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Guest
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 Posted: Tue Jul 29, 2008 1:45 am Post subject: Arabic and the international language |
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I have been reading Stephen Lambden’s translation of Bahaullah’s
tablet on the international language
http://www.hurqalya.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/BAHA'-ALLAH/Int-Language.htm.
As a non linguist certain questions occur to me and I was hoping
someone out there who knew more about these things would be able to
make some useful comment. Perhaps this has already been chewed over on
this list.
a. What is the nature of the superiority of Arabic? Note in this
tablet how Bahaullah praises Arabic, “Indeed, relative to it, all
languages have been, and will remain, circumscribed”. Is the
superiority of Arabic due to its linguistic qualities? Or is it
something else?
b. Bahaullah seems to be saying in this tablet that although Arabic
would be the choice of heaven it somehow does not fit the purpose of
an international language. I can think of various reasons why that
would be starting with the relative ease of learning something like
Esperanto as compared to Arabic. Arabic was only ever adopted in
countries which already spoke a related language. Ok. So where does
that leave Arabic? |
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Poststructuralist
Guest
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| Posted: Tue Jul 29, 2008 1:19 pm Post subject: Re: Arabic and the international language |
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My own view is that His praising of Arabic has less to do with the
empirical qualities of the language and more to do with the fact that it
has served as at least one of the languages of Revelation for three
consecutive Dispensations.
From personal experience, I would also doubt whether Arabic would make
an effective universal or universal auxiliary language. As you
indicated, it is very difficult to learn. (However, I understand that
Mandarin Chinese may be even more troublesome.)
--
Regards, Mark A. Foster, Ph.D. * http://www.markfoster.net
"... the modern challenge is how to live with uncertainty. The
basic fault lines today are not between people with different
beliefs but between people who hold these beliefs with an
element of uncertainty and people who hold these beliefs with
a pretense of certitude." — Peter L. Berger, sociologist |
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Susan Maneck
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| Posted: Tue Jul 29, 2008 10:57 pm Post subject: Re: Arabic and the international language |
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| Quote: | My own view is that His praising of Arabic has less to do with the empirical
qualities of the language and more to do with the fact that it has served as
at least one of the languages of Revelation for three consecutive
Dispensations.
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Dear Mark,
That's not really the way Baha'u'llah talks about it. He emphasizes
its precision, especially in comparison with Persian. In response to
Manakji's question as to why Baha'u'llah revealed Tablets in Arabic,
He writes:
"Although there can be no question or doubt as to the sweetness of the
Persian tongue, yet it hath not the scope of the Arabic. There are
many things which have not been expressed in Persian, that is to say,
words referring to such things have not been devised, whilst in Arabic
there are several words describing the same thing. Indeed there
existeth no language in the world as vast and comprehensive as Arabic.
This statement is prompted by truth and fairness; otherwise it is
clear that in this day the world is being illumined by the splendours
of that Sun which hath dawned above the 54 horizon of Persia, and that
the merits of this sweet language can scarcely be overestimated."
warmest, Susan |
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Douglas McAdam
Guest
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| Posted: Wed Jul 30, 2008 12:05 am Post subject: Re: Arabic and the international language |
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Hi Mark-
I'm curious about this subject of an international language which today
appears to be English. I have heard some Baha'is claim that Arabic was
a language that best revealed the reality of things to us and thus we
would have less communication problems if we had it as a universal
language. What are your thoughts on this?
regards,
doug
On Jul 29, 2008, at 4:19 AM, Poststructuralist wrote:
| Quote: | My own view is that His praising of Arabic has less to do with the
empirical qualities of the language and more to do with the fact that
it
has served as at least one of the languages of Revelation for three
consecutive Dispensations.
From personal experience, I would also doubt whether Arabic would
make
an effective universal or universal auxiliary language. As you
indicated, it is very difficult to learn. (However, I understand that
Mandarin Chinese may be even more troublesome.)
--
Regards, Mark A. Foster, Ph.D. * http://www.markfoster.net
"... the modern challenge is how to live with uncertainty. The
basic fault lines today are not between people with different
beliefs but between people who hold these beliefs with an
element of uncertainty and people who hold these beliefs with
a pretense of certitude." — Peter L. Berger, sociologist
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Poststructuralist
Guest
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| Posted: Thu Jul 31, 2008 2:53 am Post subject: Re: Arabic and the international language |
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Douglas McAdam wrote:
| Quote: | I'm curious about this subject of an international language which today
appears to be English. I have heard some Baha'is claim that Arabic was
a language that best revealed the reality of things to us and thus we
would have less communication problems if we had it as a universal
language. What are your thoughts on this?
