I also forgot to mention in the video that the accents of the women are very distinct even though they're using MSA/"white language". In other words, you can tell the Algerian woman is from NW Africa and the Syrian woman is Shami regardless of the vocab they use. Pronunciation is always a giveaway.
I also disagree with your suggestion not to learn Fus'ha, once you learn it really well, and have a good understanding of how it's systems are like, it becomes so easy for you to learn the local dialects. And believe me, the majority of Arabic speakers understand it easily.
I have a question, if you don't learn MSA, how do you read? Isn't reading a fundamental part in the process of learning? For me personally, the beauty of Arabic is in the texts, poetry or prose, there is something magical about it, and if you focus on the conversational aspects by learning a dialect you will miss out a lot of that magic. I started learning spanish recently, and my goal is to communicate of course, but also to READ the big classics, being able to read One hundred years of solitude or Don Quixote in Spanish is something that keeps motivated, i want to experience the language in its purest and most beautiful form. Good luck :)
Happy that you responded to this video: I was learning MSA for 6 months or so before I switched to learning a mix of Saudi, Emirati/Gulf and Iraqi based on your advice. That was about 3 years ago. Watching this Arguelles video a few weeks back made me feel that I had made a misstep to postpone studying MSA. Time will tell what the truth is (I am not yet living in the language) but based on your persuasively worded advice I have been, and will remain, committed to the dialect approach.
@@mezzoguild To be frank, In the same 3 years that it took me to gain basic fluency in French, I am still a novice in Arabic. I feel things accelerating now, though. Inspired by your "chunking" advice and specifically the advice of using software to loop chunks, I have been studying it so - with a twist - to good effect. I recently uploaded a video demonstrating my current technological approach.
Thank you about this explanation. I was asking myself if there was something similar like "white language" in the dialect continuum of Germanic languages. Code switching, now I got it.
Thanks very much for answering my question! Much appreciated and very interesting. Another aspect of my question, though, was could a learner of, say, Palestinian dialect also be told up front which Palestinian-isms are hard to understand and should be substituted for MSA when speaking to someone with another dialect? Thus, I could avoid learning MSA in its entirety and instead learn only small chunks of MSA that are relevant for a Palestinian speaker to make himself understood in most of the Arabic speaking world. For example, a learner of Irish English could be told up front to avoid saying "what's the craic" outside of Ireland, because no one will understand, and instead to just say "are you enjoying yourself".
I'm sure it's totally possible to do that as a learner but I've never met anyone who's done it that way. Seems like a lot of extra work to me personally. Over time, you pick up words in other dialects (including MSA) naturally and can substitute words to get your point across.
Hi Donovan! I'm from Algeria and i would like to give my opinion about this topic. First of all, people around the world must know that north africa is not arab, but it is berber, that means we are basically berbers even we speak arabic language. before arab invasion in Algeria, people used to speak berber language, and they still do it (my grandparents de speak berber). After the arab invasion, we had an Arabic dialect to us that we always speak, however, the most important thing that changes the situation here in Algeria was the French conquest (132 years). The algerian arabic dialect was much influenced by the french language (that's one of the reasons why arabs have trouble understanding our arabic dialect). I can even say that algerian arabic dialect after french colonization is so much different than algerian arabic dialect before french colonization. Then, as you said in your comment, the accents of the women are very distinct even though they're using white language. I'm gonna say that, even if north africans (Algerians specially) can speak, read and understand arabic language (classical one like in books), it really remains a very distant language (believe me there are people here who do not even know how to compose a correct sentence in arabic). Wanna know the reason? Algeria suffered a brutal Arabization just after the independence. People were very comfortable with French language and culture but politics wanted to Arabize the country (a stupid decision i think). you can read this for more information: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arabization#Arabization_in_Algeria,_Morocco,_Libya,_and_Tunisia By the other side , arabic dialect in Syria remains very close to the classical arabic language and it has little influence by other foreign languages, that's why syrians have a good fluent arabic accent. Roughly speaking, the question of language in Algeria remains a vast problem, it even evokes the question of identity.
