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It must be obvious to all that I've given up on Hindi/Urdu for the nonce. My language of the moment is one I've played around with for years without ever making any real progress in, namely Arabic. I know the letters (kind of), I can use a dictionary, but I'm nigh-hopeless at deciphering or constructing a sentence.
Still, I'm thinking I might make more progress this go around. For one thing, I've got a better book, one I picked up at a good pricewhen Savvy Traveller shut its doors a couple years back. For another, I'm focussing this time on a particular vernacular, only occasionally referring to the sections on MSA in order to compare-contrast.
Lebanese is the variety I picked for a number of reasons. First, it's relatively central, which hopefully means it will be more widely intelligible than more peripheral varieties like Khaliji or Maltese. Second, it's tied to a more familiar culture, one strongly influenced by both Christianity and European liberalism. The Lebanese were the first Arabs I ever met due to the small but significant Maronite presence in my hometown of St Louis.
As Arabic vernaculars go, Lebanese seems to command a fair amount of prestige. Although the cruel bouts of instability have badly hurt the entertainment industry there, Lebanese music still seems relatively widespread and popular. It also has a good web presence, with several English- and French-language websites that present information on the colloquial language. There's a lot available in romanisation, which is useful as I'm still not very adept at reading Arabic script.
In fact, there's even a movement to make "Lebanese" in Roman script the official language of Lebanon. Not a big one, to be sure, and one rather too closely associated with ultranationalists who are too often Christian chauvinists to boot. It's through their linguistic essays that I discovered the existence of Phoenicianism, which seems to be basically a Lebanese Christian reaction to Pan-Arabism.
In trying to deny an Arab origin for the Lebanese and their language, Phoenicianists play up the non-Arab Semitic elements. This leads to outrageous claims of a Phoenician or Aramaic origin to the "Lebanese language" itself. It's fun to note the sub- and adstratal influences on the vernacular of Lebanon, but of course these don't alter the genetic affiliations of the language any more than the divergent phonology of Maghrebi Arabic makes it a branch of Berber.
Still, I'm thinking I might make more progress this go around. For one thing, I've got a better book, one I picked up at a good pricewhen Savvy Traveller shut its doors a couple years back. For another, I'm focussing this time on a particular vernacular, only occasionally referring to the sections on MSA in order to compare-contrast.
Lebanese is the variety I picked for a number of reasons. First, it's relatively central, which hopefully means it will be more widely intelligible than more peripheral varieties like Khaliji or Maltese. Second, it's tied to a more familiar culture, one strongly influenced by both Christianity and European liberalism. The Lebanese were the first Arabs I ever met due to the small but significant Maronite presence in my hometown of St Louis.
As Arabic vernaculars go, Lebanese seems to command a fair amount of prestige. Although the cruel bouts of instability have badly hurt the entertainment industry there, Lebanese music still seems relatively widespread and popular. It also has a good web presence, with several English- and French-language websites that present information on the colloquial language. There's a lot available in romanisation, which is useful as I'm still not very adept at reading Arabic script.
In fact, there's even a movement to make "Lebanese" in Roman script the official language of Lebanon. Not a big one, to be sure, and one rather too closely associated with ultranationalists who are too often Christian chauvinists to boot. It's through their linguistic essays that I discovered the existence of Phoenicianism, which seems to be basically a Lebanese Christian reaction to Pan-Arabism.
In trying to deny an Arab origin for the Lebanese and their language, Phoenicianists play up the non-Arab Semitic elements. This leads to outrageous claims of a Phoenician or Aramaic origin to the "Lebanese language" itself. It's fun to note the sub- and adstratal influences on the vernacular of Lebanon, but of course these don't alter the genetic affiliations of the language any more than the divergent phonology of Maghrebi Arabic makes it a branch of Berber.