-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
8.   Emails to the Editor

From Jack Harden (In ref to article "History of the Serbian/Croatian Program ..," DLIAA newsletter XVI, October 2007)

Hello, Mr De La Selva,

I'm a proud graduate of SC-12-30 ('58/'59) and read with considerable interest your "History of the Serbian/Croatian Program ..." in the recent alumni newsletter. Our "Serbo-Croatian" class included Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine personnel as well as the wife of our class leader, Capt Pierce. We had an excellent class thanks to the captain's leadership example and more importantly to the quality and professionalism of our instructors, especially Gospodin Boljanich, our grammar instructor. Although I wasn't top student in the class I'm pleased to say that I've retained some basic conversational skills. Again, I attribute that to the excellence of our instructors and the efforts of my classmates and myself.

I was disappointed to note your comment that "a dearth of course" materials impacted the regeneration of a 47-week basic course and find it difficult to believe that wise heads at Monterey didn't ensure retention of the older course materials used by our class and others. I believe those course materials were excellent and could have been updated to meet current needs.

Anyway, I enjoyed your article and it brought back pleasant memories. My wife and I recently visited the Presidio accompanied by our old friend, and number one grad in our SC class, Stan Bishop and his wife. It was a pleasure seeing our old classroom buildings and speaking with several current students of various languages. Because of my foundation in Serbo-Croatian, and the fact that I have several Russian and Ukrainian neighbors, I was able to check my limited Russian skills with a couple of soldiers nearing completion of their course: their skills far exceeded mine and it's great to see that Monterey is still doing a terrific job.

I'm sure you share my sense of loss with respect to the recent passing of General Doyle Larson. He was a great leader and a fine human being.

Regards,

Jack Harden
Major, USAF (Ret)
(former SSGT, Army Language School)
ru4add@hotmail.com
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
9. Colloquial Arabic: What Is It and How Does One Learn It?

Editor's Note: This first of a two part article will deal with Modern Standard Arabic (MSA).

by Howard D. Rowland*

*Graduate of 18-month DLI Russian course (1961-62), DLI Russian instructor (1973-77), DLI Arabic instructor (1984-87, 1990-99), Ph.D. in Arabic studies from U. of Michigan at Ann Arbor (1971)

Anyone who has studied Arabic and been familiar with it for any length of time definitely knows the following two things about it: 1) It is quite a difficult language to learn, and 2) It differs sharply from most other languages in that it is characterized by what is known as “diglossia,” that is, its literate native speakers use one form of Arabic as their written language, but quite a different form of Arabic as their everyday spoken language.

Of course, virtually all the world’s major languages have a gap of this sort, especially between the educated classes and those on the lower social, economic, and educational levels of society. But in nearly all cases the educated natives of the languages fluently and habitually speak—either normally or, if required by circumstances—the high-level, educated version of their language which is used for literary purposes. Thus political affairs pundits in the U.S. being interviewed on American TV speak almost exactly the same educated standard American English that is found in the books that they write and most U.S. college graduates speak, to a reasonable degree, a form of literate, grammatically correct, educated American English that is quite uniform throughout the country and differs only slightly in terms of regional pronunciation and intonation.

Arabic, however, because of its unique and very long history as a major world language, and because its speakers are dispersed over a very big area of the Earth’s surface, has evolved quite differently in terms of the forms of the language used in response to the situations in which they are employed.

There is, first of all, the written Arabic language which Arabs generally call al-lugha al-fusha (the eloquent language) and which is usually known in English as Classical Arabic (the language of the Koran, pre-Islamic poetry, and medieval and pre-modern writings) or Modern Standard Arabic (“MSA” for short) which, in terms of its grammar and vocabulary, is basically the same as Classical Arabic, but with more modern vocabulary, usages, and styles of expression.

This written language, in a highly standardized form, has been in use for all literary purposes throughout the Arab world since early medieval times and is essentially the same language today as it was 1,500 years ago. And this same ancient language is still used today for all written and official oral communication in nearly all situations that call for the use of “formal” language in an organized presentation.

But in addition to this written Arabic language, which all educated Arabs have at their command, there also exist the spoken Arabic colloquial dialects. These varieties of spoken Arabic all differ greatly from the written language and also differ from each other to a greater or lesser degree, depending on how geographically distant the native speakers are from each other. Thus a Syrian from Damascus will have no problem at all talking to a Jordanian from Amman or a Lebanese from Beirut. However, if this same Syrian has never met an Iraqi or an Egyptian before, he will have some some problems understanding the speech of someone from Baghdad or Cairo, but in general will be able to successfully communicate with him. But if he tries talking his Syrian dialect to someone from Casablanca, Morocco who speaks only the Moroccan Arabic dialect, he will certainly either find it quite difficult to understand him or throw up his hands and give up, realizing that they simply cannot understand each other’s dialect and have to resort to speaking in MSA, if they both can speak it, or even try communicating in English or French.

