This phrase often rings in the minds of a person who decides to drop out of an Arabic class. As a student myself, I learned that the struggle isn’t just in the difficulty of the language. A lack of a satisfying answer to the “What’s the point?” question is the reason why, at my university, more than 60 people start learning Arabic but less than 10 go past the intermediate level.
I have conducted an ethnography of language learning, while assisting a professor in teaching Elementary Arabic to staff at New York University Abu Dhabi. Sadly, the statistics are similar. People tend to give up on the language, concluding that it’s just not worth the trouble.
For me, enrolling in Elementary I Arabic stemmed from a small-scale goal: putting a new skill under my belt. Learning a language. As our university offered only Arabic and Chinese for credit, I chose Arabic, thinking that it would be easier to learn and practice this language while staying in the UAE.
Well, I was wrong. Learning the Arabic language in the UAE is not easy. As per university curriculum, you start with Fusha. Fusha is the Modern Standard Arabic language, the language that all educated Arabic-speakers know, but is used only in Arab media, formal documents, ceremonies and cartoons.
As a first-year student, I felt that I was talking like SpongeBob, but a stuttering SpongeBob with a very limited vocabulary and a thick Russian accent. Making any conversation in Arabic was tough, and native Arabic speakers would quickly switch to English or say that they weren’t good at Fusha if I tried to be persistent.
I came to the bitter conclusion that the UAE is not a place to easily practice Arabic. First of all, people in Abu Dhabi and Dubai speak English. The only places I know where Arabic is commonly used are governmental institutions and exclusively Arab social groups. If you’re not in a governmental institution, or you aren’t integrated in an Arabic-speaking social circle, I can almost guarantee you that people won’t speak to you in Arabic. At any public space in Abu Dhabi or Dubai, you will likely end up with the cashier, waiter, manager or whoever not understanding you or just smiling and replying in English.
Governmental institutions weren’t a place of my common visits and I didn’t want to force myself to become friends with Arabic speakers just because I wanted to practice the language. This is when I asked myself: “What’s the point of learning this language, if I can’t practice it now?” If I hadn’t answered that question for myself, I would have dropped out of the course the moment it got tough.
I have to say that I owe a lot to Senior Arabic Language Instructor Nasser Isleem and Khulood Kittaneh. They revealed to me that learning Arabic is definitely not just about entering ‘limited working proficiency in Arabic’ on your LinkedIn account. It’s about experiencing the language and the culture of the people as inseparable phenomena.
What I considered the apotheosis of learning Arabic was during a January Term course in 2015, when my classmates and I lived with a Yemeni Emirati host family who knew no English or Russian. Until the last week of December, the family debated if they were willing to accept absolute strangers into their house. Having considered our yearning to learn their dialect, they opened their most sacred space — their home — for us to live with them for three weeks.
That was when I realized that, by enduring the stuttering Spongebob phase with patience and semesters of study, I was exposed to a culture I would never have otherwise become acquainted with, much less immersed in. The Emirati family respected our willingness to learn their language and showed us not only how they spoke, but also how they lived. For three weeks, I lived as a member of my Yemeni Emirati family: learning local dance, eating rice with my hands, tasting camel at women’s parties, drinking coffee and karak between class and watching Arab Idol before bed. This is when I understood that it wasn’t worth spending so much time on the language if my only goal was to boast about a skill.
At the time I thought my J-Term course experience was the only such opportunity to be within an exclusively Arabic-speaking environment. Again, I was wrong.
In the Fall, with the help of Professor Isleem, I studied the Levantine dialect. Learning another dialect has revealed to me that study isn’t just about mastering a skill. Consciously and unconsciously, I learned about the culture of the people speaking the language. As a result, talking to a native speaker became a lot easier. In months time, with Professor Kittaneh, we were able to travel to Jordan and meet women leaders and interview them in Arabic.
Little did I know when Arabic started seeping into every aspect of my life: I became ‘@bint_blinova’ on Instagram and started using Arabic in the workforce. Interning at the U.S.-U.A.E. Business Council in Washington, D.C., there were times I had to conduct communication in the Emirati dialect. As an intern Leo Burnett, I got to use written translation skills in advertising and attempted to joke in the Lebanese dialect with my colleagues.
I was privileged to continue using Arabic outside my work and online space: once again, I visited an Arab home. With my Jordanian Lebanese family, we talked about our lives over traditional Jordanian and Lebanese food, smoked shisha, drank red tea and sang. I was amazed to see how honored the family was to see me speak their language and how quickly I was accepted as a member of their household. After living with a Yemeni Emirati family in Al Ain, I felt more confident in my speaking skills and even more happy to be accepted into a hospitable, warm Arab home once again.
After four semesters of studying Modern Standard Arabic, a J-Term of Emirati dialect and having almost completed a semester of Levantine, I can only say the following: knowing the language made the UAE a second home. It has granted me comfort and confidence within the local culture and two families I stayed with — relationships that I will always cherish. After all, it’s not about the skills at the end of your LinkedIn account. It’s about the hearts and homes that open up to you along the way.
