In an article on MEMRI (Hat tip: Roger L. Simon) poet Salman Masalha discusses language and literacy in the Middle East.
In an interview with the Jerusalem weekly Kol Hair on the occasion of the publication of his first book of poetry in Hebrew, Salman Masalha, an Israeli Arab intellectual and poet, speaks of what he sees as
the problem of illiteracy, and thus thought, in the Arab world,of the fixation with the past in the Arab world, of the importance of educating women, and of the role of doubting and asking questions in the development of society and culture.
Masalha, who refused to serve in the Israeli military, holds an MA and Ph.D
in pre-Islamic Arabic poetry, and taught in the Arab Literature Department
of Hebrew University in Jerusalem. The following are excerpts from the
interview :Illiteracy in the Arab World is Over 80%
“There’s a serious problem today with the Arab youth, in expressing themselves in Arabic.”Question:”Why?”
Salman Masalha: “Because of the language, that great rift between colloquial and literary Arabic. In order to explain a complex idea, you need high language, not the language of the souq. You can’t express a complicated idea using the language of the souq. If you take young people, let’s say eighth-grade Arab [children], and their French, or Jewish Israeli, counterparts, you will discover the discrepancy in self-expression. Because he does not know the language of thought, the Arab pupil runs into a big problem. Thus it is in the entire Arab world.
“The Arab world does not read. According to various reports, the Arab world is largely illiterate. Illiteracy in the Arab world is not 50% like it says in the reports. I say that it is over 80%. Practically speaking, even those defined as not illiterate because they completed eight years of schooling, I consider illiterate. In this century, anyone who finishes elementary school can’t really read.
“A book selling 5,000 copies across the Arab world is a rare achievement. The average book published in Israel sells more copies than a successful book in the entire Arab world. This also has to do with the economic situation. Reading books is a privilege for people who have spare time and money. The poverty that sweeps the Arab world leaves the individual struggling for survival his whole life. How is he supposed to read a book? He must bring food for his children, his family.”
Question: “So why not switch the approach and start writing in colloquial [Arabic]?”
Salman Masalha: “Impossible. We don’t talk about theater, films, or television series. It’s impossible to write research [about] art or history in the colloquial. You need the literary [language].”
The entire interview is well worth reading.
The phenomenon that Mr. Masalha is describing is called diglossia–a language being divided between high and low variants. Although it’s characteristic of the Arab world it’s not unique to it. For example, in Switzerland many people speak Schwyzertütsch i.e. “Swiss German”, a platz deutch nearly impossible for speakers of hoch deutch i.e. “High German” or regular German to understand. Nearly all–but not all–Swiss also speak hoch deutch.
The social implications of this division can be seen from a conversation my parents had in Switzerland when visiting our relatives there some years ago. My mom and dad were being waited on in a hotel by two very lovely Swiss women. My mom asked if they were married. Their host replied, “Who would marry them? They only speak Schwyzertütsch!”
I also experienced something similar to this first-hand. Years ago in the mists of the distant past–sometime between the retreat of the glaciers and the rise of the modern nations–I studied Chinese. How far did I get? Not too far–I read–with difficulty–the Thousand Character Classic.
Chinese–analogously to Arabic–is divided into a number of mutually unintelligible “dialects”. These are characterized as dialects rather than as separate languages largely for political and historic reasons. And Chinese also has a formal “literary” language based on the Chinese of 2,000 years ago. It’s possible that noone every spoke the literary language although the speech of educated people in China was full of literacisms.
The literary language is quite difficult to read. It requires a combination of knowledge of the Chinese language, knowledge of history, puzzle-solving ability, guesswork, and, of course–to write–artistic ability. A typical dictionary includes 50,000 characters.
Even the beginnings of literacy in Chinese is accompanied by a great feeling of accomplishment. You have demonstrated your superiority. And what’s more important–you feel superior.
I wonder if this feeling of superiority is not at work in the Arab world at well. A basic divide between the “educated” and the “street”. I think this is what Mr. Masalha is getting at in his interview. And he certainly illustrates it.
UPDATE: The link to the MEMRI interview appears to be dead. For extensive quotes from this interview see here.