These regional or local spoken Arabic dialects are used by Arabs of all walks of life—regardless of class or educational level—for all informal communication situations in everyday life. However, utterances in the dialects are almost never found in writing, except in the case of satirical political cartoons in newspapers or occasionally in the dialogue portion of works of fiction by certain writers, particularly Egyptians.

Sometimes the two versions of Arabic get “mixed up” with each other. For example, an educated Arab having an informal discussion with his peers, normally in colloquial Arabic, might occasionally resort to using expressions or even entire sentences or utterances in MSA in order to add emphasis to what he is saying, making it sound more like an “official statement.” Or a person on TV being interviewed may not have such a good oral command of MSA, so he might “throw in” a lot of colloquialisms or usages from the spoken language which, strictly speaking, are not customarily allowed in a formal interview situation.

The more educated the discourse or the more “literary,” “scientific,” or “academic” the topic of discussion is, the fewer differences there will be in the forms and vocabulary of the written and colloquial versions of the utterances involved. For example, the newspaper headline I’m looking at right now, which is from the January, 2008 issue of The New York Times, reads as follows: “U.S. Announces Criminal Inquiry into CIA Tapes” I would translate that into Arabic (MSA, of course!) as:

“tu’lin al-wilayat al-muttahida tahqiqan jina’iyan
fi shara’it wakalat al-mukhabarat al-markaziya”

If an Iraqi journalist wanted to orally pass this information on to a colleague, his colloquial version would hardly differ from what the headline in MSA would be, that is, he might well say:

“il-wilayat il-muttahida ti’lin tahqiq jina’i
b-shara’it wakalt il-mukhabarat il-markaziya”

But then his colleague might reply in the Iraqi dialect, saying something like:

“sh-gilit? sudug rah yisawwun tahqiq hassa?
khal-da-nfukk ir-radyo. yimkin rah-nisma’ fadd khabar jidid ‘ala hash-shi”

Which means: “What did you say? Is it true that they are going to do an inquiry now? Let’s turn on the radio. Maybe we’ll hear some (new) news item about this matter.” But if this reply were rendered in writing in Arabic, it would have to be something like the following, in MSA:

“madha qulta? hal sahih annahum sa-yaf’alun tahqiqan al-aan?
fal-naftah ar-radyo. Rubbama sa-nasma’ khabaran jadidan ma fi hadha l-mawdu’”

When comparing the two versions of the colleague’s reply, you can certainly make a good case for saying that you are dealing with two different languages.

For an American linguist studying Arabic who aspires to be generally proficient in the language as a whole, there is unfortunately only one option: You are forced to, in effect, learn two languages: 1) MSA, in order to read Arabic in the media, in books, and elsewhere, and in order to understand anything presented orally—over the media or otherwise—which is official in nature, and 2) one of the major regional spoken Arabic dialects (such as Egyptian, Syrian, Iraqi, Saudi, Tunisian, or Moroccan) in order to take part in all manner of normal informal everyday conversations with the native speakers of a given dialect area, no matter who they are and what their social or educational level is.

Furthermore, if you plan on going to different parts of the Arab world, you will have to be prepared to at least be familiar with the different vocabulary items, slightly different grammatical structures, and widely-varying pronunciations and intonations that you will hear.

Quite a daunting task, all in all, you might say. Indeed it is, but perhaps not so tough as it appears at first. Here’s why:

1. Arabs are very patient and forgiving when non-Arabs try to learn their language, and are usually quite happy if foreigners have learned any type of Arabic, wherever they have learned it. And if you can put together a sentence of three words or more in their language, either in speech or in writing, they are generally very favorably impressed.

2. If you have studied MSA before attempting to learn to speak a dialect (as is usually the case with foreign learners of Arabic), you’ll be happy to know that the dialects are generally far less complicated in terms of grammar and usage than the written language. It will be like learning a greatly simplified version of MSA, and thus will seem easy.

3. Most of the vocabulary of MSA and spoken Arabic is the same, although the “low-level,” practical, everyday vocabulary is often quite different. But this frequently-used body of vocabulary is something that you are likely to learn quickly and well, since it is used so often and you will hear it constantly from the native speakers.