The "Arab Invaders" you are talking about are Sahabas, companions of the prophet such as Uqba ibn Nafi. For you to refer to them like they are unwelcome invaders, do I presume you are non muslim? The arabs removed the roman empire from north africa and made alliances with the berbers. They were not invaders. The language was not spread by force. Berbers and Arabs cooperated and intermixed. Hence why Islamic spain was initially conquested by Tariq ibn Ziyad, a berber. Im not sure on what basis north africans were "comfortable" with French. Its viewed as the language of colonialism and oppression and totally foreign to north africa. Only a few elitists who were put in power by the colonial administrations favoured french.
@@abufatimah7688 They were invaders, they literally came in with weapons like any other empire. If the French are invaders because they conquered someone else, then so are Arabs. It's not like they were invited. The North Africans putting a resistance to the conquests had their leader beheaded.
Great video! And yes, I’ve done the same in English, Spanish and French (Probably this way with all languages that are spread). I read a little on Dr. A and he is an Academic, meaning probably won’t venture too far from cities like you said. He did live in Lebanon for a while and can speak Levantine so while he speaks MSA, his ability to comprehend dialects is very high.
If not learning a dialect means I will have trouble understanding the least educated part of the population, I feel like that's not too bad. The most educated are those I'd prefer to connect with.
At least you're honest but higher educated, city-types tend to: a) speak fluent English and b) be more Westernized. For an authentic cultural immersion experience, I'd recommend changing your preference.
@@mezzoguild you're completely wrong about villagers not having a good command of fus-ha. I have used fus-ha in remote villages of morocco and it was very beneficial knowing fus-ha arabic
@@mezzoguild Just an general assumption about someone who is giving a presentation and is preparing to interview two people. Even a presentation in our own language, we would rehearse it in our head, picking the correct words, making sure there won't be any blank or hesitation, etc. This is very different than improvising, and this is why I never judge someone's level in a language basing it on a presentation. It means really nothing. I'm making no reproach though. In any case, you're in a better position than I am to judge whether his use of the arabic language also good en rich when he was reacting to something those two women were saying, and not just during the introduction. I'm just very sketical nowdays with polyglots. Remember Tim Doner. Steve Kaufman is one of the rare polyglots who is willing to post videos of himself struggling to find the words, and really improvising, and sometimes looking really bad in a language he studied for years like russian. To me, this means a lot.
my three "don't" when it comes to judging somebody's level in a language: 1) monologue and presentation don't mean much. 2) polyglots are notoriously good at speaking about language learning. Pick another subject to feel their real level. Doesn't have to be poetry. Ask them to narrate the last movie they saw. 3) Speaking, by itself, does not mean much altogether. Can this person understand movies ? understand radio ? pick a random stranger and engage in a conversation without asking the other person to repeat every phrase they say ? It's far more easy to speak than people tend to make it. Understanding is underestimated.
@@etienneturgeon You make a good point, but in Mr. Arguelle's defense you could find a video of him planning his language learning schedule in his channel. In that video, what sticks out like a sore thumb is that one of the activities he does the most is write in arabic nearly ten or so pages a day and read some grammar and stories in arabic. One last thing is that this aforementioned video is more than a decade old (eleven years old to be precise). If I didn't know all this then I would've agreed with you wholeheartedly, but knowing that this video is there in his channel just makes me disagree with your statement immediately. You can also find 40 minutes worth of arabic content from that meeting in his channel. I speak Arabic as my first language (Fusha particularly because my father was very strict with proper arabic), and one of the authors Mr. Arguelles goes over is Najib Mahfouz who is an author known to use some really tough words in his novels. Hell, sometimes I need to use a dictionary with his novels even though I have a deep knowledge in MSA. You may criticize him, but one thing I can say for sure is that his Arabic is damn good.
Happy new year Donovan to you and your family. I have to agree with you I like the way that the air boot language in all five of us dialects are being learned separately I don’t think they’re replacing them with a different style of Language would help and Language that was a beginner and in the word white language stood for. So I have to disagree with Dr. ARGUELLES video. Yes, would you be able to be interviewed on my podcast show on 28 January 2019 at 2 PM Eastern standard time 11 AM Pacific standard time? Love your videos can’t wait to chat with you about your language learning journey and your career in languages. Sincerely, Chenelle.
Actually they are speaking the modern standard Arabic. What she refers to as the White Language, is just MSA with the harakat al-erab removed from the end of the words, which makes speaking faster, and it's a strategy to hide your inability to put the right haraka. It does not mean they did not throw in a few white colloquial phrases here and there.
