In Lebanon, we have this way of saying: shu? ma btifham arabi? (what? Don’t you understand Arabic?). We usually say that when the other person doesn’t seem to understand what you tell him, or refuses to do what you ask of him.
My guess is that this phrase is being used quite often these days. Anyways, I googled “Arabic,” and got Wikipedia’s definition at first level. I went through it, and do not recommend to try to decipher the text regarding syllables and vowels… Buy a book that has proper characters in there. Arabic is too complex to fit onto one page. But anyways, I found this interesting passage about the different dialects:
“The sociolinguistic situation of Arabic in modern times provides a prime example of the linguistic phenomenon of diglossia–the normal use of two separate varieties of the same language, usually in different social situations. In the case of Arabic, educated Arabs of any nationality can be assumed to speak both their local dialect and their school-taught literary Arabic (to an equal or lesser degree). This diglossic situation facilitates code switching in which a speaker switches back and forth unaware between the two varieties of the language, sometimes even within the same sentence. In instances in which highly educated Arabs of different nationalities engage in conversation only to find their dialects mutually unintelligible (e.g. a Moroccan speaking with a Lebanese), both should be able to code switch into Literary Arabic for the sake of communication.”
Diglossia? There’s a name for our psychotic way of speaking? In Lebanon we also add bits and pieces of English and French. What does that make? Quadraglossia? :)
Even here in the western part of Saudi Arabia ( Jeddah to be specific ) we do mix classical arabic with our slang to form a very warm and effective sentence that most people can understand, i bet it is very common an all arabian land as your post impose.
and i must thank you for opining comments for every reader of your blog.
:)
Left by بندر on February 8th, 2007