4. As a foreign, non-native of Arabic, you can always “throw in” vocabulary and forms typical of MSA as you speak in dialect, and this will not greatly disturb the Arabs you are talking to, since they don’t normally expect you to have command of their spoken language. In other words, whatever you say when you speak with them is OK with them, as long as they understand it. Furthermore, there really are no official or accepted “grammatical rules” for speaking any form of colloquial Arabic, and their attitude toward foreigners learning to speak Arabic is much the same as that of Americans when listening to foreigners trying to speak English—that is, anything goes as long as it can be understood.

5. If you are able to speak MSA (using inflectional endings on nouns, verbs, etc. is not necessary), nearly all Arabs everywhere will be able to understand you—but not necessarily be able to reply to you in MSA. Educated Arabs, however, generally can reply in MSA, although sometimes only haltingly, since normally they only write and read in MSA and never speak it spontaneously in everyday conversation.

Editor's Note: The second part of this article will appear in our next newsletter.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
10. FORMER DLI STUDENT AND FACULTY MEMBER WRITES TWO BOOKS

a. Taking on the Middle East - A Young Man’s Odyssey in an Ancient Land
By Howard Rowland

This book is the story of the author's experiences both living and traveling in seven countries of the Middle East during the years 1962-65, when he was a young man between 23 and 26 years of age. They include a year of service as a Russian linguist on a small U.S. Army listening post on the Black Sea in northern Turkey, six months of residence among the locals in Aleppo, Syria following an overseas discharge from the military, and two journeys amounting to several months of low-budget travel, on busses and by means of hitchhiking, in Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq, Kuwait, and Egypt.

His purpose for writing the book was that he wanted readers to know what it was like for him to experience, and survive in, the Middle East, communicating on an actual person-to-person basis with the Arabs, Turks, and others on their level as an equal, speaking their languages, and dealing and interacting with them as normal human beings in their usual environment in everyday living and travel situations.

He also wanted to show what the people were like, give some idea of the atmosphere and milieu of the countries they lived in, and also convey a reasonably accurate picture of their prevailing mentality and view of the world. In addition, he wanted to portray how he was received by people as a young American male and how he dealt with the various "cultural shock" situations that arose for him as he regularly encountered them during this extended odyssey.

The approach used is that of the author telling the narrative through the eyes of the person that he once was, that is, a young college-educated Army enlisted man from New Orleans, Louisiana whose chief ambitions in life are to become a renowned globetrotter and polyglot and, in general, otherwise spend his life playing tennis, consuming huge amounts of beer and good food, and avoiding full-time permanent civilian employment of any kind.

Although he is - much against his will - sent to Turkey by the Army, he ends up finding that country fascinating and becomes obsessed with learning Turkish and seeing all of Turkey. Later on, after reading T.E. Lawrence's "Seven Pillars of Wisdom" and seeing the movie "Lawrence of Arabia," he firmly decides that he wants to learn Arabic, travel around all the countries of the Arab East, and become "Howard of Arabia."

In the final analysis, he experiences this area of the world in a way that few Americans have done, and clearly sees the roots of ethnic, sectarian, and political conflicts which, in the years thereafter, plunge "his Middle East" into a far worse and infinitely more dangerous place than it used to be.

To order copies contact the author at (831) 375-4477 or at hdrowland@earthlink.net. The price for "Taking on the Middle East" is $35 (including shipment and taxes).

b. “Barking Her Way to the Top”

By Howard Rowland

In “Barking her Way to the Top: A Collie Pursues in the Civil Service,” author Howard Rowland uses humor and imaginative fiction to satirize life in the civil service through the medium of a super intelligent dog.

The story’s main character is Kukushka, a female Collie who understands both Russian and English, and thus manages to get hired as a Russian teacher by a civil service educational institute. Working in a classroom as an “assistant instructor,” Kukushka has a number of adventures on the job and manages to impress both her superiors and students with her “canine based” teaching method.

During the course of the novel the Collie sometimes is presented as a superhuman, supercanine creature with genius-level intelligence, and at other times she emerges as a typical dog.

Throughout the book the Collie and her owner engage in “conversations” that show both the differences in how humans and dogs act and think and the way in which they demonstrate their affection for each other.

To order copies contact the autor at (831) 375-4477 or at hdrowland@earthlink.net. The price for "Barking Her Way to the Top" is $15 (including shipment and taxes).
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
11. DLI Memorabilia make good New Year´s presents.

Check the following link to order DLI T-shirts (in most languages), mugs, lapel pins+, license plate holders, or coins.

http://www.dli-alumni.org/dliaa_memorabilia.htm

+ Temporarily out of DLI pins
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------