#...thus *innately* more edifying or more 'worthy' of being learned. | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

gothhabiba · 11 months

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as someone whos only really good at understanding/speaking arabic dialect (and a mish-mash of two dialects at that, lmao) the way people will demand that you disregard any non-fusha interpretation of the language or remember that its not "proper" arabic drives me NUTS like that is not a useful thing to tell anyone and it certainly didn't make me want to learn fusha more than just strengthening my dialect skills when i was taking it in school!!

the idea that anyone could find it useful to be able to talk to people rather than like, go to business school or whatever, is I suppose surprising to them

#ironically I think this is an attitude that only makes sense if you already understand the local dialect.#if you didn't & only understood fusha you would start to feel the gap in your understanding very quickly!#but of course the reality of the situation--that these are different language varieties that are useful in different contexts--#is not what is actually being described or responded to.#it's the idea that standard Arabic (often conflated with classical Arabic) is a more 'pure' form of language that is...#...thus *innately* more edifying or more 'worthy' of being learned.#the idea that language is a tool that is useful insofar as it can actually be used doesn't mesh with this particular language ideology

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