Jul 2, 2012

Recent Linguistic Observations – Egypt

 
Saturday, June 30, 2012 was one of the most memorable days for Egyptians, whether they supported or rejected the latest political changes. The newly elected Egyptian president, Dr. Mohamed Morsi, was sworn in. It is the first non-military president in Egypt since 1952.

I have been following closely the recent events in Egypt, and they were many.

Since the Revolution of January 25, 2011, there is a continuous development in the political scene: Elections, rise of new political parties, dissolution of the elected parliament, first stage presidential elections and second stage presidential election. Meanwhile the people’s demonstrations were carried on every Friday in Tahrir square until last week when the newly elected President, Dr. Mohamed Morsi, addressed the demonstrators in the Square. There are still few demonstrators in Tahrir Square, however, the square is now open to traffic.

The political changes occurring in Egypt in the last 18 months are of great interest to me, however, this blog is not where I would like to discuss them. I share my political interests with that of my husband on his blog: www.mid-east-today.blogspot.com.  I would, however, like to mention here a linguistic variation demonstrated by the last two candidates during their campaigns for the presidency.

The political discourse of the last two candidates differed greatly. Dr. Ahmad Shafik in his delivery of written speeches shifted regularly between Egyptian colloquial Arabic (ECA) and modern standard Arabic (MSA). His MSA was mediocre. He wreak havoc upon al?i3raab الاعراب, and  he used only ECA when addressing the public without a written speech.

Dr. Mohamed Morse, on the other hand used MSA when delivering either his written or non-written speeches. He was eloquent in his use of MSA avoiding all grammatical errors. Actually, whenever he made mistakes he immediately corrected them. Dr. Amr Moussa, former Egyptian foreign minister and former chairman of the Arab League was quoted in al Wafd newspaper ( June 30) saying أعجبني إصراره علي النطق العربي الصحيح وعودته إلي تكرار الجملة إذا أخطأ فيها نحوياً .

Furthermore, Dr. Morsi used a specific genre in his political discourse. Whenever he wanted to stress a point in his speeches to the public, he always repeated the last phrase of the sentence that incorporated the idea he wanted to emphasize. As for ECA, he used it sparely, and only when he felt inclined to be informal while addressing the public using slogans the demonstrators have been using.

Morsi’s diglossic variation is what Clive Holes refers to as ‘a conscious choice ‘  (Holes 1993, The uses of variation: A study of the political speeches of Gamal Abd-al-Nasir. Perspectives on Arabic Linguistics v: 13-45). This was definitely not the case of Dr. Shafik, his linguistic variation was different in nature and definitely not by choice. It remains to be examined further.

As Reem Bassiouney in her book Arabic Sociolinguistics (2009) stated” “The diglossic situation in the Arab world adds a new dimension to our understanding of language variation and change in the regions.” The political discourse used by the Egyptian candidates is in my humble opinion a situation of language variation  that is worth studying by sociolinguists.  

My second recent linguistic observation is the language used by some young Egyptians in their online page titled ‘Asa7be Sarcasm Society’. They began this new Egyptian network two months ago. Asa7be اساحبي is koined out of the word yaSaHbi ياصحبي.  

Reem Bassiouney in her book Arabic Sociolinguistics  (2009, P. 118) quotes Versteegh’s statement “The process of Koineisation…is in most cases connected with situations in which groups of speakers were thrown together by accident.” (P.118)
In the case of the ‘Asa7be Sarcasm Society’ the group of young Egyptians were not thrown together by accident. They were brought together by a common interest, which is to humor and criticize the changes they see happening in post-revolutionary Egypt: politically, socially, and linguistically. The result of such common interest, is in my opinion, a type of koine or a common language the young have developed. A salient phonological variation used in Asa7be is the replacement of emphatics by non-emphatics. For instance مسير instead of    مصير ,
    اسفحة   instead of   الصفحة

Furthermore Arabizi is also used on Asa7be to communicate the authors’ ideas. Arabizi is now becoming very popular among the young in Egypt as a fast means of communication. It is used on Facebook, Twitter and Asa7be.
Some have accused Asa7be’s authors of destroying the Arabic language by using Arabizi and phonological variation in their script. Not so, say the young authors. They have developed a script and koined a language that has attracted a large number of people’s attention in Egypt. Many of the young Egyptians I have met quote Asa7be and use its language to interject humor in their speech. Do check it yourself! Asa7be.com, Facebook.com/Asa7bess.

An official site will be also available soon:  http://www.Asabess.com


















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