Arabic Learning

I am having fun learning words that I can use to form sentences and communicate. The story is going to be fun and I like how she speaks slowly. I have been trying to follow people speaking Arabic on Television and I have difficulty keeping up because they are usually speaking too fast for me.

A matter of national security

As some of my classmates might guess, I take a great interest in matters of national security and defense. Over the last couple of days I have read a couple of news articles that really bothered me. I have included a couple of quotes below. The first one is from an article on MSNBC concerning the report from the Iraq Study Group.

  “The report is replete with damning details about the administration’s inept handling of
Iraq. It notes, for instance, that only six people in the 1,000-person embassy in
Baghdad can speak Arabic fluently.”

Wow. The second was from an article, also on MSNBC about the troubles an Arab-American FBI agent is having with his organization.

“Five years after 9/11, critics say the FBI has been slow to hire agents with Arabic skills or knowledge. In fact, only 33 of the FBI’s 12,000 agents have even a limited proficiency in Arabic, the agency says.”

As we become more involved with middle eastern affairs, how are we going to make decisions if we can’t even understand the people we are becoming involved with? I feel that our country often makes mistakes regarding defense, security, politics, and other areas concerning the arab world. Could we do a better job if we could simply communicate?

I am enjoying learning Arabic. I have always wanted to learn a new language. I am starting to think that it may be something of much greater importance than I first thought. I hope maybe I can continue to advance in my learning. Like I said before, in my upcoming deployment clear communication might be a matter of life and death. Maybe it is also a matter of national security.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16045171/

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16042604/

 

 

 

Some thoughts on class…

Hi, this is Audrey.

I think I had already told you guys that I’m majoring in linguistics.  Because of that I’ve been trying to take all of the foreign language classes that I can get my hands on, that and I just enjoy learning other languages.  But this class has definitely set itself apart.  Its the language itself for one.  All of the other languages I’m learning are Greek or Latin based and because Arabic is neither, its been more difficult for me.  I’ve been struggling with this class more than any of the other foreign languages I’m taking this semester.

That said, this class has certainly been a challenge but that’s made it all the more enjoyable.  There have been times where I really didn’t “get it” and there has been much frustration.  Regardless, learning Arabic is important to me, especially with as I may be heading over to the Middle East soon.

So those are my thoughts right now.

Thanks,

Audrey

A Curious Interest?

I wanted to share a bit about where I’m coming from in terms of wanting to study Arabic. This is a brief excerpt from a paper I wrote a few years ago, and I’m hoping the more I learn the language, the better I’ll be able to diagnose if my analysis of the poetry is anywhere near the ballpark.

The emergence of the word “green” as a prefix to established fields of study—poetry, for example—marks a paradigmatic shift in the modern academy toward examining the human role in environmental concerns. Indeed, these “green” prefixes are synonymous with the multiplicity of “eco” terms: ecocriticism, ecofeminism, ecopolitics, ecopsychology, ecoterror, and even “ecothrillers.” But tendencies to package the worthwhile movement toward environmental attention into a convenient chromatic term implicitly marginalizes many of Earth’s diverse, non-green environments that figure equally into the global discussion of humanity in ecology. Much of the travel and nature writing throughout literary history does not fit nicely into the green moniker; the white plains of Antarctica, the gray-brown cliffs of Australian mountainsides, the deep blue of the open Pacific, and the beige dunes of the Sahara are no less worthy of consideration, description, or protection. Nor do these non-green environments find their impact upon literary traditions any less formidable. While Western writers—Theocritus and Virgil, Wordsworth and Thoreau, for example—have been influenced by a preponderance of greenery, the poets of other cultures, whose environments do not immediately call to mind green imagery, have duly felt the influence—and sometimes constraint—of the natural world throughout their literary histories.

One such place is the Arabian Peninsula. Certainly, the mere mention of Arabia does not flood the mind with lush orchards teeming with grapes, apples, and pears; nor does it conjure the classical elements of the Western pastoral: lusky shepherds chatting through the remnants of daylight, the freeing retreat from the conundrum of court life, the fecund simplicity of the rolling, virgin countryside, eager to offer itself effortlessly to the hand of man. No. In all likelihood, the classical pastoral is incompatible with the broad, contemporary conception of the Arabian landscape: vast deserts stretching for miles, harsh winds sweeping through craggy mountain outcroppings, meager oases quick to become dry. Although this depiction is admittedly reductive, it is nevertheless not a wholly unfair generalization to make; the Arabian environment does not widely lend itself to a reputation of fertility—especially not on the scale that Wordsworth and other Western writers have conveyed. Albert Hourani provides the basic Arabian environmental template, confirming that “[t]he greater part of the Arabian Peninsula was steppe or desert, with isolated oases having enough water for regular cultivation” where some nomads “pastured camels, sheep or goats by using the scanty water resources of the desert” (10). That the greenness of Arabia is somewhat limited should not exclude it from the broad discussion of “green” poetry; for a comprehensive conversation that explores the fundamental ideals of “green” poetry to truly take place, there must be an open-door policy that invites nature poetry from non-green environments, rejecting “chromatocentric” terminologies in favor of “ecoegalitarianism.”

