During my second session of the Standard Arabic refresher, my friend Hameed is generously teaching me, we got to talk about having a mother tongue. As I mentioned in an earlier post, every Arab person’s official mother tongue is Standard Arabic and not a single Arab person actually speaks that language, but rather a “version” of it that varies in how close or far it is from Standard Arabic, depending on which Arab country they come from.
For many reasons this is a source of sadness and bitterness for me. I have a mother tongue, it’s Egyptian, but it’s not recognized as a language I can work with as a translator. And my standard Arabic has big holes in it- which is why I am here now.
I always thought grammar rules in Arabic were there to annoy us. What I learned in today’s lesson is that grammar helps us understand. I know we all know this, but do we? I suddenly felt softness towards Arabic grammar, ok, you are trying to help me, thank you. I realize how ridiculous this sounds, but this is genuinely how I felt and it made me receive the lesson from a totally new perspective.
I never felt ease around Standard Arabic and with these lessons I am starting to feel an ease I am liking a lot.
A highlight: During the lesson the word نسخ came up and it turns out that this word both means copy and change. Language is magic.
When I decided to write about these lessons, I thought I will have more things to talk about. But it seems like for now, these posts are more like check ins about progress. I know that I will keep writing about this, even after my residency here in done.
In the mean time and for you Arabic speakers remember:
إن في البحر سمكةً
كانت في البحر سمكةٌ
If you are not sure why the تشكيل is the way it is, please reach out, I am actually capable of explaining why. It’s easy and life changing.
Thank you Hameed!