Faculty - Dr. Liljana Elverskog
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Education: |
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Ph.D. |
Indiana University |
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M.A. |
Khartoum International Institute for Arabic Language, Khartoum, Sudan |
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B.A. |
Sarajevo University, Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina |
Previous Teaching Positions:
University of Texas at Dallas
Brown University
Middlebury College, Summer School of Arabic
University of California, Santa Barbara
Indiana University
University of Texas at Austin
Arabic Courses offered at U.N.T.
About Arabic
Arabic is a member of the Semitic group of languages. It is spoken by over 160 million people, in an area extending from the Arabian Gulf in the east to the Atlantic Ocean in the west. It is the language of Islam, and more than 600 million people use it as a vital spiritual component of their daily lives. Arabic is also spoken by many of the three million people of Arab origin living in the United States and Canada . This is a very difficult, but very rewarding language to learn and understand for professional reasons, academic scholarship, and in order to enjoy a rich cultural exchange with a large population of the world.
Colloquial and Standard Arabic
Amiyya and FuSHa
"There is a considerable difference between written Arabic (variously known as Literary Arabic, Modern Standard Arabic, or in its historical form Classical Arabic) and all varieties of spoken Arabic. Spoken Arabic differs from country to country and even from town to town, although it is possible to group the dialects into a few major areas within each of which there is virtually total mutual comprehension. Thus the spoken Arabic dialects of north-west Africa (Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia) form a single group, as do those of the Levant (Lebanon, Syria, Jordan). Egyptian, Sudanese, and western Saudi Arabian Arabic form another group, as do the dialects of Iraq and the eastern part of the Arabian peninsula . However, even the differences between these groups of dialects are not that great: they all share a great many structural features and there is a high proportion of shared vocabulary. None of the spoken dialects, however, is used more than very marginally in writing: for all formal written communication (and obviously therefore, all literature), Modern Standard Arabic is universally used. It is also usually used in formal oral contexts, such as radio and TV news reading, political speeches, lectures, etc. This form of Arabic (which is learned at school and not as a native language by any Arab) is virtually uniform in its grammar and vocabulary throughout the Arab world. It is a potent symbol of Arab cultural and (in the sense that it is the language of the Qur'an) religious unity.
"To many Arabs, Modern Standard Arabic, known as al-fuSHa 'the pure' is the only form of the language which has any worth. The dialects, although they are the universal means of everyday conversation, are regarded by many as degraded forms of the language. This feeling is often reflected in attitudes to foreigners' attempts to learn Arabic: many Arabs, especially if they are educated) feel that only the Standard form of the language should be taught, regardless of the fact that Arabs themselves would never themselves use this kind of Arabic for some of the purposes (e.g. chatting, shopping) for which they insist foreigners should use it. It can sometimes seem an uphill battle for foreigners to get Arabs to talk to them in colloquial Arabic. But don't be put off; the less well educated seem to suffer less from this prejudice, and you may well find that they will be more than willing to help you practice." (Holes, Clive and Nadira Auty and Rachael Harris. 1995. Just Listen 'n Learn Arabic. Lincolnwood: Passport Books, 60-61)