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As someone who has been trying, off and on, to learn Arabic, I can say
that it is much more difficult than learning French. ;-)
Arabic and English are, in some ways, opposites. In English, a word can
have numerous synonyms, but each of these synonyms will have slightly
different nuances of definition. In Arabic, on the other hand, a single
word can have many more definitions than is usually common in English.
Perhaps the reason Baha'u'llah believed in the superiority of Arabic was
that He felt it better reflected the multiple layers of meaning within
divine Revelation. I have not spent much time with Persian, but my
impression is that, as an Indo-European language, it is closer, in this
respect, to English than to Arabic.
--
Regards, Mark A. Foster, Ph.D. * http://www.markfoster.net
"... the modern challenge is how to live with uncertainty. The
basic fault lines today are not between people with different
beliefs but between people who hold these beliefs with an
element of uncertainty and people who hold these beliefs with
a pretense of certitude." — Peter L. Berger, sociologist |
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Poststructuralist
Guest
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| Posted: Thu Jul 31, 2008 2:54 am Post subject: Re: Arabic and the international language |
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Susan Maneck wrote:
| Quote: | That's not really the way Baha'u'llah talks about it. He emphasizes
its precision, especially in comparison with Persian.
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Yes, I had forgotten about those passages.
--
Regards, Mark A. Foster, Ph.D. * http://www.markfoster.net
"... the modern challenge is how to live with uncertainty. The
basic fault lines today are not between people with different
beliefs but between people who hold these beliefs with an
element of uncertainty and people who hold these beliefs with
a pretense of certitude." — Peter L. Berger, sociologist |
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Poststructuralist
Guest
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| Posted: Thu Jul 31, 2008 2:54 am Post subject: Re: Arabic and the international language |
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Susan Maneck wrote:
| Quote: | That's not really the way Baha'u'llah talks about it. He emphasizes
its precision, especially in comparison with Persian.
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Yes, I had forgotten about those passages.
--
Regards, Mark A. Foster, Ph.D. * http://www.markfoster.net
"... the modern challenge is how to live with uncertainty. The
basic fault lines today are not between people with different
beliefs but between people who hold these beliefs with an
element of uncertainty and people who hold these beliefs with
a pretense of certitude." — Peter L. Berger, sociologist |
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Susan Maneck
Guest
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| Posted: Thu Jul 31, 2008 4:37 am Post subject: Re: Arabic and the international language |
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I have not spent much time with Persian, but my
| Quote: | impression is that, as an Indo-European language, it is closer, in this
respect, to English than to Arabic.
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Dear Mark,
Persian has a much less sophisticated grammar than other Indo-European
languages. In some ways that's a positive. For instance, it has no
gender which from my perspective is a good thing, especially if we are
talking about God. But it can also be very imprecise. I've gone crazy
sometimes over the fact that Persian writers so often fail to clearly
identify the subject of the sentence.
warmest, Susan |
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Remotelearner
Guest
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| Posted: Thu Jul 31, 2008 5:28 am Post subject: Re: Arabic and the international language |
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Thanks for all replies. I take it then that the given reason for the
superiority of Arabic are its comprehensiveness, its precision etc, as
the quote from Susan makes clear.
I also note the point about the possible layers of meaning.
The reason I've become interested in Arabic is the particular layers
of meaning that Bahai authors take from the Quran. For example Sabir
Afaqi, in his book, "Proofs from the Holy Quran" states that Quran
41:44 should read "And when we will make this Quran (a) Persian (one),
they will say: 'What (a book) in Persian and Arabic (mixed)?'". If you
look up several translations of the Quran you will find this verse
translated in a number of different ways. The only point of agreement
in these translations is that this verse is not in the future tense.
How is it possible to derive so many different meanings from one
sentence? I conclude that the only way to answer this is to learn
Arabic myself. My impression so far are, yes, difficult.
Off course this is a different subject from the international
language. |
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Poststructuralist
Guest
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| Posted: Thu Jul 31, 2008 8:30 am Post subject: Re: Arabic and the international language |
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Susan Maneck wrote:
| Quote: | Persian has a much less sophisticated grammar than other
Indo-European languages. In some ways that's a positive.
