Interview by Merve Garipcin, Merve Demirelli and Kübra Nur Utgu
Before the interview we did some preliminary reading on our topic, which we thought would be useful to us, and hoped to complete it with what we would learn from our teacher. We found his contact details and he gave us an appointment. On the day of the interview we met at the appointed time on Gazi University’s main campus, and he received us in his office. Although he had not known us before, he welcomed us very warmly. Over the coffee he offered, we first got acquainted and then began the interview. The sunlight falling on the bookcase drew our attention to the books, and the poetry books and literary magazines on his desk showed that our teacher is an intellectual who loves reading. He also used the board in his office to help us understand the subject better.
The term “Middle East” refers to the region of neighbouring countries where Asia, Europe and Africa come closest to one another, stretching from the Mediterranean to Pakistan and including the Arabian Peninsula. It is a Eurocentric concept that the British began to use in the nineteenth century. Linking East and West, the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean, Russia and the warm seas, the region has been, since the earliest times, the primary target of powers seeking world domination, owing to the unique geopolitical value of controlling some of the world’s most important land and sea routes. We now leave you with our interview with Assoc. Prof. Mehmet Hakkı Suçin.
Dear Hocam, we know that Arabic is spoken differently in different parts of the Middle East. Could you briefly tell us about the reasons for this?
As you know, the Middle East has been home to many cultures and civilisations, so the languages and dialects of people from various cultures are spoken there. Diglossia — the coexistence of two varieties of a language — is part of everyday life in Arabic. The contexts in which Classical Arabic and the local Arabic dialects are used show that, broadly speaking, we can speak of diglossia across the Arab world. Diglossia is therefore a reality of Arabic, and we must accept it. The debates on this subject still continue, however. Standard (fusha) Arabic is used as the language of news in the press, and it is also the language of serious discussion programmes, historical plays, and cultural and historical films. Indian, Japanese and Mexican series are dubbed into Standard Arabic — but Turkish series, dubbed into the Syrian dialect, have achieved very high ratings.
Could you tell us about the approaches to the diglossia you mention?
There are two different views. The first holds that the dialect should exist alongside Standard Arabic. Those who share this view think, for instance, that plays cannot be written without dialect, because dialect gives theatre a realistic air; the same is argued for other fields based on fiction. The second view sees dialect as a threat to the religious, linguistic and political unity of the Arabs. It argues that if dialects are encouraged, Standard Arabic, the language of the Qur’an, will disappear and many dialects will turn into independent languages. According to this view, dialect is a threat because it would undermine inter-Arab cultural unity. This view is more widespread and influential.
Could you tell us about approaches to Arabic dialects in the West?
Because sociolinguistics is strong in the West, dialects are viewed as real languages. Dialectologists regard dialects as part of humanity’s cultural wealth. In fact, the first to advocate developing the dialect was Rifa‘a al-Tahtawi, the father of Arab modernisation, who said in one of his books that Arabic could be renewed by modernising the dialect. But the first to set out the grammar of an Arabic dialect was the German Orientalist Wilhelm Spitta, who wrote a grammar of Egyptian Arabic in 1880. In it Spitta likens the relation between Standard Arabic and the Egyptian dialect to that between Latin and Italian. In 1886 another German Orientalist, Karl Vollers, was appointed director of the Egyptian National Library; he worked to spread the Egyptian dialect written in Latin script. These efforts were continued in later periods by British and French Orientalists, and the tendency found support among some intellectuals in Egypt too. But the proposal to write Arabic in Latin letters, together with the use of dialect, found little support in Arab society.
What is the approach of researchers in the Arabic departments of Turkish universities to this subject?
The prevailing view in Türkiye was that if dialects were encouraged, the language of the Qur’an would suffer. In recent years this has changed: the idea that Arabic teaching should be balanced by teaching Standard Arabic together with at least one dialect of the region is now accepted. Our late teacher Prof. Azmi Yüksel, the former head of our department, played a large part in shaping this idea.
Could you classify the Arabic dialects for us?
Arabic dialects differ from region to region and, on that basis, can be divided into six groups:
- Arabian Peninsula group: dialects such as Najdi, Omani, Hijazi and Yemeni.
- Mesopotamian group: Iraqi and northern Mesopotamian dialects.
- Levantine group: Syrian–Lebanese and Palestinian–Jordanian dialects.
- Egyptian group: Cairene, Sa‘idi, Sudanese, Chadian and Darfur dialects.
- North African (Maghrebi) group: Moroccan, Tunisian, Algerian and Libyan dialects.
- Dialects of other regions (places with small Arabic-speaking populations): the dialects of Mardin, Siirt, Hatay and Şanlıurfa, of Khuzestan in Iran, Nigeria, Cyprus and Malta. Maltese is the only Semitic language in the European Union and the only Arabic dialect written in Latin script.
If we think of Standard Arabic and the dialects together, how can we classify them?
The Egyptian linguist Said Badawi, who lives in the United States, has said that spoken Arabic exists on five levels:
- Fusha al-turath (the Arabic of heritage): also called Classical Arabic; the language of sermons, which takes its syntax from the Qur’an.
- Fusha al-‘asr (contemporary fusha): also called Modern Standard Arabic; its syntax is like that of Classical Arabic. It is the language used on radio and television, in schools and in official correspondence.
- ‘Ammiyyat al-muthaqqafin (the colloquial of the educated): not fusha; its vocabulary draws heavily on Modern Standard Arabic, while its syntax varies by dialect.
- ‘Ammiyyat al-mutanawwirin (the colloquial of the enlightened): rich in vocabulary.
- ‘Ammiyyat al-ummiyyin (the colloquial of the illiterate): since it is speech geared to everyday needs, its vocabulary is limited — for example, among desert dwellers.
Hocam, could you outline, in very broad terms, the main distinguishing features of the Arabic dialects?
The differences fall into three areas: phonology, morphology and syntax. In very broad terms I can summarise the phonological differences as follows. The pronunciation of the sounds ق، ج، ث، ض، ظ varies from dialect to dialect. The ق of Standard Arabic is pronounced as “g” in some dialects and as a glottal stop (hamza) in others: in the Gulf, Jordan, Upper Egypt and Yemen, for example, qahwa (coffee) is pronounced “gahwa”, while in the Cairene dialect, in Lebanon, among Syrian city dwellers and in part of Palestine it is pronounced “ahwa”. In the Cairene dialect the sound ج is pronounced “g”, so جميل is said “gamil”; in some regions it is pronounced “j” or “y”. In many Arabic dialects ث is pronounced “s” or “t”. The sound ض is pronounced in some dialects as “d”, “z” or an emphatic dental “z”, and ظ in many dialects as an ordinary “z” or “d”.
The morphological differences are these: many dialects have no dual or feminine plural conjugations; infinitives formed with أن are generally not used; and the particles إنّ and أنّ do not exist.
As for syntax, although the syntax of the dialects is basically close to that of Standard Arabic, it varies from dialect to dialect. Among the Arabic dialects, the Egyptian dialect can be regarded as the most syntactically distant from Standard Arabic. In the other dialects syntax is closer to or further from Standard Arabic depending on the topic and content.
It is also a fact that every Arab claims that their own dialect is the closest to Standard Arabic. In my view, the dialects actually closest to Standard Arabic are those of Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Yemen.
Thank you very much for giving us this opportunity.
Thank you. I wish you success.
Originally a student interview conducted at Gazi University and published in Turkish. Translated into English for this site.