Picking up Arabic outside of the classroom is one of the most enjoyable parts of studying in Egypt. While I am far from fluent or even proficient, I've made more progress in the past two months than I have in all my time studying the language.
As I've mentioned before, not all Arabic is the same. Modern Standard Arabic, called fusha, is understood throughout the Arab world, but is only used in formal situations, like in media and politics. In Egypt, it is only used on road and building signs, on some TV, and in the papers. If you try to speak fusha on the street, people will have trouble comprehending what you are saying, but will understand a few words. Egyptian Arabic, called 'ameyya, is spoken everywhere in Cairo, Alexandria, the Sinai, and Lower Egypt. In Upper Egypt (the south), they speak Sa'idi, although it has a reputation of being a sort of "peasants' language." The Arabic class I am taking now is a media class, which is fusha.
When I read signs anywhere on the street and fliers and newspapers, I am able to improve my fusha. When I hear people talking on the bus, subway, at school, or on the street, I am able to improve my 'ameyya. Occasionally I am tempted to use one language where I should be using the other, though it's not as difficult as it may seem.
I've been able to pick up on a bunch of the nuances of the Egyptian language, which I definitely could not learn through a book. Going to school with Egyptian students and hearing their reactions to daily events is one of the most significant ways I'm learning these nuances. For example, while I may know the dictionary definition of a particular word, hearing its use in a particular situation gives me a better understanding of how to use it. The students in my Assembly Programming class and my Calculus class almost always ask questions in Arabic, and I can understand a lot of them. All official communication is supposed to be in English at AUC, but the engineering students don't follow that rule. We had a review session for my Assembly class today with our graduate assistant, and I had to arrive a few minutes late since I had a class. When I got there, everyone was discussing questions and the grad assistant was teaching in Arabic, before someone reminded him that he should speak in English since I just arrived. It was a little like walking into a party and sucking the fun out of the room.
When the AUC students speak in Arabic among themselves, they always tend to use a few words consistently in English, including class, assignment, lab, the name of the course about which they are speaking, and some other things. They use a half English/half Arabic dialogue. However, some AUC students speak entirely in English, ostensibly to show how "sophisticated" they are in comparison to their peers.
Egyptians often pull a trick to see if you, as a foreigner, speak any Arabic. They will ask you the time, either saying "what is the time" or "as saa' kam." I'm sure most of them don't really care about the time. However giving a correct answer requires more than a basic knowledge of Arabic learned from a tourist guide. If you give a correct answer in Arabic, they may strike up a conversation with you or just introduce themselves to you and ask where you learned Arabic.
Some Egyptians will only respond to you in English (assuming they know it), even if you try to speak Arabic with them.
One of the more direct ways I've discovered to learning Egyptian is to simply point to something and ask it's name.
These are some of the more specific nuances I've picked up:
- Touching all the fingers of one hand together while pointing them upwards is a very common hand signal. It's usually accompanied with bus, meaning "enough." It can be for something mundane like "that's enough sugar," but more commonly for "enough talking" or a sign of general annoyance. It can also mean "have patience."
- Clicking the tongue against the roof of the mouth means no.
- Clicking the tongue multiple times against the roof of the mouth means "cut it out." It's the same as tsk, tsk, tsk in English, although it's used very frequently.
- Although the word aywa means yes, ah seems to work too, perhaps translated as "yah." It's a little awkward to use because ah is used more as a sound in English rather than a word.
- Telephones are always answered with "hello", not with Arabic.
- You can't say you are planning on doing something without subsequently saying in sha' allah, meaning "God-willing."
- The word khalaas literally means "that's it," but it's something you say whenever you finish something or you're ready to move on.
It will take awhile for me to become proficient in Egyptian, but I bought an 'ameyya textbook and I'm learning more every day, so by the end of my stay I should know enough to hold an intelligent conversation.
It was recently announced that tomorrow is Taba Liberation Day, which celebrates the liberation of the city of Taba from Israeli control. I have no school, so I am leaving shortly with Nate for the city of Dahab in the Sinai.
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