ARABISH:FAD, TREND, OR LANGUAGE

SHIFT?

Salaam 3leykumAhlan wa sahlan

Outline:

Define our Terms

Background Information

What is it?

Why is it?

The ResearchMethodsDataAnalysisDiscussionAcknowledgments

Various Names of Arabish/3arabizi

No Agreed Terminology in the Literature….

1. 3arabizi (various spellings)2. Chat Arabic3. Latinized (Scripted) Arabic 4. Latinized Arabic Vernacular (LAV)5. Romanized Arabic6. Englo-Arabic7. Techno-Arabic

Arabish/3arabizi…what is it?

Example text:As-salam 3aleykum, wa ra7mat Allah wa barakatuh

Peace be with you and God's Mercy and Blessings upon you!

Arabish/3arabizi…what is it?

Authentic text: ya 7ilweeeeeeeeeeen...sem3oo e'3niyat eljasmi esemha el6air... moo bas tyanen!!! enjoy this post... it will be the only post through Bandar's eyes... maybe the only... ;p it depends on the feedback i get and how i feel about it... i'm trying something new... so tell me what you think ya 7ilween... a7ebkom... mwaaaaaaaaaaaaaah... ;************ NB: Arabish is almost unintelligible to monolingual speakers of either

Arabic or English!

Arithmographemes…what are they ?

The use of numbers to represent phonemes Not new, nor unique to Arabic Used because of similar qualities to L1

graphemes 7 and 3 tend to me most universally

accepted in Arabic (see handout)

Why is it?

Arabish was created as a way for Arabic speakers to communicate before UNICODE (97,655) was available on modern technological devices.

In the early 1990s, when ASCII (256) was the only language used in SMS/ICQ/HTTP platforms, Arabic users adopted Latin graphemes to communicate.

Other non-Latin script users also adopted ASCII to communicate: Greek, Japanese, Chinese, Thai, Farsi, etc.

The Research

Arabish well known in SMS as a means of short communication

What about longer forms of text?

RQs: Who is writing in

Arabish in their blogs?

Why are they writing like this?

Are they writing like this in other discourse outside of CMC?

Methods

A small scale survey: Data collected via 16 item open-ended

questionnaire Instrument sent via Blog links (followers)

from other Arabish writers (self-selecting group)

80 invitations sent out 22 respondents

Who is blogging in Arabish? RQ1

Average age: 22 (Range 14-32) Sex: 20 females: 2 males (N=22) Education:

MA18%

BA 59%

HS (22% currently attending)

45%

23%

18%5%

5% 5%

Nationality Kuwaiti (n=10)Emirati (n=5)Bahraini (n=4)Qatari (n=1)Saudi (n=1)

Other independent variables:

Employment: Students (45%) Business (32%) Education, Health, Fashion,

Unemployment (5%)

Languages Spoken by Respondents: Arabic (100%) English (100%)

Other L3s noted (often precluded with “some”)

Farsi French Spanish Greek Japanese

Languages Spoken at Home: Arabic (100%) English (68%)

R20: Farsi

All but 2 respondents considered themselves as “expert users”. (Q9 problematic)

Do parents understand Arabish? Yes (36%)—mostly younger

respondents No (36%) Only one does (28%)

Why are they blogging in Arabish? RQ2

Overwhelming Responses: It’s easier!

---“Faster, typing in arabic is kind of hard…switching while typing.”

--- “its easier to type as im used to typing in english…”

--- “It's much easier for me.” Can’t type in Arabic

---“…well i cannot write in arabic to save my life!”

---“…mainly because my english is way better than my arabic is.”

--- “My main reason is that I never learned how to type in Arabic.”

---“and I don't know where the letters in arabic are located exactly.”

Why are they blogging in Arabish? RQ2

Other Responses of Note: Self Identity :

---“I love it! It’s who I am”

---“I write in Arabish because its how my friends and i actually talk in real life. We sort of mix both Arabic and English into our conversations so its kind of easier and maybe more appealing to write that way.”

---“I find it much easier to express myself freely.”

---“writing in arabic sounds proper, [we] arabs have a unique accent, every country has it's own accent, so arabish allows us to speak with our own accent.”

Lexical/Semantic Preference:

---“I also find myself mixing Arabic and English in the same sentence. On the other hand sticking to pure English or pure Arabic sometimes appears super-formal. Arabic is a very lengthy language in which if u translate a short sentence in English to Arabic you will find the Arabic sentence containing a lot more words than the equivalent in English.”

---“I try to write in English but there are some stuff that are easier/ sound better in Arabic eg. quotes .”

---“…sometimes when you translate a word to english it loses its meaning, specially when you need to use traditional slang, or in a joke.”

Advantages:1. Easier…switching

keyboards is cumbersome.

2. Less formal…it’s casual.

3. Flexible; MSA is too rigid

4. It’s coded “…like a secret language.”

Disadvantages:1. Loss of literacy

in Arabic—45% (ouch!)

2. It’s coded; limits the audience

3. Not always standardized (cf. shu?/chou?/shuw?)

Why are they blogging in Arabish? RQ2

Do they use Arabish in other contexts? RQ3

Chat SMS Email Facebook Notes Meetings Greeting Cards

Do you write in only Arabic script on your blog? If so, under what circumstances?

No 77% Sometimes 33% Poetry/Songs (usually cut and

pasted)

Discussion

Limitations:Validity/Reliability Internal validity is strongly affected due

to method of instrument distribution. Generalizability: Caution! We have a self-

selecting group of bilingual writers here. ANOVAS needed in further studies.

Nonetheless, interrater reliability appears to be strong.

Within the Scope of The Study

Language Shift? Trend? Fad?

referred to as language transfer or language replacement or assimilation, is the progressive process whereby a speech community of a language shifts to speaking another language. (cf. Margret Simmons) code mixing/switching, bilingualism, and loss.

is a line of general direction of movement, a prevailing tendency of inclination, a style or preference, a line of development, or the general movement over time of a statistically detectable change.

is a practice or interest followed for a time with exaggerated zeal.

2010: 99,900 hits 2005: 2,890 hits web search of the term “3arabi”

Oh definitely! Affirmative! Since 1990

There are signs…

"Some of our youngsters are incapable of writing correctly in Arabic, and many university students we interviewed were not even able to recite the alphabet,”-- Suzanne Talhouk from the organization Fael Ummer, (Moussaoui, 2010).

Acknowledgments

All of my respondents Emirates College for Advanced

Education Robert Bianchi Keith Kennetz Melanie VanDen Hoven Scott Parkman