For instance, it has no gender which from my perspective
is a good thing, especially if we are talking about God.
|
That is very noticeable when some native speakers of Persian attempt to
use gendered pronouns in English. ;-)
--
Regards, Mark A. Foster, Ph.D. * http://www.markfoster.net
"... the modern challenge is how to live with uncertainty. The
basic fault lines today are not between people with different
beliefs but between people who hold these beliefs with an
element of uncertainty and people who hold these beliefs with
a pretense of certitude." — Peter L. Berger, sociologist |
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Guest
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| Posted: Thu Jul 31, 2008 1:59 pm Post subject: Re: Arabic and the international language |
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On Jul 29, 11:45 am, thila...@aapt.net.au wrote:
| Quote: |
a. What is the nature of the superiority of Arabic? Note in th
is
tablet how Bahaullah praises Arabic,
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Yes, but note also that He doesn't seem to indicate that the quality
of the language is an important consideration for selecting the
international language. For example his response to Manickji Shaib's
question acrually started with " “Both Arabic and Persian are
laudable. That which is desired of a language is that it convey the
intent of the speaker, and either language can serve this purpose.".
We don't know but He may well have thought that any language can serve
that purpose. If you check out all Baha'u'llah's comments on
International language
I think you will agree that Baha'u'llah never really offers precision
of communication or sweetness of expression as advantages. It seems
to me that He offered basically two advantages - most frequently the
world citizenship, unity angle.. Consider "The day is approaching
when all the peoples of the world will have adopted one universal
language and one common script. When this is achieved, to whatsoever
city a man may journey, it shall be as if he were entering his own
home."
The other advantage, of course, is that people wouldn't have to waste
their time learning lots of languages.
I think Baha'u'llah was being entirely realistic and sensible about
language. Most of us have surely experienced conversations in English
where many of the speakers are not naturally fluent in the language?
I'm sure we would recognise that the quality of the language per se
becomes pretty irrelevant. Also, of course, languages are not
static. When a language is chosen and over the considerable period
before the world as a whole becomes truly fluent in it the language
will acquire whatever characteristics it needs. |
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Guest
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| Posted: Thu Jul 31, 2008 2:18 pm Post subject: Re: Arabic and the international language |
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On Jul 29, 6:19 pm, Poststructuralist
<drfosternotfromglouces...@nospamgmail.com> wrote:
| Quote: | As you
indicated, it is very difficult to learn. (However, I understand that
Mandarin Chinese may be even more troublesome.)
While Mandarin Chinese (pu tong hua) was certainly difficult for me to |
learn when I was in China I don't think it was an inherent
unlearnability in the language. The three difficulties for me were the
tonal nature of the language (the same sound said with a different
tone pattern can mean completely different things); the use of
ideograms rather than an alphabet; and - compared to trying to learn a
European language (including Esperanto) - the almost total absence of
words with the same meaning in English and Chinese even if sounded or
spelt somewhat differently. The only words I can remember whose
meaning I could guess were DoFu, Kung Fu, and - what I suspect is the
first truly international word - Karaoke.
But none of these would have prevented any East Asian from learning
Chinese. The grammar is simple - it's basically a very easy language
to learn if you happen to be accustomed to ideograms and tones. As
indeed seems proven by the vast number of people for whom it is not a
first tongue but still speak it well and the even vaster number who
have no problem reading it.
Which again for me highlights how irrelevant to the question of
universal language discussion of the relevant merits of any two
particular languages are at this stage. We have basic questions to
resolve first. Should the language be tonal or not? Should our
script be alphabetic or ideogrammatic. The Chinese of course have
attempted to answer this last question with 'Both' as pu tong hua can
officially be written in either simplified characters or pin yin
(alphabetic with tonal marks). However pin yin has not caught on at
all - many, many highly educated Chinese people can't even spell their
own name in pin yin. |
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Guest
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| Posted: Thu Jul 31, 2008 2:18 pm Post subject: Re: Arabic and the international language |
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On Jul 29, 6:19 pm, Poststructuralist
<drfosternotfromglouces...@nospamgmail.com> wrote:
| Quote: | As you
indicated, it is very difficult to learn. (However, I understand that
Mandarin Chinese may be even more troublesome.)
