a different language



Just to pick out a lyric from the song from which you don't understand and to pick it apart:

Ya rayah win msafar trouh taaya wa twali

Ya Rayah = O one who is leaving

win msafar: win is the shortening of wayn, which is common in Egyptian Arabic. Msafar, is from the arabic word yusaafir, which obviously to you and I means to travel.

trouh (N)taaya wa twali: trouh means "to go". 'Taaya', is obviously "to become tired of sth" "wa twali" is a Tamazight loan word to mean "to return" (or in some contexts, "to become sth").

So, first line translates to "O one who is leaving/on travels, where are you going, you'll grow tired and just return".

The interesting thing about moroccan arabic is that it retains many arabic words, but the structure of sentences are distinctly berber, which is why the transparency of Moroccan arabic with anti-atlas berber is so strong. You just need to train your ears! My next door neighbour in our holiday home in Agadir is Romanian, and she speaks immacualte Moroccan arabic. If she can do it, I'm sure an arab can!

EDIT: Both songs are exactly the same dialect, namely Algerian arabic.

Edited by HTale on 14 September 2007 at 6:11pm
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brian00321
Senior Member
United States
Joined 6396 days ago
143 posts - 148 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: German

 
 Message 37 of 43
19 September 2007 at 11:52am | IP Logged 
Ushagi wrote:
This is my first post on this forum, nice to meet you all.

My question is, can you help me choose which language to learn? My choices are Chinese and Arabic, and it's really
difficult for me to decide. The reason for learning another language is that I'm doing some translation work from
Swedish to English, and I want to expand my language selection.


If you're in for the money and adventure. I think Arabic is the way to go. Blackwater, Aegis, and a couple of other Private Military Companies hire Arabic linguist and are in high demand to boot. There's also another company called L-3 Titan. They all pay pretty well also. Averaging $150,00-$175,000 a year. Problem is, as you already know, you might get killed. An article on TIME says more than 200 Arabic linguist alone from their company have been killed. But pick whatever you like best. Me, I would pick Arabic just because I find Middle-Eastern culture more facinating. But whatever rocks your boat. Just work hard at it.

Edited by brian00321 on 19 September 2007 at 11:53am
1 person has voted this message useful



BelgoHead
Senior Member
Belgium
Joined 6101 days ago
120 posts - 119 votes 
Studies: French, English*
Studies: Esperanto

 
 Message 38 of 43
19 September 2007 at 2:29pm | IP Logged 
"Blackwater, Aegis, and a couple of other Private Military Companies hire Arabic linguist and are in high demand to boot"

Are they American militatry companies?

Even if i could speak arabic(although im moving to arabic country), no way would i help the americans in IRaq, not even for that much $$$

Edited by BelgoHead on 19 September 2007 at 2:30pm
1 person has voted this message useful



manny
Triglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 6156 days ago
248 posts - 240 votes 
Speaks: English*, Spanish, Tagalog
Studies: French, German

 
 Message 39 of 43
19 September 2007 at 3:16pm | IP Logged 
BelgoHead wrote:
... Even if i could speak arabic(although im moving to arabic country), no way would i help the americans in IRaq, not even for that much $$$

Your post in NO way contributes to the self-learning of languages.

Reminder: politics is not supposed to be discussed at all on this forum.

1 person has voted this message useful



Karakorum
Bilingual Diglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 6367 days ago
201 posts - 232 votes 
Speaks: English*, Arabic (Written)*
Studies: French, German

 
 Message 40 of 43
20 September 2007 at 3:58am | IP Logged 
HTale wrote:
Karakorum wrote:
HTale, my impression has always been that Maghrebi Arabic is very different from Eastern dialects, not from classical Arabic. In fact I noticed that Western dialects tend to use more words of classical origin, and in general tend to be very conservative relative to some eastern dialects. Egyptian Arabic for example is a lexical and grammatical mess when compared to e.g. Tunisian Arabic (which might as well be vowel shortened standard Arabic). The only observation I would make is that there is a (somehow synthetic) dialect compound in the East formed by Egyptian and Levantine and their pressure on sedentary Gulf Arabic. But as you pointed out, there is some mutual unintelligibility with some dialects in the East. Iraqi, Yemeni, Sudanese, and even unrestrained Gulf (particularly Kuwaiti) come to mind. But also some non-sedentary dialects in the Levant and almost all Bedwin dialects. We sometimes make the mistake of assuming everyone in the Eastern part speaks Egyptian or Lebanese, when they only understand them.

I have a question for you though. Why is it that sometimes I understand Maghrebi Arabic, and some other times I don't get a single word. Consider for example these two songs, the first of which I got on my third shot, the second I don't get even when I read the lyrics. Are they in different dialects? Does one use more Tamazight loans?


This one is pretty easy

This might as well be a different language



Just to pick out a lyric from the song from which you don't understand and to pick it apart:

Ya rayah win msafar trouh taaya wa twali

Ya Rayah = O one who is leaving

win msafar: win is the shortening of wayn, which is common in Egyptian Arabic. Msafar, is from the arabic word yusaafir, which obviously to you and I means to travel.

trouh (N)taaya wa twali: trouh means "to go". 'Taaya', is obviously "to become tired of sth" "wa twali" is a Tamazight loan word to mean "to return" (or in some contexts, "to become sth").

So, first line translates to "O one who is leaving/on travels, where are you going, you'll grow tired and just return".

The interesting thing about moroccan arabic is that it retains many arabic words, but the structure of sentences are distinctly berber, which is why the transparency of Moroccan arabic with anti-atlas berber is so strong. You just need to train your ears! My next door neighbour in our holiday home in Agadir is Romanian, and she speaks immacualte Moroccan arabic. If she can do it, I'm sure an arab can!

EDIT: Both songs are exactly the same dialect, namely Algerian arabic.


Sorry to keep taking the thread on a tangent.

Well, this illustrates the point I was making earlier, Maghrebi Arabic is not heterodox relative to MSA but relative to Eastern dialects.

The sentence (after your explanation) would be as follows in MSA:
Ya rayih ayna musafir, tarooh taaya wa tuwalli.
The Algerian sentence is in fact not that weird, it just uses low frequency words. I think tuwalli is of classical origin, from root w-l-y: to take as, consider as, head towards, face towards. Unless I am seeing a false friend.

In Egyptian the sentence would be:
Ya rayeh mesafer fein, terooh tezha' we tergaa.
Again mostly using Arabic words, but juxtaposing fein (wein is not used in Egyptian) under effect from Coptic, relaxing vowels, and changing qaf to glottal stop.

So I guess if someone proficient in classical hears either sentence without bias, they would get the gist of it. That's why I advise people to start with MSA. To my eastern biased ears two things ruined comprehension:
1-Taaya to me is used exclusively in reference to mild physical illness, it is never used metaphorically, and isn't even used for mental conditions. In the classical sense it is often used to indicate dizziness, sickness, nausea, and is often used non-literally.
2-No matter how hard I tried, I kept hearing towalli as tegolly.
So to me, the phrase sounded like:
"Oh you, who are leaving, you will go, catch the flu, and tell me all about it."
And it only went downhill from there.
I bet if I spent a month in Morocco I would get it though, because I used to think Gulf was another language till I spent a month in Dubai.


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