Shnoo Breighti? Aiz eeh? Matha Tureed? and they all mean What Do You Want?

I'm sitting at home listening to a mix cd my friend Max sent me!!! I was so afraid that the Egyptian post had eaten it, but I'm listening to lovely fall music as we speak.

There is something about the idea of starting a new language that is both exciting and extraordinarily depressing. Linguists are not the only ones who can recognize that language is one of the most amazing faculties we have, and one that changes in subtle ways depending on where we live, who we are talking to, and what we're trying to communicate. In Spanish class there was always the understanding that people in Spain said things with a bit of a lisp, and that there really was a Mexican way to speak Spanish that one could identify. The complexities are certainly far greater than that, and in Arabic I continually find more reasons to both love this language and dispair at even the promise of my ability.

Arabic is spoken from Morocco to Iraq, from Lebanon to Yemen, and in places far more flung than even these, like the US and French suburbs, to use a timely example. Yet if an average Moroccan (or Tunisian or Algerian for that matter) were to speak to an average Iraqi, they wouldn't understand each other if they were using their common day to day language.

Before I go more into this, I think I should back up a little bit. Arabic is a really unique language in part because it has such strong religious association. Though there are few Christians with the ability to read the Bible in Hebrew and Greek, Muslims can, with study, read and understand the Koran in its original form. The Arabic of the Koran is considered the highest form of Arabic, (called Classical or Fus-ha) and it is used as the standardbearer of grammar and usage. Clearly, however, languages evolve considerably over time, as has been the case with Arabic, with the unique position that the importance of the Koran has kept the grammar, vocabulary, and structure alive in a way that many other languages haven't.

There are many forces at work on Arabic, not least of them are competing ideas of Pan-Arabism and nationalism that were historically (and still) at work before, during, and after the fall of the Ottoman Empire and rise of nation-states and Nasser's and others' call for the Arab world to be united. This idea, along with the importance of the Koran and the media, has allowed for fusha to continue and provide a means through which ideally all Arabs can understand each other. The Arabic of the media is very close to the classical Arabic, but is called Modern Standard Arabic and has lost some of the rigidity of fusha and has developed new structures and terminology. The influence of former-occupier languages, like French and English, had a big impact in the evolution of colloquial languages, particularly in Morroco/Algeria/Tunisia and in Lebanon. In these countries a large percent of the population is fluent in both languages and has created a hybrid, often mixing them in within the same sentence. Linguists and scholars debate over the impact of these different influences, wondering if one day the different colloquials will be considered different languages, like Latin spawning French and Italian and Spanish, for example. Is it important for Arabs to understand each other across nation boundaries, and how does one do that? Should all schools teach their students in fusha or simplify the complicated grammar of the classical to make it easier to learn? Can one/ should one do anything? I find it really interesting. From an Arabic-student perspective I would clearly love it if everyone spoke the Arabic that I am learning, but even I wouldn't want the Moroccans to lose their "La Bas?" greeting, the Lebanese "Kifak?" the Egyptians "Izayyik?" etc.

It is difficult to learn this language, though, because there are so many different colloquials and so many levels within one country or city. My teacher says they have identified essentially 5 different levels of Arabic in Cairo alone, ranging from governmental almost-fusha to poorly-educated colloquial. I never thought that I would have to learn a completely new vocabulary and grammar in order to get around the city or any country that was different from what I was studying (but that is from my own ignorance). I do have to remember that even though the English situation is a lot easier (English-English, Australian-English, American English, etc. are all pretty much the same in terms of grammar/vocab and mutually intelligible) there are still lots of different dialects, accents and slang for every region and background.

I am really lucky, though, that despite the differences, I can go from Morocco to Oman and be basically understood. How amazing is that? Of the hundreds of languages (thousands? ) in the world, I can only think of a handful that can do the same thing.