By opening the conversation to non-green environments, we find the lush tradition of Arabic poetry. What began on the parched landscape of central Arabia was perpetuated and refined over the centuries. In light of this harsh, exigent environment—especially by comparison to the Western pastoral tradition—it is not surprising that nature predominantly assumes the role of the antagonist in early Arabic poetry. With the advent of Islam in the seventh century, traditional worldviews were challenged and longstanding perceptions—this human/environment relationship included—began to change. Among myriad other enhancements and upsets to the Bedouin lifestyle, the Qur’an demarcates explicitly man’s relationship to and dominion over nature. Islam served as the vehicle to push the frontiers of Arab consciousness well beyond Arabia—spreading as far West as Morocco and Spain and as far East as Mongolia and Indonesia. During the height of the various incarnations of the Islamic Empires—Umayyad, ‘Abassid, and other empires until the 14th Century—the Arabic language became the appropriate medium of literature, even in non-Arab societies. Hence, Arabic poetry itself came to be defined by language rather than geography, and the Arabic poetic tradition incorporated new environments—some of them green—to be represented in verse.

But throughout the Islamic imperial decline to the dwindling efficacy of the Ottoman Empire marks a “stalling out” of the Arabic poetic tradition —what Salma Khadra Jayyusi calls “the least productive period in its cultural history […] reflected most poignantly in our literature” (1). After World War I, Arabic poets began to experiment more boldly; poetry from Algeria and Tunisia to Yemen and Qatar bounded with fresh life, some of which aided by increased exposure to Western poetic traditions. This freeing conventional and ideological growth inevitably fostered yet another recalculation of the human/environment relationship. Long-held cultural and religious assumptions about mankind’s role in the natural world began to be questioned, resulting in new and intrepid imagery representing a vibrant, “green” understanding. Thus, a closer inspection of poetry from three eras of the Arabic literary tradition—the pre-Islamic poetry of the Bedouins, the poetic language of the Qur’an, and the revitalizing verse of the 20th Century—gleans a diachronic understanding of how nature is conceived in the Arabic poetic consciousness.

Some thoughts about learning Arabic

The other day in class, Zeina asked me if I was happy about deploying to Iraq. I said yes, but really it’s a little more complicated than that.

I am proud to serve my country. If I go than maybe it means some other poor guy won’t have to go twice.

I think that if we were to leave now, it would be a disaster for Iraq and the region. After dismantling their government, we owe it to the Iraqi people to finish what we started. I have some doubts though. Are you really helping people if you have to use force of arms?

So, maybe it’s not that I am happy, but I am looking forward to doing a good job.

The fact of the matter is, I am going, so it’s time to put all these questions aside and focus on doing the best job I can.

We were briefed last Saturday on what our assignment is going to be. We will be providing security for supply convoys traveling throughout the country. I understand these convoys will sometimes consist of commercial trucks with many of the drivers being Iraqi and Jordanian.

I want to do a good job, which is one of the reasons I am learning Arabic. Good communication is never a bad thing.

I read an article the other day, portions of which are excerpted below. It’s very interesting and I recommend clicking on the link and reading the full text.

First Ears, Then Hearts and Minds

Facing Shortage of Arabic Interpreters, Pentagon Seeks a Technological Solution By Renae Merle
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, November 1, 2006; Page D01

For science-fiction buffs, it’s probably a common-sense solution. Two months after arriving in
Iraq, a second lieutenant with the 16th Military Police Brigade was handed the Phraselator, a hand-held device that promised to digest his English phrases and produce a prerecorded Arabic translation with an Iraqi accent.

But after a brief test last year, the soldier gave up the gadget, deciding that, while helpful in some instances, it wasn’t useful to his unit, which conducted raids and provided convoy security. He had even tried to teach himself Arabic using the device but decided that it was no match for the complex language. Even such simple phrases as “What is your name?” are spoken differently in Fallujah than in Baghdad, he found. “This may have been the reason why many of the Iraqis . . . did not appear to understand the Arabic phrases & words” stored in the device, according to a report prepared for the Army.

As I started reading the article, I was actually starting to worry that my new language skills could be replaced by a box. After all this work I was glad to see the gadget is not working so great.

The stakes are high for the military, which suffers from such a shortage of interpreters that it has had to rely increasingly on contractors — 6,500 in Iraq and 1,500 in Afghanistan. It can be a dangerous job. Of the 648 contractors killed in Iraq since the war began in March 2003, 153 worked for the division of L-3 Communications Corp. that currently holds the linguist contract, according to Labor Department figures.

Maybe I don’t want to be a translator.

“In years past, there wasn’t a great need for the individual soldier to speak a foreign language to do his mission,” said Wayne Richards, branch chief for technology implementation at U.S. Joint Forces Command. But in
Iraq and Afghanistan, soldiers are increasingly interacting with Iraqi civilians, giving advice at checkpoints or guidance during home searches, he said.

“During those door-to-door searches, the soldiers need to be able to calm them down and reassure them,” Richards said. “We’re fighting for hearts and minds. But if I can’t tell her, ‘Ma’am, please calm down,’ . . . that wouldn’t be assuring.”

The article goes on to say:

The technology is “just not ready for wide deployment,” said Mari Maeda, program manager in DARPA’s Information Processing Technology Office. “The translation system is not good enough; the recognition software is not strong enough.”

I was glad to read that my new Arabic skills are not going to become obsolete any time soon.