In what may go down in history as my strangest impulse purchase ever, I signed up for a seven week Arabic course at the local community college. So, while walking out of orientation under the somewhat suspicious gaze of the guys there for Advanced Welding Techniques, I thought I would record the experience for posterity....
I can't say that I had ever wanted to learn Arabic before I saw it in the course catalog that showed up in my mailbox one day, somewhere between Auto Body Repair and HVAC training. To a lover of obscure and lesser known languages, Arabic seems to be the new “IT” language, with a glut of college freshman jumping on the band wagon only to be pushed off by Chinese or what ever comes next. In fact, only six months ago, I had told my friend Vinny the Turk that I really wasn't interested in Arabic. Like many declarations made over pints of cheap beer at The 'Gardens, this one didn't last long.
But a few things changed my mind. Not the least of which was finally learning to read the Arabic script. As far as world languages go, Arabic is one of the giants, standing along with the likes of Latin, Chinese and Sanskrit as a idiom of cultural conquest. Like it's peers, many previously unwritten languages found shapes for their sounds in its writing system.
Just as languages as unrelated as Vietnamese, English and Mohawk use letters more or less recognizable to Julius Caesar- people as far away as Western China, Pakistan and Nigeria write with many of the same curves and loops as those used by the Caliphs of Baghdad.
But, Arabic also gave these languages more than just a way to survive on paper through the ages. The everyday speech of millions of people is spiced with loanwords of Arabic origin. Although the Republic of Turkey tossed out the alphabet, there's still enough Arabic words in the average Turkish newspaper to choke a Kemalist.
I was also a little curious as to who the hell takes an Arabic class at a community college, and the first day introductions where illustrative: a couple of heritage speakers, an equal number of people doing it for romantic partners, some business interests in the Middle East and three people just doing it for fun and personal enrichment. (Not all reasons being mutually exclusive, by the way).
As for myself, I'm fighting the urge to run out and buy an Arabic reference grammar, since I have this crazy idea that I should try to figure this language out on it's own terms, at least 'till the end of class, and then I'll check and see how close I came. Kind of like playing a linguistic game of “pin the tale on the donkey.”
Next: The sounds of Arabic
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