Re: [Foundation-l] On Arabic and sub-language proposals.

On Sun, Oct 5, 2008 at 10:04 AM, Muhammad Alsebaey <shipmaster(a)gmail.com> wrote: of stem (Egyptian) am degree I Thanks for you email, it is a great one! Its content may be used as an example on universities: what do one educated non-linguist thinks about the situation when new standard languages are in the process of creation. I'll write a short paper/essay around your email. (Not here, even my email is long :) ) I see the situation in relation between classic Arabic and regional languages very similar to the situation when Romance standard languages were born. Few steps behind that is the situation with English languages (yes, plural); however, morphological orthography very close to the logogramic type (like Chinese; but, instead of lines, letters are used) prevents up to some extent orthographic diversification. But, such situation can't last for a long time. Actually, Scots is already treated as a separate language. First, I may suppose that, for example, even Libyan and Egyptian spoken Arabic are not mutually understandable. But, if one Libyan may understand one Egyptian, it may be be comparable with the situation where one Portuguese may understand one Spanish up to some level. I would say that the processes which are ongoing in Arab countries -- are natural. Learning a foreign language to be basically educated is not an advantage. It is an advantage at some higher level, but such situation leaves many people without the basic education (because they are not able or not willing to learn a foreign language). It is much easier to learn to write a native language. Linguistic standardization is very strongly connected with politics. Mostly, it is connected because contemporary linguistics is a 19th century invent from Europe; and this was a time of romanticism, when the ideology based on premises "one language, one folk, one state[, one leader]" was dominant. While it is possible to find different examples (Irish nation which uses English; Swiss nation which uses four languages), it is true that wherever European civilization came -- states are trying to make their own ethnicity and their own language. At the other side, at the time when language standardization was not forced, "natural" processes of language separation were dominant. Separated by natural barriers or feudal states barriers, people developed separate languages. In Europe, especially in Germany and Italy, where small feudal countries existed for a long time, a lot of separate language varieties exist at the areas of former feuds. For example, I think that areas Nuremberg and Hamburg have distinctively separate varieties than areas around those cities, without dialect continuum [1]. So, there are two separate social (and just because this, linguistic, too) processes: when not well connected, wider areas with one culture (like the case was with Roman and it is with Arabic), it tends to separate to different societies, states, cultures and languages. If a lot of different societies and cultures exist on smaller and well connected area, they tend to be merged. Of course, opposite historical examples may be found: Andorra, Lichtenstein, Monaco, San Marino etc. are still separate states, while China is still one. or below, my It is hard to give a clear linguistic answer what one language is; even if we remove all political reasons. There are some obvious cases, like distinction between Arabic and English is. However, there are a lot of cases when it is not possible to give a clear answer. A classic example for comparison of this kind is that spoken languages in Germany are (or, at least, they were in 19th century) more different than all Slavic languages between themselves. But, if we remove political reasons (one German state; a number of Slavic states) and try to give "a linguistic answer" what are the languages, we couldn't do that. Simply, the question "is this a separate language?" is a question of the type "is the color [in RGB notation] #00xxxx blue or green?". We are sure that #00FF00 is green and that #0000FF is blue and that they are separate colors. We may be sure that even #00FF22 is green, while #0022FF is blue. However, we can't be so sure when we move numbers closer. Giving a discrete answer to a question which is a product of our [whichever] bias is sometimes impossible. my as I stuff). authors is day only written observed sometimes least be Egyptsystemian Sai'di My father is from the area of Serbia where a distinctive language is spoken, Torlak or Shop [2]. Unlike in the case of other geographical varieties in the South Slavic area, Torlak is not moribund, it is really alive language and speakers of it are actively adopting Serbian and Bulgarian words at the substratum of highly Balkanized (see Balkan sprachbund [3]; it's a separate, actually, opposite term from the political Balkanizaiton) mixture of Vulgar Latin [4], Thracian and dominantly Slavic languages (of course, Serbian, Bulgarian and Macedonian are Slavic languages, but, from the present situation, substratum is not based on Serbian, Bulgarian and Macedonian standards). It has no written literature (there are some "examples", but they are examples for usage of that language for dialogs inside of dramas written in standard Serbian); the situation is analogue as in Egypt. A literate inhabitant of Southern and Eastern Serbia has to know Serbian standard, a literate inhabitant of Western Bulgaria has to know Bulgarian standard; while a literate inhabitant of Northern Macedonia has to know Macedonian standard. When I was talking with one of the rare people who works on language there (a local one), we came to the question why inhabitants (even very educated; even professors of Serbian language) are using a dialect in all kinds of their communications in school except the most formal ones (lectures to high school students). The answer was: "Because it is easier to us, we don't need to care about rules." This is interesting because of two reasons. First, they care about rules, even they don't think so. It is the basic characteristic of all communication systems: participants have to follow some rules to be able to send an information and understand each other. The second issue shows how hard is one language system to speakers of a different one. But, the main difference between the situation in Egypt and in Southern and Eastern Serbia is the number of inhabitants. There is something between 200.000 and 500.000 people who are speaking Torlak (comparing with 76+ millions of Egyptians) inside of three very strong educational systems (95%+ comparing with 70%+ in Egypt). Speakers of Torlak are surrounded by speakers of standard Serbian, Bulgarian and Macedonian; while, AFAIK, there is no such place where standard Arabic is a common spoken language. In other words, Masri came into the position when it is not in the position of "a dialect of a language". It is now a spoken language with all cultural attributes of one language except the normalized standard (AFAIK, some kind of standard exists, but it is not finished yet). The situation where people are able to choose how do they want to write is not a stable one. Sooner or later some [more precise] standard will start to be followed. name in How distant are standard Arabic and Masri? Is it possible to make a conversion engine between those two languages? If you don't think so, what are the reasons? I believe (I say that I believe because I didn't prove it :) ) that it is possible to make very good conversion engines between similar languages (conversion engine between Bokmal and Nynorsk exists, but I don't know how good it is). And it is worth of effort. In the case of "Arabance" languages and Arabic such efforts may be very well funded. If it is not possible, note that Arabic language has the base in more than 1 billion of people (including all other Muslim countries); as well as Masri has the base in 76+ millions of people. Masri has better position than, let's say, Italian. So, the right way for thinking about this issue is to concentrate on efforts for spreading education and Internet in Egypt and other Arab countries. lot an more an by language? :) As I explained before, every language (in the common sense of the meaning of the word "language") is a matter of politics, not linguistics. Even when you don't realize that as an obvious fact. Arabic is a matter of politics, English is a matter of politics, German is a matter of politics, French is a matter of politics, Russian, Italian, Serbian, Croatian, Japanese, Yoruba, Zulu, Mayan... Linguists are a small minority of inhabitants of some country. They are not politically relevant to demand new language for new nation. Also, they are not politically relevant to demand preservation of old language. If one linguist says one of those things, he is not lead by linguistics, but by political motives (no matter how positive or negative those motives may be). While language standardization is a matter of sociolinguistics, again, it is more about description than about active involvement in political processes. is the On our eyes Arabic language is developing into "Arabence" languages, like Latin did it between the first centuries of the first millennium and 19th century; and Slavic during the first centuries of the second millennium. The conditions are now very different. There are Internet, railroads, highways... You have a lot of possibilities to keep good things from the fact that the most of educated people from Muslim world know standard Arabic fluently and you should build your new local languages to make education more achievable to more people. And, to say again, your email is a great one. You described very well the situation in which your society is now because of the birth of new language. [1] - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialect_continuum [2] - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torlak_dialect [3] - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balkan_sprachbund [4] - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vulgar_Latin _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l