Conquering the Middle East in antiquity

“You are King Xerxes, King of the mighty Persian Empire, and you are about to embark on one of the greatest military campaigns in history.”

An interactive map, courtesy of the National Endowment for the Humanities, shows the march of Xerxes’ army. If you get stuck and can’t answer a question correctly, you are redirected to a page where you can review the history.

There is also an extensive index of interactive maps, and as a bonus for Arabicphiles, a lesson plan for writing a ghazal, a bedouin form of poetry.

Is the Al-Kitaab Arabic language textbook anti-Israel?

A book I once used for Arabic language study, Al-Kitaab, is in the midst of a political controversy.

Matthew Iglesias over at the Atlantic has been following the issues surrounding the Washington Post’s op-ed about the Arabic language textbook. I found out about it through ArabLing, which I found on the blogroll of Jabal al-Lughat, which I found a link to in a post about some esoteric point in Koranic Arabic from LanguageHat, which I keep meaning to take off of my feedreader since I always end up getting engrossed in it and spend too much time following the links. Apparently someone was offended because the maps in the textbook didn’t identify Israel as an “Arabic speaking” country.

Well, one picture is worth a thousand words, so I offer here some pictures of the maps and pages in question. Israel and Palestine are both all over the maps in question. The images here have been resized for faster page loading, but if anyone really wants to do a save to examine them closer, they should all be in a resolution large enough to read. (1) The first group of images is from the second edition of Al-Kitaab Part One published in 2004. (2) The next group is from an older version of the same text, the first edition of Al-Kitaab Part One published in 1995 and the companion workbook for the alphabet, Alif Baa, from the same year. As you will see, they changed the maps a little bit. Both versions list Israel in their glossary, and I throw that in too. Then I throw in a page from (3) Elementary Modern Standard Arabic, a text completely without illustrations which was the standard Arabic language text before the publication of Al-Kitaab. Oh, and the before and after picture of the “old” and “new” (4) Maha, since she has somehow gotten in the middle of the controversy for alleged whining.

1. The latest edition of Al-Kitaab:

2) First edition of Al-Kitaab and the companion wordbook Alif Baa:

3) Elementary Modern Standard Arabic, the previous standard Arabic text:

4) The old Maha; the new Maha with laptop:

Okay, what do I see?

First of all I consider monitoring textbooks for anti-Israeli and anti-Semitic bias to be a valid exercise. Monitoring for anti-Arab bias as well. I have seen translations of textbooks that shocked, but did not surprise me. In particular, it does not strike me as particularly honest to claim some other group is thinking something bad or wanting something bad or has evil motivations. The only way you can know someone’s motivations is by what they do and what they say. I also think the standard for, say a sixth grade text is different from the standard for a university text, which Al-Kitaab is, and has more leeway for political viewpoints instead of bare facts.

While the old Al-Kitaab textbook lists only Palestinian as a nationality, the old workbook shows Palestine/Israel together geographically. This is continued in the new textbook. Both old and new versions list Israel in the glossary. If the book was one of those “Israel-does-not-exist” advocates, which is pretty rare anymore, they would not print the name “Israel” in the text as an exercise and in the glossary. I would like to see the nationality “Israeli” written in Arabic. The Arabs I know refer to Israelis as “Yahood”–Jews–which I don’t think is either accurate or promoting the values I would like to see promoted. It would be nice to have an alternative word to inject into conversation.

Teaching about culture is a valid and necessary part of any language instruction.  When we come to the “How old are you?” lesson in my English classes, I always talk about “good questions” and “bad questions,” and when it is appropriate to ask someone’s age.  Students need to know that.  In many parts of the Arab world it is not wise to say the word “Israel” in public.  In my opinion the book does not go far enough in explaining these cultural cues, but I suppose like language, culture is also in flux and it will depend on who you ask.

The Al-Kitaab series is far, far better than the old chestnut Elementary Modern Standard Arabic. The one pictured here was published in 1999, but has been in continuous copyright since 1968.  It doesn’t have so much as one picture.  The page shown above is a story about a tourist trip to Lebanon. Those days are long gone.

As far as Maha, a lot of language texts use a Dick, Jane, and Sally character to try to generate interest for the language.  The Jordanian Petra English language series has a “TV Presenter” (yes, it was written by a Brit) and also a boy named Marwin who whines a lot about food he doesn’t like.  Marwin is quite useful for learning negatives. I didn’t connect with either Maha. The second Maha reminds me of some urban Arabs I once worked with who we nicknamed Gucci and Channel, for the range of their interests and professional capabilities. At least she covers her arms down to the wrist.  The first Maha seems to be showing a lot of skin from the elbow to the wrist. In my experience this is maybe marginally okay in the city when the temperature is over 100, but definitely not okay in the country.

