Siculo-Arabic

Arabic Translator (المترجم العربي): Poking fun at U.S. Army soldier in Baghdad, Iraq

• Report rights infringement
• published: 20 Jun 2009
• views: 21898

Video about dumb Americans trying to translate the Arabic Language. This video is not designed to poke fun at the Arabic Culture, but rather us soldiers. Hey... If you can't laugh at yourselves, what else is there? The sociolinguistic situation of Arabic in modern times provides a prime example of the linguistic phenomenon of diglossia, which is the normal use of two separate varieties of the same language, usually in different social situations. In the case of Arabic, educated Arabs of any nationality can be assumed to speak both their local dialect and their school-taught Standard Arabic. When educated Arabs of different dialects engage in conversation (for example, a Moroccan speaking with a Lebanese), many speakers code-switch back and forth between the two varieties of the language, sometimes even within the same sentence. Arabic speakers often improve their familiarity with other dialects via music or film. Arabic (العربية al-ʿarabīyah or عربي ʿarabi) is a Central Semitic language, thus related to and classified alongside other Semitic languages such as Hebrew and Syriac. In terms of speakers, Arabic is the largest member of the Semitic language family. It is spoken by more than 280 million[1] people as a first language and by 250 million[2] more as a second language. Most native speakers live in the Middle East and North Africa. Arabic has many different, geographically-distributed spoken varieties, some of which are mutually unintelligible.[5] Standard Arabic is widely taught in schools, universities, and used in the office and the media. Modern Standard Arabic derives from Classical Arabic, the only surviving member of the Old North Arabian dialect group, attested in Pre-Islamic Arabic inscriptions dating back to the 4th century.[6] Classical Arabic has also been a literary language and the liturgical language of Islam since its inception in the 7th century. Arabic has lent many words to other languages of the Islamic world. During the Middle Ages, Arabic was a major vehicle of culture in Europe, especially in science, mathematics and philosophy. As a result, many European languages have also borrowed numerous words from it. Arabic influence is seen in Mediterranean languages, particularly Spanish, Maltese, and Sicilian, due to both the proximity of European and Arab civilization and 700 years of Arab rule in the Iberian peninsula (see Al-Andalus). Arabic has also borrowed words from many languages, including Hebrew, Persian and Syriac in early centuries, and contemporary European languages in modern times. Arabic usually designates one of three main variants: Classical Arabic; Modern Standard Arabic; colloquial or dialectal Arabic. Classical Arabic is the language found in the Qur'an and used from the period of Pre-Islamic Arabia to that of the Abbasid Caliphate. Classical Arabic is considered normative; modern authors attempt to follow the syntactic and grammatical norms laid down by classical grammarians (such as Sibawayh), and use the vocabulary defined in classical dictionaries (such as the Lisān al-Arab). Based on Classical Arabic, Modern Standard Arabic is the literary language used in most current, printed Arabic publications, spoken by the Arabic media across North Africa and the Middle East, and understood by most educated Arabic speakers. "Literary Arabic" and "Standard Arabic" are less strictly defined terms that may refer to Modern Standard Arabic and/or Classical Arabic. Colloquial or dialectal Arabic refers to the many national or regional varieties which constitute the everyday spoken language. Colloquial Arabic has many different regional variants; these sometimes differ enough to be mutually unintelligible and some linguists consider them distinct languages.[7] The varieties are typically unwritten. They are often used in informal spoken media, such as soap operas and talk shows,[8] as well as occasionally in certain forms of written media, such as poetry and printed advertising. The only variety of modern Arabic, through its descent from Siculo-Arabic, to have acquired official language status is Maltese, spoken in (predominately Roman Catholic) Malta and written with the Latin alphabet.