English

ERIC ED034179: Dialect Variations and the Teaching of Arabic as a Living Language.

Because of the diversity of Arabic dialects (Lebanese, Iraqi, Syrian, Algerian, Moroccan, Libyan, Sudanese, Saudi Arabian, Palestinian, and Egyptian), and the fact that Arabic writing allows for a wide range of different pronunciations, the question faced by students is where to begin. It is instructive to consider how this problem is dealt with in modern foreign language teaching, English being a case in point. It is "inconceivable" to teach English without specific reference to the spoken forms actually used either in the United States or in the United Kingdom. The dialect form chosen should be an educated form of speech and have "significant applicability." The foreign learner should find Cultivated Cairene Arabic an especially useful dialect with which to start learning Arabic. It provides a relatively smooth transition from the spoken to the literary language, particularly as used by mass media writers. It is the form of language spoken by a socially acceptable group representative of modern Arab culture as a whole. (Any other cultivated dialect of the important Arab Centers, however, may also accomplish the goals of teaching beginning Arabic.) The major categories of Arabic a

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