My real beef with the series, and with Arabic language textbooks in general, is that they only teach Modern Standard Arabic–”foos-ha”.  No one in the world actually speaks Modern Standard Arabic.  It is an artificial language–a construct.  Probably someone was hoping for some Arab Unity, but of course they got some Arab nationalism instead. Now the language has snob appeal and some countries will only print newspapers in that language, forbidding even common words like yalla (“let’s go”) from being printed in advertisements. If someone would print a serious textbook in Colloquial Levantine Arabic, which is what they speak from Syria to Saudi Arabia to Palestine to Iraq, I would buy it. Unfortunately the Arab concept of language acquisition consists of presenting charts of those awful conjugations and what they call “vocabs”–lists of out-of-context words with unfathomable meanings.

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Note: This post has been sitting in my “drafts” since last summer. I’m only dusting it off now because my beloved LanguageHat blog is currently experiencing technical difficulties and I have not had my Linguistics Chew Toy fix for today. I will have it even if I have to write it myself.

Since in the post I also complain about the lack of colloquial Arabic resources, let me also reprint a subsequent comment from LH himself after a similar lament on a thread there. So any LHers who might also peek in here from time to time can get one of the Hat’s past Oracles as well:

There’s an excellent Reference Grammar of Syrian Arabic by Mark W. Cowell if you can find it (I got it at the French & Spanish Book Shop in Rockefeller Center in 1991, but it was published in 1964), and an equally excellent Dictionary of Syrian Arabic: English-Arabic by Karl Stowasser and Moukhtar Ani; Routledge has a short but useful Colloquial Arabic (Levantine).

Blessed Hands

Some things in the Arabic language are counterintuitive. In English, if someone offers you tea, “thank you” means “yes, I’ll have some, thank you for bringing it.” In Arabic,  shokrahn is a polite refusal: “thanks, but no thanks.”  The correct affirmative response in Arabic would be izlamoo idayk (masculine) or izlamoo idaykee (feminine), meaning “Allah bless your hands”. In other words, may Allah bless your hands so you can continue to offer tea with them–the ability to be generous is a gift from Allah.

While you’re sitting around drinking tea, one thing you might do is compare hands with your companions. Some people are said to have a mark of the “ninety-nine names of God” on their palms.  On one hand is written the Arabic symbols for the numbers eight and one (the sum being nine):  ۸۱ with the reverse pattern written on the other hand:۱۸. So the numbers add up to nine on each hand; reading both hands side by side gives the number ninety-nine.

IPA

The International Phonetic System is a system of phonetic notation used to represent sounds in spoken language. Since I don’t have these memorized, and I’m tired of googling it, I hereby create a new sidebar button to the wikipedia article that seems most useful for looking them up.

This page has sounds you can listen to if you have your computer set up to play files with the .ogg extension.

Arabic Keyboard Practice

Here is a free keyboard practice program that has keyboards in other languages, including Arabic.  As you type the letter on the keyboard, the letter appears on the screen. If you type the wrong letter, the program shows you which key and which finger to use.  You can also try it in your native language a few times just to get the hang of the program.

Don’ forget to enable Arabic in your computer and toggle the language toolbar from EN to AR.

There are other free programs, but this is my favorite, and the only one I have seen with foreign language keyboards.  If you want to try some of the others in English they are here and here.

Pronouncing “King Abdullah” in Arabic

This is way cool.  I just checked back with Forvo, a website for listening to words pronounced in their own languages. Last week I posted the name of Jordan’s King Abdullah II ( الملك عبد الله الثاني بن الحسين) to be pronounced by a native speaker.  Already someone from Jordan has made a recording of the pronunciation. Thanks, lkurdi!

Here’s a breakdown of the Arabic, in case you don’t want to go to the effort with google translate:

الملك king (malik, actually al-malik if you include the definite article)

عبد الله Abdullah (two separate words عبد adb slave or servant and الله Allah,  God–it is forbidden to name anyone “slave” without adding “God” or a name of God). It looks like separate word here, but is actually one word, because the letter dahl د does not connect to any letter that follows it.

الثاني  the second (ithani, actually al-ithani with the definite article)

بن son of (bin, technially ibin ابن is son )

الحسين Hussein (al-Hussein or  “the Hussein”– of course this would be the late King Hussein, Abdullah’s father)

Right now I feel like I could just reach out and touch Jordan.

How do you pronounce King Abdullah II in Arabic?

If you want to hear a word in Arabic, you can hear it pronounced by a native speaker on Forvo, a website for listening to words in different languages.

Forvo is the place where you´ll find words pronounced in their original languages. Ever wondered how a word is pronounced? Ask for that word or name, and another user will pronounce it for you. You can also help others recording your pronunciations in your own language.

This is such a great idea.  Wherever I want to know how to say something in Arabic I have to go shopping for falafel in the Arab neighborhood some 40 minutes away and strike up a conversation. As the  joke goes, a Jordanian concluded a ten minute conversation on his cell phone and turned it off.  His companion asked what was wrong that the conversation was so short. “Wrong number”, the Jordanian answered.  I deeply enjoy these exchanges (and the food), but Forvo might save me some time.