Listen to this speaker. He is a very well-known writer, and is known for his mastery of the language. Listen how he speaks in a way that makes you think he is speaking colloquial, or white shami, while he's actually speaking impeccable fus'ha, just with the harakat removed from the end of the words. Colloquial Arabic is pretty much this, will mostly. ruclips.net/video/CDkwTFid5cU/видео.html
No, I totally disagree with what he has said in the video for several reasons. FIrst when it comes to learning, it 's far better to learn MSA (Modern Standard Arabic), to a level where you become decently proficient in it, then you may switch to any Arabian dialect. It would be super easy. For most dialects it coudl take as less as 3-4 months in acquring the target dialect. The reason is that your ears are trained to hearing and mind being cognizant for Arabic speech. Doing it the other way around, is like putting a cart before the horse! You'll have a very difficult approach. Plus when you face another variety of dialect you'll have more difficulty. MSA provides this middle ground for you to not only converse, understand grammar, speech and large part of the vocabulary almost all of these advantages are lost if you start with the dialect and refrain from learing MSA. Another issue is what he's referring to as 'white language' in his Aussie English speech that is a misnomer! What exactly is 'white language' and why is it called so? The Arabs refer to the pure language as the 'white language', the unadulterated language. Dialects keep on changing, picking up loan words until they become a cultural norm but until they do become, they may be regarded as slangs or worse as incorrect Arabic. So when you've to Arabs that are finding it a little difficult to communicate in their local dialects, they refer back to the pure language, the basis for most of the dialects or at least to say the least heavily influenced by the classical arabic now MSA (the difference is largely of vocabulary between Classical Arabic and MSA). As for what he's stating that be changes his Aussie English to say more American or British etc, that's different! When he changes his Aussie lingo to what he is incorrectly referring to as the 'white language' is totally not the case. Rather when he is doing is he's switching over to say more Americanised English or speaking more in a British way. That's like saying the Arabs when they have difficulty in communicating, they switch over to a different 'Aamiyah (dialect) but that's not the case. I hope it's clear now. As for the questions from the professor aren't just constructed based on his thoughts. Rather the point of the questions are to educate the masses about the different thoughts and wrong ideas many people have regarding MSA. Lastly remember, there is only one real way to acquire a language, that is through CI - Comprehensive Input as explained by the legendary linguist Stephen Krashen. If someone wants to learn say a dialect straight away. You've no option but to learn it through hearing others speak. Finding the right tutor, who can given you the right level of CI is going to be really difficult. It's like hindering your own learning process and making in unncessarily difficult. The person speaking in the video has most probably learned the Egyptian dialect. And there are a few books written in that dialect. But that's not the case say for Levantine (Palestinian, Syrian, Jordan) dialect or the Gulf (Emarati) dialect or various other dialects. So it would be increasingly more difficult to learn those dialects. Also if you want to study Arabic to understand Quran, to understand the speech of the prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him), well then the dialects would be close to useless. You won't have the vocabulary to understand the pure texts nor would you have sufficient grammar knowledge (the grammar of the dialects is more like the watered down versions of the MSA). For many, many people. Infact majority of Arabic learners the objective is to understand Quran - the direct speech of God and the words of his last prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him).
I’m confused: I’m planning to learn Arabic and my teacher is saying she can teach Levantine or white dialect. Which would you recommend? I’m confused on what differentiates MSA and white language . And then how those differ from Levantine
So because in your opinion an Egyptian villager might not understand or speak fus-ha flawlessly, your solution is to learn the dialect of the villager? Do you know how many dialects and vocabulary you would need to learn in order to be able to communicate with every arab villager from Morocco to Iraq to Egypt to Jordan to Syria to Yemen? Thats just not a sensible idea. Fus-ha will get you by. You can learn little bits from specific dialects as a supplement. Unless you only specifically have interest in one region of one arab country then you are better off with fus-ha. If you spend loads of time learning moroccan dialect and then try use it in Iraq you will be disappointed. But fus-ha you have a great foundation for all arab countries
> "Fus-ha will get you by." I don't want to "get by". My goal is to connect with the local people on a deep and meaningful level. "Getting by" is for tourists wanting to order coffee and ask for a bathroom.
