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shalom.) Ktb functions similarly for writing: Kitaab is "book," kaatib is "writer," maktaba is "library."
Merav is ne with this, though the rest of us are struggling. But the ferociously unfamiliar grammar sets us all adrift. Arabic is a VSO language, which
means the verb usually comes before the subject and object. It has a dual number, so nouns and verbs must be learned in singular, dual, and plural. A
present-tense verb has 13 forms. There are three noun cases and two genders. Some European languages have just as many forms to keep track of, but
in Arabic the idiosyncrasies can be mind-boggling. When Karam explains that numbers are marked for genderbut most numbers take the opposite
gender from the word they are modifyingwe students stare at each other in slack-jawed solidarity. When we learn that adjectives modifying nonhuman
plurals always have a feminine singular formmeaning that "the cars are new" comes out as "the cars, she are new"I can hear heads banging on the
desks around me. I want to do the same.
Karam sees the wear and tear on us, and so sometimes we pause and have a cultural chat. Arabic is peppered with a lot of Godeven secular Arabs will
append insha'allah, "God willing," to almost any statement of intent, as in, "I'll le my story by 3, God willing." Sometimes Karam tries to teach us how to
work various niceties like this into daily speech. "Thank you" is usually just shukran. "But," Karam tells us, "that is sort of boring, so if someone gives you
food it's nicer to say, 'May your hands be blessed,' or " This is way too much information for my skill level, so I squeeze my eyes shut and hope that
Karam's ourishes don't enter my brain and dislodge something vital, like, "Where is the bathroom?"
The State Department reckons that it takes 80 to 88 weeks (roughly a year in the classroom full-time and a year in-country) to get to a level 3 on a 5point scale in Modern Standard Arabic, the language I am learning. But there's a twist. MSA has about the same role in the Arab world that Latin had in
medieval Europe: It's the language of writing, religion, and formal speeches, but it is no one's native spoken language any more. Arabic has long since
become a series of "dialects," which are actually more like separate languages, as many varieties are mutually incomprehensible. Arabic spoken in
Morocco is as dierent from Arabic spoken in Egypt and from Modern Standard as French is from Spanish and Latin. When Arabs from dierent regions
talk to each other, they improvise a mix of Egyptian Arabic (which is understood widely because of Egypt's movie industry), Modern Standard, and a bit
of their own dialects.
So, if I go to Egypt or Lebanon in a year, having managed to get some near grip on my classroom language, I will be walking down the street asking
people for a bite to eat in something that will sound almost as conversationally inappropriate to them as Shakespearean English would to us. Most
literate Arabs know the Modern Standard from schooling, newspapers, television, sermons, and the like, though, so hopefully they will not laugh too
hard as they help me out and respond in something I can almost understand. And that is if I work my tail o for the next year. Insha'allah.
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William Saletan