So far, there are  42  Arabic native speakers who have recorded words.

One popular Forvo search is for pronouncing names of world leaders.  Here’s  how to pronounce:

• America’s president-elect Barack Obama (in English, of course)
• Iran’s president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (محمود احمدی‌نژاد) in Farsi
• So far, no one has recorded a pronunciation for Russia’s president Dmitry Anatolyevich Medvedev (Дмитрий Анатольевич Медведев), but (searching in English) there are two somewhat different pronunciations in Russian for Medvedev .

And what about my favorite monarch, Jordan’s King Abdullah II, the son of the late King Hussein ( الملك عبد الله الثاني بن الحسين‎)?  In Jordan we just called him “Malik Abdullah”, but I’m not sure what his proper name is.  After all, the world does have more than one King Abdullah. Searching in English, nothing.  Searching in Arabic by pasting the official name from Wikipedia into the search field yields ten possibilites, but none of them is our King.  Searching in English for Abdullah, still nothing, and a search in Arabic for Abdullah as عبد الله shows “Allah” الله (God) has been pronounced but not “abd” عبد (slave).  But skimming the page for male names in Arabic, finally on the last page I see a pronunciation for

• عبدالله

So now I know how they say Abdullah in the Gulf states, which sounds pretty much the same as in Jordan, although the guy sounds to me like he has an accent.

If there are any Jordanians reading this who know how to pronounce the King’s name properly with a Jordanian accent, this is a perfect opportunity. I have added the name to Forvo  here.

UPDATE:  Someone has already left a recording of the pronunciation.

How do you Pronounce Nijma نجم ?

Pronounced “Nidj-mah”, Nijma نجم means “star” in Arabic. I was given the name by the sister of a friend, who thought I was just like the character in the “Bedouin Soap Opera” who had all kinds of wise answers for life’s persistent problems. When I returned to the city and tried to watch the Bedouin Soap Opera, it had gone off the air, so I never got to pick out which character was my namesake.

I had other nicknames, most of them with a romantic meaning, but this was the name I liked the most, being named for one of my qualities, and not a quality I inspired in the person giving me the name. It is always a female name, and is considered to be a bit old fashioned and rural, the kind of name that a bedouin aunt might have. A wise,  sort of Ann Landerish aunt that you can trust not to give away your romantic secrets.

Insha’Allah

Ramadan is over, Eid is over, time to retire the Kul ahm intum bxeer widget.

And to replace it?  What could be more appropriate than Insha’Allah? The phrase can function as a polite refusal, a pious sort of Murphy’s law, or just a reminder for stressed out types that everything is NOT under their control.

In the words of one American who lived in Guinea, the word Inshallah was tied up with ritual greetings and difficulties in transportation that made American-style punctuality impossible.

Now, I’ve learned to be very patient. I’ve also become more tolerant. I realize that I don’t have control over certain things, and that sometimes I must accept my fate and not get upset about unexpected events and problems. Also, instead of letting misunderstandings complicate a situation, I take the extra effort to talk about it until all the confusion is cleared up.

Good advice anywhere.

[Art calligraphy by Salma Arastu.]

How to text in Arabic

Arabic alphabet
ا ب ت ث ج ح
خ د ذ ر ز س
ش ص ض ط ظ ع
غ ف ق ك ل
م ن ه‍ و ي

Anyone who has tried to write Arabic speech in symbols that a speaker of English can read will come away frustrated.  Sure, there are a couple of transliteration schemes, as well as tables of international symbols,  but no one ever uses them when they are learning the language.  Instead, the Americans I have studied Arabic with made up their own phonetic systems based on other foreign languages they had studied. When you add in the problem of Modern Standard Arabic, a language constructed for political reasons–and no one in the universe actually speaks it–Arabic starts to get really annoying.

Until the computer. Now east has met west and young Arabs are all texting each other on machines that are limited to English letters and symbols.  The result is a sort of L33t speak that uses western numbers to represent the Arabic letters that don’t exist in English.

The letters are pretty intuitive, aleph is “a” and ba is “b”, and so on.  Some of the numbers are intuitive as well.  3 looks like ع, h looks like 7 (for ح, the stronger of the two Arabic h’s ), hamza  ٴ looks like a small 2. That leaves number 9 as ص — the broad “s”, and number 6 as  ط–th in English.  With a little imagination you can see a resemblance. You only have to add ‘ to the above numbers to represent the dotted letters.  So 3′ is  ﻍ or gh (“r-ein?”),  7′ is ﺥ or kh,  9′ is ﺽ or D and 6′ is ﻅ or z/th (as in perennial Green Party candidate Ralph Nather).  Its not quite that easy, as the language is informal and there are some variations.  Here is the Wikipedia chart.

Finally.  Something in Arabic that makes sense.  Now, if only I could use it.