I was more hoping you would comment on the overall message of the video. Their message is that it is best to learn MSA, that it is one unified language and the dialects far closer than westerners seem to believe. You advocate learning dialects so I’m assuming you on some grounds disagree. As far as placing Arguelles in a remote Egyptian or North African village... that situation is highly unlikely to ever occur. You’re most likely to see cities and meet people with some education, where MSA is more likely understood and you can understand their white language.
1. You must have missed 5:30 where I literally gave an answer to this. Also, I have commented on the MSA vs. dialect thing dozens, if not hundreds, of times on my site (of course I disagree). 2. This video is a very specific response to an email I received re: white language. 3. Perhaps the hypothetical I gave of an Egyptian village is unlikely to occur for Alexander (he doesn't strike me as the type of person to venture out of a major city). But most people visiting Egypt even as tourists (or the Middle East in general) will inevitably cross many poorly educated people who will not be accommodating like these women are in terms of adjusting their speech. (btw, speaking from decades of experience here)
I am afraid you haven't got the point. I carefully watched the video and the Professor doesn't give any of his stance on whatsoever. He is just asking the ladies' opinions on the matter, kind of doing science stuff to observe if there's a consensus about whether Arabic is one or multiple languages.
@@mezzoguild I think Sabiá means that the professor is being coy with the questions he's asking, and is trying to appear as a 'naive', unbiased asker and observer of the questions and answers, so as not to influence the two ladies' answers (much like the tack a scientist or journalist would take). I'm sure in reality, the professor knows what the 'white language' and code switching are and has his own well-formed opinions on the matter of MSA and Arabic dialectology. Btw, thank you for making a response to his original video, I find your videos very informative!
Good point - Arguelles has his opinion but he is ultimately asking the women to represent their own attitudes towards communication across (let’s say) national boundaries.
I also forgot to mention in the video that the accents of the women are very distinct even though they're using MSA/"white language". In other words, you can tell the Algerian woman is from NW Africa and the Syrian woman is Shami regardless of the vocab they use. Pronunciation is always a giveaway.
I also disagree with your suggestion not to learn Fus'ha, once you learn it really well, and have a good understanding of how it's systems are like, it becomes so easy for you to learn the local dialects. And believe me, the majority of Arabic speakers understand it easily.
I have a question, if you don't learn MSA, how do you read? Isn't reading a fundamental part in the process of learning? For me personally, the beauty of Arabic is in the texts, poetry or prose, there is something magical about it, and if you focus on the conversational aspects by learning a dialect you will miss out a lot of that magic. I started learning spanish recently, and my goal is to communicate of course, but also to READ the big classics, being able to read One hundred years of solitude or Don Quixote in Spanish is something that keeps motivated, i want to experience the language in its purest and most beautiful form. Good luck :)
Happy that you responded to this video: I was learning MSA for 6 months or so before I switched to learning a mix of Saudi, Emirati/Gulf and Iraqi based on your advice. That was about 3 years ago. Watching this Arguelles video a few weeks back made me feel that I had made a misstep to postpone studying MSA. Time will tell what the truth is (I am not yet living in the language) but based on your persuasively worded advice I have been, and will remain, committed to the dialect approach.
How's your Gulf Arabic coming along?
@@mezzoguild To be frank, In the same 3 years that it took me to gain basic fluency in French, I am still a novice in Arabic. I feel things accelerating now, though.
Inspired by your "chunking" advice and specifically the advice of using software to loop chunks, I have been studying it so - with a twist - to good effect. I recently uploaded a video demonstrating my current technological approach.
4 years on, how are you going with your Arabic?
Thank you about this explanation. I was asking myself if there was something similar like "white language" in the dialect continuum of Germanic languages.
Code switching, now I got it.
Thanks very much for answering my question! Much appreciated and very interesting. Another aspect of my question, though, was could a learner of, say, Palestinian dialect also be told up front which Palestinian-isms are hard to understand and should be substituted for MSA when speaking to someone with another dialect? Thus, I could avoid learning MSA in its entirety and instead learn only small chunks of MSA that are relevant for a Palestinian speaker to make himself understood in most of the Arabic speaking world. For example, a learner of Irish English could be told up front to avoid saying "what's the craic" outside of Ireland, because no one will understand, and instead to just say "are you enjoying yourself".
I'm sure it's totally possible to do that as a learner but I've never met anyone who's done it that way. Seems like a lot of extra work to me personally. Over time, you pick up words in other dialects (including MSA) naturally and can substitute words to get your point across.
