2: Why Arabic? Why now?

So what’s it like to learn Arabic...a unique world of curly Qs, squiggles and dots that represent an ancient (1500-year-old)/sacred tongue that happens to be a “category 4 language”—ie, one of the 4 most difficult languages? (Chinese, Japanese and Korean, btw, are the other three).

–It’s artistic.
I feel like I’m taking an art class (like a sorta, kinda calligraphy); I often say things like, “I think I can draw that letter.” And my teacher chuckles and asks me why I don’t say “write.” I tell her that it’s because I feel like I’m drawing a picture, not writing a letter. Not yet, anyway.

Check out this calligraphy…

–It’s trippy.
I feel that when I enter another dimension—that of the Arabic language—and that I am in another world. Literally. All of the edges of the word I’m normally in start to blur and curve, and what’s known simply disappears and is replaced by mostly unknowns. It’s a form of travel, a trip I take, without leaving my geographical space.

Trippy things happen in my head space, too. Another part of my brain is activated, which is related to the part that helped me learn Spanish. But it’s not the same part.

–It’s fun/funny.
There are some funny videos on youtube that can help you with the language, especially the alphabet. And they’re entertaining. Many of them are excellent, and quite a few are humorous. Some are just sweet. Check this out:

Then there’s this man, Yusuf, a teacher who totally cracks me up. Here, he teaches the letter “Ha,” which of course, involves a lot of “ha, ha, ha.” He then talks about the “hamsa” and how it’s like a hiccup and calls certain letters the “pot bellies.” I’ve learned a lot from this man, thanks to his great sense of humor. I hope that my students enjoy my humor (and learn from it) as much as I do with this man.

—It’s very ‘in the moment.’
Arabic is tricky. You have to focus. If you’re not paying attention and removing all distractions from your mind, guess what? You’re probably not learning. Simple as that. Recently, I’ve been a bit stressed out. Arabic—by removing me from some not-so-pleasant moments—has put me into some better ones.

–It’s difficult for a variety of reasons.
Imagine this…a letter that looks completely different, depending on where it is in a word. Some of the curly Q thingees that look as if they would go below the line often don’t. The curly (lower) part just vanishes when the top is connected to other letters.

Oh yeah…and some letters also sound different  depending on the placement in a word. Example: “ya.” At the end of a word, it sounds like an “ee” and looks like a sea horse. In the middle of the word, it sounds like “ee,” but looks like a peak. At the beginning, it looks like a peak, but sounds like a “ya.” And that’s just one letter! Another letter, called by some the “wow,” doesn’t like to connect to other letters on the left side, only on the right. Wow, that’s a lot to remember.

Or how about the general absence of vowels (there are usually like training wheels when you first learn and in some cases afterwards).

(If you’re wondering about the letters in blue…I think they’re letters that don’t attach to the left. Not sure what’s up with the red ones, though.)
And how about this fun with pronouns/verbs…and this is just the singular!!

I – anaa, for example: anaa katabtu – I wrote.
thou (masculine) – anta, for example: anta katabta – thou wrotest.
thou (feminine) – anti, for example: anti katabti – thou wrotest.
he (masculine) – huwa, for example: huwa kataba – he wrote.
she (feminine) – hiya, for example: hiya katabat – she wrote.

And then there’s the negative form. I won’t even paste in any of that. It’s just too overwhelming right now. But, some of you might be curious. If so, click here. Just make sure you’ve had your coffee first!

The best part? What you’ve seen above (the grammatical explanations/phonetic spellings of the words) and often see in Arabic lessons is “transliteration”–the practice of transcribing a word or text written in one writing system into another writing system or system of rules for such practice. In other words, “romanizing Arabic.” (More info here.) The problem with this? It’s not enough unless you just want to speak–and even then, it doesn’t work that well because a lot of it is flawed and crucial sounds are missing or incorrectly substituted. The bottom line? You also need to be able to read the script and be able to pronounce each letter and know what happens to them when they combine!

–It’s educational in a religious sense.
Arabic is the universal language of Muslims (even though many don’t know it at all). Many of the websites include religion in the lesson via vocabulary. This means that while I’m learning the language, I’m also learning about the religion. I have found it to be  very interesting.

–It’s a true learning experience.
Did you know that Arabic is a semitic language—a “sister” to Hebrew? Yup. And if you look at both languages together, you find a good number of similar words and grammatical parallels.

Here’s something interesting, too. Only 15% of all Muslims speak Arabic (surprising, right?).  The Arabic alphabet derives from the Aramaic script to which it bears a loose resemblance to Coptic or Cyrillic script to Greek script.

So…(not that anyone’s asked–LOL) what does my name (Lisa) look like?
Good question. I’ve seen it a few ways.

ليزا   and    ليسا

According to one of my students, it’s the first one. My teacher says it’s the second one. I think I might prefer the first one because it has more curly Qs.

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~ by professoregle on February 26, 2009.