Learning Arabic

Of the many, many things I’ve come to enjoy about my time here at Grinnell, there is one course, one subject, that truly takes the cake: Arabic. I’ve been learning to read, write, recognize, and understand Arabic for five days a week at the very least, all the while forming a tightly-knit community with the other seven members of my class. The course itself, Beginning Arabic I, is energetic and interactive, as our professor—or rather, ustadha—encourages full class participation, comes up with the most entertaining activities, and has had us speaking in basic Arabic phrases since day one. It is a lovely model of what language learning should be: immersive, intensive, challenging, and fun.

When I think back to why it is that I chose to study Arabic of all languages, there are a few moments that stand out. Less of a single point and more a constellation of smaller experiences, I am reminded of my exposure to Arabic from a young age, starting with exchange students. As I grew older and began to help out more with the Iowa Resource for International Service (IRIS) and its exchange student orientations, I would hear Arabic spoken often, and for me, that brought intrigue. Out of the vast array of countries represented by these students, many overlapped in language, speaking some dialect or another of Arabic. Seeing this common thread was my first call to learn, knowing that becoming proficient in Arabic, whatever the dialect, would open up a multitude of opportunities for me later on.

The second, and more central reason I chose to devote myself to the study of Arabic, is that, in a sense, I already had. During my exchange year in Malaysia, I learned that there was not one, but two scripts that could be used to write the Malay language. One of them, Rumi, was a remnant of British colonialism, a Roman/Latin script, the same as we have in English. The other, Jawi, demonstrated a much older influence in the region, that of Islamic traders from Persia and India, who brought with them their religion, as well as its language. Though Malay was able to remain the lingua franca of Malacca, a bustling hub of trade for many centuries on end, where upwards of 600 different dialects from all over the world were spoken, the influences from Arabic are undeniable. As it eventually ended up, Malay would be written using the Arabic alphabet for quite some time before the British came.

Noting the ties between Malay and Arabic, I should note as well the fact that one of my textbooks during my time in Malaysia was written using nothing but Jawi. This was the standard for Pendidikan Islam, my Islamic Education class. From a Westerner's perspective, the book was bound backwards, with the spine on the right as you opened it. The letters were entirely unfamiliar to me, flowing from right to left, and though by this point in my exchange, I could speak Malay quite well, I still had no idea how to read the Jawi script.

I asked around, and soon enough, a classmate took my Jawi education on as a project. He taught me a letter per day for a month, after which I could read and write the Arabic alphabet that Jawi used. As soon as I understood the alphabet, I began to look for Jawi everywhere. I was a slow reader, but I loved the challenge. I would sit in the car as my Amma or Appa went into a store to run errands, and I would try to find all of the street signs or shop entrances that used Jawi. I would cover the Rumi (English-type script) and translate letter by letter until I understood the word. It soon became one of my favorite pastimes for long road trips.

In understanding the role that Jawi played in my exchange, it becomes clear, then, that my Arabic education should follow. I thought the same two years ago, when I first began the Arabic Duolingo course, taking lessons each night, only to complete the entirety of Arabic Duolingo within a year. As I came to Grinnell, I knew that Arabic was of great interest to me, beyond the exposure I received growing up, beyond just the alphabet I learned in Malaysia, and certainly beyond the vocab the Duolingo owl taught me as I maintained my two-year-long streak on the app. Arabic was, and is, more than that, which is why, with registration closing last week, I’m excited to share that I’ll be keeping up my Arabic coursework in the spring semester as well.