Cat in Rabat's Tongues & A Few Parenthetical Thoughts About the Spanish Inquisition**
Historically, I have had more success with tongues of a different breed; last fall I decided to embark on a language course in an effort to prevent the complete mush-ification of my brain. My hope had been to start a programme in Spanish, but because of a scheduling conflict (thanks holy month of Ramadan), I registered for a course in Standard Arabic instead. The savvier of you are probably thinking what ho! where are you going to practice Standard Arabic in
It was less than stellar; or more precisely, I was less than stellar. Although I eventually grew comfortable with the Arabic script and could produce a fair hand, I butted heads with the language in a most pugnacious manner, and unjustly held my instructor accountable for the language's quirks and, in my mind, idiosyncrasies that bordered on the nonsensical. I am not a complete pinhead when it comes to languages: I am proficient (or at least was) in Latin, ancient Greek, ancient Egyptian (4 stages of the language, each in monumental and cursive scripts) and Coptic. If I could learn to differentiate between 50-some birds in Egyptian, then surely I could successfully plumb the mysteries of the "ع", or ayn (which by the way, existed in ancient Egyptian).
I could never come to terms with the habit of dropping vowel markers in writing. If vowels exist, use them. If anyone has spent one moment listening to an Arab speaker then you know that vowels (some of which take a full 30 seconds to completely articulate) abound. This is not only a slap in the face to a vowel, but defies logic. When in the evolution of a written language is the decision made to stop using vowels - this in a language where the same group of consonants can be pronounced in a gazillion ways and each mean something completely different? Who was responsible for that decision? The result of this is that you must know the meaning of the word before you can pronounce it. At least in the Romance and Germanic languages (as an example), you can make a fair attempt at pronouncing a word correctly without knowing its meaning. Cat in
Then there was the grammar. Oi vey - it was as inconstant as the moon, whose waxing and waning I believe, hold great sway over Arabic grammar. If it is a gibbous moon then you must add a taarmabuuta to the end of a noun, but only if the reader is a menstruating woman. But if the tides are high and the moon is full then you use a sukun. Omigod ... all I could see was a grammatical system based on exceptions and idiosyncrasies that, in my mind, were more idiotic than syncratic. Inanimate plural nouns are considered to be feminine singular; a verb in a verb-initial sentence is always marked as singular regardless of its semantic number. Get the picture?
We parted company.
Having bid a hearty masalama to Standard Arabic, Mr. Cat in
And we do.
Three times a week we begin our morning with an ¡Hola! and then resign ourselves to 2 hours of learning with Moroccan students. Not that this is a bad thing in and of itself – our fellow students are a very amiable bunch. But Moroccans approach language acquisition slightly different that non-Moroccans. I am sad to say that I already had some experience on this front but with me on the other side of the desk. Now I am the student. For one thing, owning a text book is not considered de rigueur – after 2 weeks of class, our instructor was compelled to march those still sin sus libros over to the bookstore to make their purchases.
I haven’t yet decided whether Moroccan students are impatient or just naturally exuberant. Regardless of the answer, I want to strangle them all. I am beginning to harbour dark thoughts about the Spanish Inquisition and secretly wonder if Torquemada (“the hammer of heretics, the light of
For some reason completely unknown to me, it takes them thirty times longer to complete 5 lines of gap-filled sentences although I suspect that this is because their seatwork is getting in the way of some serious chatting and catching-up since last class. Because chat they do. They never shut up. By the end of class I look like the image of the Grinch (the 1966 Chuck Jones version not Jim Carrey’s Pretender to the Throne) with little imaginary drumsticks beating the sides of his head in a sustained undulation of agony.
Nonetheless we tell ourselves that this is a good experience – that acquiring even a smattering of another language is good for our own personal and professional development. As we move on past our mastery of the sing-songy ¡Hola! we may even learn not to snigger as the French-speakers in our midst continue to mispronounce the Spanish es (in which the final “s” is articulated) like the French es (in which it is not). See – we don’t dissolve into gales of mocking derisive laughter, we just snigger. That sets us apart from our fellow initiates.
Until then, adiós Muchachos.
** Which, in fact, nobody expects.
8 Comments:
I've only been on the other side of the desk (for nearly two long long years), but this post resonates with me nonetheless.
Yesterday, I had to give a twenty minute long lecture on what it means to raise one's hand and not say a word. Despite my students' stopping their incessant chatting (at the threat of being separated, that is), they still yelled "TEACHER! TEACHER!" at the top of their lungs every time I requested answers.
I explained that to me, "teacher" is rude and makes me feel old, and that they can use my first name or call me Mrs. ______. They still didn't (and don't) get it.
I can't even imagine taking a class with them.
Two comments:
1) Please don't refer to yourself using the now-offensive term "retard". You are "challenged". "Other-abled". "Special".
2) WRT food and body parts, I have just one thing (two words, actually) to say: HEAD CHEESE!
Has a grosser food yet been concocted?
"Has a grosser food yet been concocted?" .. or so named?
-the 'tard
It seems that ~I~ may the the retardo, as I've conducted a full investigation, and "headcheese" is one word, not two.
'tard!
Yeah, well, sorry if I don't know how to spell the most repulsive food in the history of the world.
Not so fast - it is indeed 2 words, though we English prefer to call it BRAWN.
Indeed, Wikipedia manages to make it sound quite tasty:
(In England, head cheese is referred to as brawn, in Scotland as potted heid (potted head of a cow, pig or sheep; the similar potted haugh/hough made from the shin of the animal).)
Is there a veggie alternative: soy head cheese? It just sounds all so good ...
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