While Mandarin Chinese (pu tong hua) was certainly difficult for me to |
learn when I was in China I don't think it was an inherent
unlearnability in the language. The three difficulties for me were the
tonal nature of the language (the same sound said with a different
tone pattern can mean completely different things); the use of
ideograms rather than an alphabet; and - compared to trying to learn a
European language (including Esperanto) - the almost total absence of
words with the same meaning in English and Chinese even if sounded or
spelt somewhat differently. The only words I can remember whose
meaning I could guess were DoFu, Kung Fu, and - what I suspect is the
first truly international word - Karaoke.
But none of these would have prevented any East Asian from learning
Chinese. The grammar is simple - it's basically a very easy language
to learn if you happen to be accustomed to ideograms and tones. As
indeed seems proven by the vast number of people for whom it is not a
first tongue but still speak it well and the even vaster number who
have no problem reading it.
Which again for me highlights how irrelevant to the question of
universal language discussion of the relevant merits of any two
particular languages are at this stage. We have basic questions to
resolve first. Should the language be tonal or not? Should our
script be alphabetic or ideogrammatic. The Chinese of course have
attempted to answer this last question with 'Both' as pu tong hua can
officially be written in either simplified characters or pin yin
(alphabetic with tonal marks). However pin yin has not caught on at
all - many, many highly educated Chinese people can't even spell their
own name in pin yin. |
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Carl Brehmer
Guest
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| Posted: Fri Aug 01, 2008 6:05 pm Post subject: Re: Arabic and the international language |
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I was reading note 193 in the Kitáb-i-Aqdas and learned something
I didn’t know before, which is alluded to in the Tablet to which you
refer where it says, “All languages and scripts will ultimately become
one.”
Note 193 says: “Bahá’u’lláh enjoins the adoption of a univer
sal
language and script. His Writings envisage two stages in this process.
The first stage is to consist of the selection of an existing language
or an invented one, which would then be taught in all the schools of
the world as an auxiliary to the mother tongues. The governments of
the world through their parliaments are called upon to effect this
momentous enactment. The second stage, in the distant future, would be
the eventual adoption of one single language and common script for all
on earth.”
I didn’t realize that the “auxiliary” nature of the universal
language was itself a temporary state and that eventually there would
be only one language and script.
I also think that it is significant that Bahá’u’lláh did not
Himself pick the universal language (as God’s vicegerent He certainly
had the authority to do so) but left it up to the choice of the
parliaments throughout the world and made doing so a sign of “the
coming of age of the human race.” One can certainly understand why
the act of choosing a universal auxiliary language will be a sign of
the coming of age of the human race considering what a momentous act
of collective will it will require.
I also think that it is significant whose choice it is not. It
is not the choice of the Universal House of Justice. It is not the
choice of linguists. It is not the choice of scholars, nor is it the
choice of any particular individual or group of enthusiasts (which is
probably why Esperanto has not caught on as some had hoped. Esperanto
has not been “chosen” by the parliaments of the world. An individual,
Ludovic Zamenhof, developed it and a loyal group of believers is
lobbying for it adoption by the parliaments of the world, but it has
not yet been so chosen.)
At this point, although doing so can be interesting, speculating
on what the future parliaments throughout the world will settle on as
the universal language seems somewhat pointless. If one were to poll
the peoples of the world I am quite sure that many would lobby for the
adoption of his own language as the universal one since most any
language would do and, as someone else has pointed out, would grow
into the role once adopted. As Bahá’u’lláh points out in the
Tabernacle of Unity, "That which is desired of a language is that it
convey the intent of the speaker." Any language, by definition,
wouldn't be a language if it didn't convey the intent of its
speakers. Therefore, any of the existing languages of the world could
serve as the universal one once adopted and learned.
Isn't this, in fact what Bahá’u’lláh was saying when He wrote,
"take counsel together and to adopt one of the existing languages or a
new one to be taught to children in schools throughout the world?"
Wasn't He implying that any of the existing languages would do as the
universal one? What is important is that one be chosen for the sake
of world unity.
Carl Brehmer |
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Susan Maneck
Guest
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| Posted: Fri Aug 01, 2008 11:21 pm Post subject: Re: Arabic and the international language |
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| Quote: | I didn't realize that the "auxiliary" nature of the universal
language was itself a temporary state and that eventually there would
be only one language and script.
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That would happen eventually anyhow, even if it was explicitly stipulated. |
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