As you may know, there is no such thing as a modern Arabic language. Rather, we have a sort of continuum of dialects, where regional varieties can accurately be described as separate languages: Maghrebi, Libyan, Egyptian, Yemeni, Gulf, Iraqi, Levantine. MSA was created about 100 or so years ago, and is the most common way for modern Arabs to communicate with each other (at least for those who are educated and literate). What if MSA was never created? Would each of these language go hand-in-hand with regional nationalism? What does that spell out in the Cold War? Would we even see a Pan Arabist movement?
WI: No Modern Standard Arabic (MSA)
- Thread starter Dfront21
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I'd think the Pan-Arabist movement and language standardization are inseparable. Besides, could the various Arabic dialects really be classified as separate languages pre-standardization? For example, if you butterfly away all the French influence out of Algerian Arabic, would it still be that much different from Iraqi as to still be unintelligible based on natural linguistic evolution?
I don't think this would kill pan-arabism. What it would do is push the pan-arab movement to adopt one of the regional dialects(probably that of whichever region is most central to the movement, so perhaps the metropolitan form of either Egyptian, Syrian, or Iraqi Arabic) as the standard language.
Ohhh, mais oui. As a Maghrebi dialect (like Moroccan), Algerian Arabic would be unintelligible to an Iraqi. That's why there's the Egyptian media and MSA as a bridge.
Pronunciations are probably all over the place, but the written language of the Quran remains the same.
Worst come to worst, a common literary language will exist as long as the Arab world is (ovewhelmingly) Muslim.
Worst come to worst, a common literary language will exist as long as the Arab world is (ovewhelmingly) Muslim.
the language makes the book, not the other way around, I'd say.
if not so, we'd all be speaking Latin due to the Bible.
the language makes the book, not the other way around, I'd say.
if not so, we'd all be speaking Latin due to the Bible.
The educated and scientific elite of Europe DID speak, publish and write in Latin until the Reformation and vernacular bibles....