"The Public Language"

I thought I would post this picture of the board after my last class because it pretty much illustrates how my life feels right now. If "HUH" were a feeling, that would be how I feel.

There are two things I have decided I will never achieve in Egypt - not that I am not smart enough or persistent enough, but that achieving them is not possible and I must let the idea of achieving them go in order to be happy. The first is looking good. A few moments after I walk out of the dorms in the morning, I look like I have been dunked in a pool. So I have to just give up on looking good and focus on other things, which is good in many ways.

The other thing I have given up on, at least until I have the opportunity to spend a solid year or two in Egypt, is trying to make people think I'm smart or good at Arabic. It's frustrating to be fluent (or think you are), having studied Arabic for years intensively, and then come to a new place and have to start again!

Let me explain the most challenging thing about Arabic and why I have been brought back to baby talk novice status once again now that I am in Egypt. Some of you may know that Arabic has developed very differently in different countries. All countries do share the same language: the language in the Quran, classical Arabic, and the language of the news and formal settings, called "Modern Standard Arabic." When you innocently begin studying Arabic in the US, these are mostly what you learn. Then you go to an Arabic-speaking country and suddenly realize that you are speaking Arabic like someone speaking English who learned solely from the King James Bible.

So let's say you're studying in Jordan when the reality of the challenge you have undertaken hits you, and you begin studying the "Ammiyya," which literally means "general language" in Jordan.

"What?" you might say... "Not only is the vocabulary different but the grammar too? The way they conjugate verbs is different? But how can this be?" But you happily learn it all because it is fun and it allows you to actually speak to people and understand what is happening around you, rather than only understanding the news.

Now we get to the point in the story where I find myself. I was in Jordan two years ago and then in the US for a while, so I have forgotten a great deal. Now we get to the really tricky part about Arabic.

Not only does Arabic have an entirely different form of the language that's spoken on the ground, but that language is different in Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, etc... Most Arabs can't even understand Moroccans when they hear them speak. They understand Egyptians, but only because Egypt has been the center of the cinema industry for years, and all Arabs have grown up watching movies and listening to songs in Egyptian colloquial.

The difference between Jordanian/Palestinean and Egyptian is not something to be learned in a day, as I realized when I arrived in Alexandria. Imagine if you were a foreigner studying English and you had been to England and become fluent. Now you decide to study in another country. Upon arriving, you are told that here, most daily vocabulary words are different. Most adjectives and verbs are different...actually the only things that are the same are more abstract ideas that are used less frequently. Anything used every day is definitely going to have a different word.

Oh also...here in this country they say b in front of every verb in the present tense. Just remember to slap that on there EVERY time you say a verb...and the way you do the future tense is different too. Well now that you mention it, the past is different too. Oops. Are you remembering all this?

Oh yeah, and in this country, articles go after the noun. And they're different. Sorry that you got used to saying nouns with articles in front of them...now instead of saying "the dog", now you're going to say "dog di." Oh but for feminine things, remember to say "da."

Question words are also different in this country. Instead of saying "where is the bathroom," you have to say "the bathroom is where?" Otherwise people will give you strange looks at first and it will take them longer to understand you.

This language also changed the inflection of words and phrases completely...so try to get used to that too. Use your old inflection learned elsewhere, and people will look at you funny, not understand you. If they know you, they might say, "hey...you're not in England anymore."

Add to that the fact that the people in this new country speak at least twice as fast as they did in England.

So in our illustration here, if Jordan is England and Egypt is the new country, you now have a better understanding of what I mean when I say that Egypt has a different dialect.

And yet I am not floundering as much as I expected. Maybe my experiences in Jordan did give me something: the ability to learn quickly and know what to look for when I'm learning. I know it probably seems like I am discouraging all of you by making Arabic seem like the hardest language there is to learn. You have to think about the reward these challenges give. I was so deeply proud of myself when I could speak with Jordanians because I worked really hard for it. I get to be even more proud of myself the day I can speak like an Egyptian.

Here is my evidence - the tiny piece of proof of the work I have put in and the goodness it has given me. In Egypt, foreigners pay 2-3 times as much for a ticket to any sight. It makes sense - the system encourages and allows Egyptians to experience their own cultural attractions without paying much for it. Yesterday, when I went to an aquarium, the man handed me my regular non-Egyptian ticket and took my money while he gave an Egyptian ticket to my Egyptian friend. Then he heard me speaking to her and said, "You SPEAK ARABIC?" He snatched my foreigner's ticket from my hand and gave me back my money and this little blue Egyptian ticket that I am thinking about framing and said, "You speak Arabic, you pay the Egyptian price."

And THAT is why I am here, and why I have given my life to this language. For moments like that. So learn Arabic.