السلام عليكم
Why Has فسحة Come Under Such A Great Deal Of Scrutiny?
I understand that the average Arab does not speak amongst his countrymen in the classical فسحة, some even go as far as to persist that the classical vernacular was not one at all; but rather, a contrived attempt at bringing a literary culture to the forefront. Others ask why Arabs persist to write in a langauge that they do not mirror in speech, (here comparisons can be made to the Bengali language – that is, if you can still call it ‘Bangla’ at all. On one hand, country-folk speak in colloquial dialects – yet any correspondence fails to be sent out in rural chitchat, but rather a preserved Sanskrit reform, namely 'Shuddo BHasha') – many in the Arab world insist in giving precedence to the modern vernaculars and see anything else as being ‘too pretentious.’
I do not agree. Personally, grammatical is being kept in a store cupboard, right at the back where the moths lie in wait. The preservation of such beauty is ravaged by Western pedagogy, and blamed for being the sole reason as to why Arabs are not ‘progressing’ as they are clinging to فسحة - which apparently, ‘belongs to the past.’
There have been calls to bring down the traditions of النحو, بلاغة etc, and replace them with more ‘advanced’ and ‘modern’ Western linguistics. Woe to Romanization – everything seems to be going haywire! Every language seems to contain a smidgen here and there - in the last five centuries, I ask you – which language has remained ever-consistent?
To further deliberate the point, the latest in this long saga is that Arabic is the language of ‘Terrorism’ – yes some even go as far as to believe this nonsense - those without interest as to fate of would agree with any mindset so as to get rid of the literary challenge that is Arabic, once and for all.
The way to cast doubt on Arabic as I see many western academics have done is to simply nullify the sources from which we receive extensive input into the Modern Standard Arabic of today. The options are to buy outside the traditional methods, new dictionaries have been proposed whilst old ones are scrapped – I do not hear much of ‘لسان العرب’ or other publications celebrated by traditional Arab linguists. I have to give a thumbs-up to Hans Wehr though, whom during the war years created his own detailed lexicon of the Arabic language.
Why are many Arabs so interested in learning every other European language except their own? It is almost impossible (and yet abnormally impressive if found) to witness a فسحة speaker who doesn’t stick out like a sore thumb amongst his Arabic-bashing peers. The Arab complex kneads one into frustration – as amusingly, odd French or English words are inserted into the odd Arabic sentence ‘to give depth and weight’ and sense of ‘intellectualism.’ It won’t take long for ‘fine أنا بـ’ to become the mode. Are you with me?
The claim is that فسحة was ne’er a spoken language, but rather 'too challenging for anyone to speak with complete accuracy' – the old dialects have always remained, so pray why would one make it hard for oneself. My answer is ‘Are you blind?’ Can you not see the symmetry of the grammatical structures on the page? Is there no one of you that feel too guilty to destroy the lustre of rhetoric? I would say – the world needs to wake up and smell the vowels, these petals are becoming so rare – if we don’t act fast and see some pioneers like Sibawayh, I doubt I’ll smell a hint of anyone in the next decade with enough energy to correctly decline a sentence - so much for intellect.
By:الماس
12.15am - Sat, 15th Aug 2009
مع السلامة
Why Has فسحة Come Under Such A Great Deal Of Scrutiny?
I understand that the average Arab does not speak amongst his countrymen in the classical فسحة, some even go as far as to persist that the classical vernacular was not one at all; but rather, a contrived attempt at bringing a literary culture to the forefront. Others ask why Arabs persist to write in a langauge that they do not mirror in speech, (here comparisons can be made to the Bengali language – that is, if you can still call it ‘Bangla’ at all. On one hand, country-folk speak in colloquial dialects – yet any correspondence fails to be sent out in rural chitchat, but rather a preserved Sanskrit reform, namely 'Shuddo BHasha') – many in the Arab world insist in giving precedence to the modern vernaculars and see anything else as being ‘too pretentious.’
I do not agree. Personally, grammatical is being kept in a store cupboard, right at the back where the moths lie in wait. The preservation of such beauty is ravaged by Western pedagogy, and blamed for being the sole reason as to why Arabs are not ‘progressing’ as they are clinging to فسحة - which apparently, ‘belongs to the past.’
There have been calls to bring down the traditions of النحو, بلاغة etc, and replace them with more ‘advanced’ and ‘modern’ Western linguistics. Woe to Romanization – everything seems to be going haywire! Every language seems to contain a smidgen here and there - in the last five centuries, I ask you – which language has remained ever-consistent?
To further deliberate the point, the latest in this long saga is that Arabic is the language of ‘Terrorism’ – yes some even go as far as to believe this nonsense - those without interest as to fate of would agree with any mindset so as to get rid of the literary challenge that is Arabic, once and for all.
The way to cast doubt on Arabic as I see many western academics have done is to simply nullify the sources from which we receive extensive input into the Modern Standard Arabic of today. The options are to buy outside the traditional methods, new dictionaries have been proposed whilst old ones are scrapped – I do not hear much of ‘لسان العرب’ or other publications celebrated by traditional Arab linguists. I have to give a thumbs-up to Hans Wehr though, whom during the war years created his own detailed lexicon of the Arabic language.
Why are many Arabs so interested in learning every other European language except their own? It is almost impossible (and yet abnormally impressive if found) to witness a فسحة speaker who doesn’t stick out like a sore thumb amongst his Arabic-bashing peers. The Arab complex kneads one into frustration – as amusingly, odd French or English words are inserted into the odd Arabic sentence ‘to give depth and weight’ and sense of ‘intellectualism.’ It won’t take long for ‘fine أنا بـ’ to become the mode. Are you with me?
The claim is that فسحة was ne’er a spoken language, but rather 'too challenging for anyone to speak with complete accuracy' – the old dialects have always remained, so pray why would one make it hard for oneself. My answer is ‘Are you blind?’ Can you not see the symmetry of the grammatical structures on the page? Is there no one of you that feel too guilty to destroy the lustre of rhetoric? I would say – the world needs to wake up and smell the vowels, these petals are becoming so rare – if we don’t act fast and see some pioneers like Sibawayh, I doubt I’ll smell a hint of anyone in the next decade with enough energy to correctly decline a sentence - so much for intellect.
By:الماس
12.15am - Sat, 15th Aug 2009
مع السلامة
Last edited by الماس on Sat Aug 15, 2009 10:41 am; edited 1 time in total