@@mezzoguild Good to know. Thanks.
Hi Donovan!
I'm from Algeria and i would like to give my opinion about this topic.
First of all, people around the world must know that north africa is not arab, but it is berber, that means we are basically berbers even we speak arabic language. before arab invasion in Algeria, people used to speak berber language, and they still do it (my grandparents de speak berber). After the arab invasion, we had an Arabic dialect to us
that we always speak, however, the most important thing that changes the situation here in Algeria was the French conquest (132 years). The algerian arabic dialect was much influenced by the french language (that's one of the reasons why arabs have trouble understanding our arabic dialect). I can even say that algerian arabic dialect after french colonization is so much different than algerian arabic dialect before french colonization. Then, as you said in your comment, the accents of the women are very distinct even though they're using white language. I'm gonna say that, even if north africans (Algerians specially) can speak, read and understand arabic language (classical one like in books), it really remains a very distant language (believe me there are people here who do not even know how to compose a correct sentence in arabic). Wanna know the reason? Algeria suffered a brutal Arabization just after the independence. People were very comfortable with French language and culture but politics wanted to Arabize the country (a stupid decision i think). you can read this for more information:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arabization#Arabization_in_Algeria,_Morocco,_Libya,_and_Tunisia
By the other side , arabic dialect in Syria remains very close to the classical arabic language and it has little influence by other foreign languages, that's why syrians have a good fluent arabic accent.
Roughly speaking, the question of language in Algeria remains a vast problem, it even evokes the question of identity.
The "Arab Invaders" you are talking about are Sahabas, companions of the prophet such as Uqba ibn Nafi. For you to refer to them like they are unwelcome invaders, do I presume you are non muslim? The arabs removed the roman empire from north africa and made alliances with the berbers. They were not invaders. The language was not spread by force. Berbers and Arabs cooperated and intermixed. Hence why Islamic spain was initially conquested by Tariq ibn Ziyad, a berber.
Im not sure on what basis north africans were "comfortable" with French. Its viewed as the language of colonialism and oppression and totally foreign to north africa. Only a few elitists who were put in power by the colonial administrations favoured french.
Abu Fatimah
Lmfao 😂😂🍿
« Arabs removed the Romans from North Africa « ? Holy cow hhhhhhh
@@abufatimah7688 They were invaders, they literally came in with weapons like any other empire. If the French are invaders because they conquered someone else, then so are Arabs. It's not like they were invited. The North Africans putting a resistance to the conquests had their leader beheaded.
Great video! And yes, I’ve done the same in English, Spanish and French (Probably this way with all languages that are spread). I read a little on Dr. A and he is an Academic, meaning probably won’t venture too far from cities like you said. He did live in Lebanon for a while and can speak Levantine so while he speaks MSA, his ability to comprehend dialects is very high.
If not learning a dialect means I will have trouble understanding the least educated part of the population, I feel like that's not too bad. The most educated are those I'd prefer to connect with.
At least you're honest but higher educated, city-types tend to: a) speak fluent English and b) be more Westernized. For an authentic cultural immersion experience, I'd recommend changing your preference.
@@mezzoguild you're completely wrong about villagers not having a good command of fus-ha. I have used fus-ha in remote villages of morocco and it was very beneficial knowing fus-ha arabic
I rarely evaluate someone's level in a language basing it on a video presentation where obviously everything was rehearsed beforehand.
I don't know if he rehearsed beforehand or not. Why do you say that?
@@mezzoguild Just an general assumption about someone who is giving a presentation and is preparing to interview two people. Even a presentation in our own language, we would rehearse it in our head, picking the correct words, making sure there won't be any blank or hesitation, etc. This is very different than improvising, and this is why I never judge someone's level in a language basing it on a presentation. It means really nothing. I'm making no reproach though. In any case, you're in a better position than I am to judge whether his use of the arabic language also good en rich when he was reacting to something those two women were saying, and not just during the introduction. I'm just very sketical nowdays with polyglots. Remember Tim Doner. Steve Kaufman is one of the rare polyglots who is willing to post videos of himself struggling to find the words, and really improvising, and sometimes looking really bad in a language he studied for years like russian. To me, this means a lot.
my three "don't" when it comes to judging somebody's level in a language:
1) monologue and presentation don't mean much.
