well my view is very different. I spoke with many Tunisian ppl and the first answer I got is: Arabic is not cool enough! Or Arabic is not modern at all, also: Arabic is not the language of sciences and it has poor vocabulary for science support. The cause of all this is ignorance.
A very widespread idea is that ppl think Arabic is only a written dead language whereas the real game is going on with the lahajat. Well I don't know how the gulf percieves the problem, but in Tunisia only the REALLY proud ppl of the south or the ppl of Alqasba in Tunis speak very high Arabic and speak on TV with pure Arabic and they are very highly regarded, ppl from the south still make shi3r till today and they are very famous with it. Ppl who speak real Arabic are, at least in Tunisia, socially very respected, it seems to me that tunisians like Arabic!!!. So The problem is, after seeing these two cases,IMHO it's not that Arabic became only a written language, it's more that Arabic became an uncool language for science, modernity and evolution. And that is IMHO because of the ignorance of the scholars themselves who are very much against pushing Arabic towards modernity (well it's the whole region that's lost from the horizon of globalization) and the ppl who are seeing europe and it's languages as the one and only truth on this earth, I'm really enjoying the moment when Arabs will have to learn chinese Ideographs to write down Maths, hehe... Well here in germany we have more dialects then in the whole Arabic region!!! Still ppl accept using the lingua franca which is not used in the majority of the regions in germany. Same thing goes for japan, I watched once a gameshow where some japanese went to the extreme south to find a tresor and they couldn't communicate at all with the other japanese living there!!!funny indeed... Well yeah I am indeed talking about those ppl but I think, as said, that those are the REAL problem. Not the ones who can barely speak Arabic cz they can understand it when it is spoken!!! in TV radio newspapers it's the lingua franca that is used and all understand it and as long as they do they will for sure don't have any problem with interfaces. One thing I want to say, I think we underestimate the role of Arabic in the lives of Arab ppl, you are in contact EVERY DAY with media: TV, newspapers, books, radio etc... and ALL of them are in Arabic. So the real Arabic is still part of our daily culture!!! Arafat p.s: still pls ask! ÙÙ Ø, 2004-05-18 ØÙØÙØØØ 11:14 -0700, Abdulaziz Al-Arfaj ÙØØ: > I agree. But bear in mind that Arabic is not the > "native language" of Arabs. I think its more accurate > to say that my native language is Gulf and your native > language is Tunisian etc... because we don't really > use "Arabic" except when reading and writing. > > And since the average Arabic person reads less than 1 > book per year, we find it awkward to use Arabic in > computers. Japanese and Germans, even those who don't > read at all, can still use those languages in > computers because its "their" language > > But most Arabs I think still _prefer_ to use Arabic > for computing IF it was made easy for them. Thats > where we come in :) > > Of course, there are always those individuals who are > under the illusion that using English and French > instead of Arabic is a sign of culture and > intelligence. I think those are the ones you are > talking about. All we can do is try to prove to them > how wrong they are with top-quality work :) > > Abdulaziz, > > --- Arafat Medini <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > [...] > > > > > __________________________________ > Do you Yahoo!? > SBC Yahoo! - Internet access at a great low price. > http://promo.yahoo.com/sbc/ > _______________________________________________ > General mailing list > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > http://lists.arabeyes.org/mailman/listinfo/general > _______________________________________________ General mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.arabeyes.org/mailman/listinfo/general
