On Thursday, 27 August 1992 16:31:10 UTC+1, R. Wallace wrote:
I have a question. I read classical Arabic (mostly mathematical and philosophical texts) and travel quite widely in the Middle East. I think
it is about time I really got on top of some version of spoken Arabic.
The question is, which one?
The countries I regularly visit are Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Palestine,
Morocco, Algieria, Tunisia, and Libya. Obviously, this covers a wide
spectrum of vernaculars. Which would be the best bet to choose? Which
would be most widely understood? Which would be most acceptable to
speakers of other vernaculars? You will understand that I am talking
about ordinary colloquial Arabic, not the standard Arabic of newspapers
and the other media.
I would be quite interested to hear what Arabic speakers think about the different colloquial versions of the language. As I am sure you know, in English, some dialects have a higher prestige than others; some are
regarded by outsiders as rather comical; others are virtually incomprehensible to any who doesn't speak them (like my own - I
originate in the North East of England, and had to learn Standard
English almost as a second language!) Is this sort of thing true about Arabic?
Thank you for the help!
Richard Wallace.
Hi Richard,
I think that it is very interesting to study spoken dialects (vernaculars). The choice of which one you want to study depends on your orientations. Moroccan darija is very different from all other vernaculars. Moroccan dialect has borrowed a lot of other
languages, especially French and Spanish and it is completely different. A speaker of Moroccan dialect can understand all the other Arabic dialects; however, Arabs cannot understand Moroccan dialects and this is a great advantages to Us the the Moroccans.
I hope you all the best in your language learning. Please do not hesitate to write me back should you need any help.
Chakir
www.my-word.co.uk
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