2) polyglots are notoriously good at speaking about language learning. Pick another subject to feel their real level. Doesn't have to be poetry. Ask them to narrate the last movie they saw.
3) Speaking, by itself, does not mean much altogether. Can this person understand movies ? understand radio ? pick a random stranger and engage in a conversation without asking the other person to repeat every phrase they say ? It's far more easy to speak than people tend to make it. Understanding is underestimated.
@@etienneturgeon I agree with all of your points here.
@@etienneturgeon You make a good point, but in Mr. Arguelle's defense you could find a video of him planning his language learning schedule in his channel. In that video, what sticks out like a sore thumb is that one of the activities he does the most is write in arabic nearly ten or so pages a day and read some grammar and stories in arabic. One last thing is that this aforementioned video is more than a decade old (eleven years old to be precise). If I didn't know all this then I would've agreed with you wholeheartedly, but knowing that this video is there in his channel just makes me disagree with your statement immediately. You can also find 40 minutes worth of arabic content from that meeting in his channel. I speak Arabic as my first language (Fusha particularly because my father was very strict with proper arabic), and one of the authors Mr. Arguelles goes over is Najib Mahfouz who is an author known to use some really tough words in his novels. Hell, sometimes I need to use a dictionary with his novels even though I have a deep knowledge in MSA. You may criticize him, but one thing I can say for sure is that his Arabic is damn good.
Happy new year Donovan to you and your family. I have to agree with you I like the way that the air boot language in all five of us dialects are being learned separately I don’t think they’re replacing them with a different style of Language would help and Language that was a beginner and in the word white language stood for. So I have to disagree with Dr. ARGUELLES video. Yes, would you be able to be interviewed on my podcast show on 28 January 2019 at 2 PM Eastern standard time 11 AM Pacific standard time? Love your videos can’t wait to chat with you about your language learning journey and your career in languages. Sincerely, Chenelle.
Actually they are speaking the modern standard Arabic. What she refers to as the White Language, is just MSA with the harakat al-erab removed from the end of the words, which makes speaking faster, and it's a strategy to hide your inability to put the right haraka. It does not mean they did not throw in a few white colloquial phrases here and there.
Listen to this speaker. He is a very well-known writer, and is known for his mastery of the language. Listen how he speaks in a way that makes you think he is speaking colloquial, or white shami, while he's actually speaking impeccable fus'ha, just with the harakat removed from the end of the words. Colloquial Arabic is pretty much this, will mostly.
ruclips.net/video/CDkwTFid5cU/видео.html
No, I totally disagree with what he has said in the video for several reasons. FIrst when it comes to learning, it 's far better to learn MSA (Modern Standard Arabic), to a level where you become decently proficient in it, then you may switch to any Arabian dialect. It would be super easy. For most dialects it coudl take as less as 3-4 months in acquring the target dialect. The reason is that your ears are trained to hearing and mind being cognizant for Arabic speech. Doing it the other way around, is like putting a cart before the horse! You'll have a very difficult approach. Plus when you face another variety of dialect you'll have more difficulty. MSA provides this middle ground for you to not only converse, understand grammar, speech and large part of the vocabulary almost all of these advantages are lost if you start with the dialect and refrain from learing MSA.
Another issue is what he's referring to as 'white language' in his Aussie English speech that is a misnomer! What exactly is 'white language' and why is it called so? The Arabs refer to the pure language as the 'white language', the unadulterated language. Dialects keep on changing, picking up loan words until they become a cultural norm but until they do become, they may be regarded as slangs or worse as incorrect Arabic. So when you've to Arabs that are finding it a little difficult to communicate in their local dialects, they refer back to the pure language, the basis for most of the dialects or at least to say the least heavily influenced by the classical arabic now MSA (the difference is largely of vocabulary between Classical Arabic and MSA).
As for what he's stating that be changes his Aussie English to say more American or British etc, that's different! When he changes his Aussie lingo to what he is incorrectly referring to as the 'white language' is totally not the case. Rather when he is doing is he's switching over to say more Americanised English or speaking more in a British way. That's like saying the Arabs when they have difficulty in communicating, they switch over to a different 'Aamiyah (dialect) but that's not the case. I hope it's clear now.
As for the questions from the professor aren't just constructed based on his thoughts. Rather the point of the questions are to educate the masses about the different thoughts and wrong ideas many people have regarding MSA.
