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Hi John,
Please find some comments in-lined in your msg.
On 12/17/2013 5:11 PM, John F Sowa wrote:
Hassan,
I admit that I was trying to be brief. I also have a question at the
end about the relationships between Arabic, Berber, and French.
I am originally from North Africa (Algeria) and I am a berber (Amazigh)
from the Kabylie Region (east of Algiers). Arabic has definitely *not*
replaced our language (of Hamitic roots). It is still very well alive,
thank you!
Yes. For a map of the distribution of those languages,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Hamito-Semitic_languages.jpg
Even in France, the Celtic language Breton survives in the northeast.
Hmmm ... The comparison invites a misconception. What you are saying
is true for Breton, as well as many other traditional French
languages in France, despite a systematic denial of their culture by
the central French governments foor centuries (whether kings or
presidents). However, Breton, despite a modern attempt to revive it,
in no longer spoken (or used) today as Berber is in Algeria (i.e.,
by all the Kabyle and most of the Chaoui populations - that being
the tongue used in everyday life, at home within one's family, as
well as outside to function within one's village, at school, etc.,
...). In Bretagne, this is not so: only a very scant number of very
old Bretons speak it as a mother tongue and some folk singers use it
in traditional songs. Berber, despite years of fierce repression by
pro-Arabic governments, is now an official language of Algeria (and
Morocco). It is very alive, has its radio and tv channels, and even
when a Kabyle speaks Arabic (or French) you can tell from the heavy
sing-song accent that his/her mother tongue is Berber. The only
other non-French languages in France that is still used to a similar
degree as Berber is in Algeria is Basque and Corsican. All others
(Alsacien, Savoyard, Chtimi, Niçois, Auvergnat, etc., ...)
were systematically repressed by the official policy. By contrast,
Spain has respected its own languages and given them a far more
adequate recognition. Still, one must speak Castillano to get
around.
That is also the setting for the comic books about Astérix le Gaulois.
This is funny you should bring this up since no mention of any
relation to/with the Breton culture was ever mentioned in Astérix
by the late René Goscinny, its creator and writer (himself from
Corse - like Napoléon Bonaparte - and speaking and writing Corsican
as a mother tongue).
But the general point, which Ostler discusses, is that languages with
similar structure allow a continuous blend from one form to the other.
As an example, I mentioned Argentina: Italian immigrants gradually
made their Italian more and more Spanish-like, but German immigrants
had to make an abrupt switch (or not).
As another example, there is a dialect called "Chinese-waiter-English",
which uses Chinese syntax with a substitution of English words about
items on the menu. Japanese syntax, however, is so different from
English that a similar substitution would be unintelligible.
Question: How easy is it for Berbers to learn Arabic?
Very difficult in fact! There is a popular (deriding) Kabyle saying
that goes: "Twist you mouth as that'll sound Arabic!" ... :-)
Neither of my grand-mothers spoke any Arabic. My paternal
grand-father spoke some limited Arabic (essentially to deal with
itinerant traders in markets). My father had to learn it as his
third language (his second being French). As for my mother, because
she grew up in a "Commune Mixte" away from Kabylie (in the southwest
of Algeria, near Mount Ouarsenis, where descendant of the Bani
Hillal - Arabic invaders of the 15th Century- still live), she
learned "country Arabic" ("Berberized" Arabic) and could later
easily learn Algiers Arabic when she moved there later. I grew up in
Algiers. I didn't speak a work of Arabic until I was 8 (in 1962,
year of independance from France) as the Egypt-backed government
that took over outlawed all languages except Classical Arabic (after
a short by bloody civil war between against Kabyles). I took it in
high school as a mandatory course. It wasn't easy - but I eventually
got there. I really appreciate the mathematical rigor of its grammar
and semantic declensions, and find it script exquisitely beautiful -
but it ain't my language!
Do they follow
the pattern of Italian/Spanish, Chinese-waiter-English, or something
in between?
Worse ! In Algeria, everyone speaks a mixture of
Arabic+French+Berber. The grammatical construction is Berber, the
main _expression_ are Arabic, and 50% of the vocabulary is French
(pronounced our way). If you speak classical Arabic, you appear to
be a religious snob (a bit as if you spoke Latin in Italy!). If you
speak (as I do) pure French (i.e., with no accent), you
appear like a pro-occidental snob. The end result is that you have
to mix it all up and pronounce it all using our typical Algerian
intonation. For official texts, Classical Arabic is used, or French
(with a lot of grammatical mistakes - but French nonetheless).
For example, here is a Kabyle saying:
- Dh'aghioul ousin ghara ad'qorfith
This means "A donkey has no nose for cinnamon" (in French, "Un
âne ne sent pas la canelle").
Now everyone in Algeria knows it also in (Algerian) Arabic:
-
الحمار ما يشمش القرفة
- El hmar ma ichemch el qorfa (pronouncing the above
Arabic)
However, the sentence construction is Berber (i.e.,
isomorphic to the one above) and not Arabic, since it follows an
infix order ("Subject Predicate Object") when an Arabic sentence's
grammatical construction must follow a "prefix" order ("Predicate
Subject Object"). However, the negation of the predicate in the
Berber verb follows a "postfix" construction ("knows not") while
the Arabic negation is prefix ("not knows"). But the word for
"cinnamon" ("qorfa" in Arabic) was obviously "Berberized" ("ad'qorfith")
from its Arabic counterpart ("el qorfa") - presumably
because most spices, and hence their names, came to North Africa
from the Middle East.
As my dad used to say, "In Algeria, we used to be experts in three
languages. Now, we are illiterate in three languages!".
What about learning French or English?
French is still needed if one wishes to study math and science
beyond high school. All else (law, economy, religion [!], etc., ...)
is taught in Classical Arabic. Anyone wishing to study abroad (even
in France) has also to take English. Since 2000, the government has
(at last) recognized the liveliness of Berber and authorized
schooling in Berber along Arabic.
John
-hak
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