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I sensed this when learning classical Arabic in college. Even after a year of intensive (= every day) Arabic, I really had to think to read the letters. Back
by pg 16y ago
I sensed this when learning classical Arabic in college. Even after a year of intensive (= every day) Arabic, I really had to think to read the letters. Back then there were already stories about studies showing the letters were hard for kids to learn, though IIRC they were just statistical studies.
- jbm 16y agoI studied classic Arabic when I was much younger for religious purposes. I never found it particularly difficult, but whenever I try to read normal Arabic it becomes an exercise in futility. I wonder if there is a real difference between reading the two or if it was just what I was used to.
- kranner 16y agoDo you mean because normal Arabic lacks vowel markers? If so, I've got the same problem reading Urdu newspapers and fiction; one has to speak the word out loud and guess from the context what it 'completes' to.
- kranner 16y agoI've had a similar experience with learning the Perso-Arabic script recently, to be able to read Urdu. But this report does seem far-fetched. Trivia: lines from Urdu poetry are a normal class of conversational idiom here in North India, but after the partition of British India into modern India and Pakistan, the Urdu script isn't taught in school in most Indian states, and likewise for the Hindi script in Pakistan. Urdu and Hindi are practically the same language in informal use.