Lastly remember, there is only one real way to acquire a language, that is through CI - Comprehensive Input as explained by the legendary linguist Stephen Krashen. If someone wants to learn say a dialect straight away. You've no option but to learn it through hearing others speak. Finding the right tutor, who can given you the right level of CI is going to be really difficult. It's like hindering your own learning process and making in unncessarily difficult. The person speaking in the video has most probably learned the Egyptian dialect. And there are a few books written in that dialect. But that's not the case say for Levantine (Palestinian, Syrian, Jordan) dialect or the Gulf (Emarati) dialect or various other dialects. So it would be increasingly more difficult to learn those dialects.
Also if you want to study Arabic to understand Quran, to understand the speech of the prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him), well then the dialects would be close to useless. You won't have the vocabulary to understand the pure texts nor would you have sufficient grammar knowledge (the grammar of the dialects is more like the watered down versions of the MSA). For many, many people. Infact majority of Arabic learners the objective is to understand Quran - the direct speech of God and the words of his last prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him).
I think MSA should be reformed so that all people from different Arabic speaking countries will understand more each other...
I’m confused: I’m planning to learn Arabic and my teacher is saying she can teach Levantine or white dialect. Which would you recommend? I’m confused on what differentiates MSA and white language . And then how those differ from Levantine
So because in your opinion an Egyptian villager might not understand or speak fus-ha flawlessly, your solution is to learn the dialect of the villager? Do you know how many dialects and vocabulary you would need to learn in order to be able to communicate with every arab villager from Morocco to Iraq to Egypt to Jordan to Syria to Yemen?
Thats just not a sensible idea. Fus-ha will get you by. You can learn little bits from specific dialects as a supplement.
Unless you only specifically have interest in one region of one arab country then you are better off with fus-ha. If you spend loads of time learning moroccan dialect and then try use it in Iraq you will be disappointed. But fus-ha you have a great foundation for all arab countries
> "Fus-ha will get you by."
I don't want to "get by". My goal is to connect with the local people on a deep and meaningful level. "Getting by" is for tourists wanting to order coffee and ask for a bathroom.
I was more hoping you would comment on the overall message of the video. Their message is that it is best to learn MSA, that it is one unified language and the dialects far closer than westerners seem to believe. You advocate learning dialects so I’m assuming you on some grounds disagree. As far as placing Arguelles in a remote Egyptian or North African village... that situation is highly unlikely to ever occur. You’re most likely to see cities and meet people with some education, where MSA is more likely understood and you can understand their white language.
1. You must have missed 5:30 where I literally gave an answer to this. Also, I have commented on the MSA vs. dialect thing dozens, if not hundreds, of times on my site (of course I disagree).
2. This video is a very specific response to an email I received re: white language.
3. Perhaps the hypothetical I gave of an Egyptian village is unlikely to occur for Alexander (he doesn't strike me as the type of person to venture out of a major city). But most people visiting Egypt even as tourists (or the Middle East in general) will inevitably cross many poorly educated people who will not be accommodating like these women are in terms of adjusting their speech. (btw, speaking from decades of experience here)
Do you feel having studied Egyptian Arabic to a high level that you are able to understand other Arabic dialects, or at least to some degree?
I work with other dialect speakers every day so I'm quite well adjusted now but in the beginning, it was very challenging.
Arabic is a family of languages. It doesn’t seem to be one language at all.
I am afraid you haven't got the point. I carefully watched the video and the Professor doesn't give any of his stance on whatsoever. He is just asking the ladies' opinions on the matter, kind of doing science stuff to observe if there's a consensus about whether Arabic is one or multiple languages.
> "the ladies kind of doing science stuff"
Huh?
@@mezzoguild I think Sabiá means that the professor is being coy with the questions he's asking, and is trying to appear as a 'naive', unbiased asker and observer of the questions and answers, so as not to influence the two ladies' answers (much like the tack a scientist or journalist would take). I'm sure in reality, the professor knows what the 'white language' and code switching are and has his own well-formed opinions on the matter of MSA and Arabic dialectology. Btw, thank you for making a response to his original video, I find your videos very informative!
Good point - Arguelles has his opinion but he is ultimately asking the women to represent their own attitudes towards communication across (let’s say) national boundaries.