Научная статья на тему 'The influence of European languages on Modern linguistic environment of Arabic countries'

The influence of European languages on Modern linguistic environment of Arabic countries Текст научной статьи по специальности «Языкознание и литературоведение»

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Ключевые слова
MODERN STANDARD ARABIC / CODIFICATION / SIMPLIFICATION / BORROWING

Аннотация научной статьи по языкознанию и литературоведению, автор научной работы — Lapina A.M.

Лапина А. Н. Влияние европейских языков на формирование современной лингвистической среды арабских стран / А. Н. Лапина // Ученые записки Таврического национального университета имени В. І. Вернадського. Серия «Филология. Социальные коммуникации». 2014. Т. 27 (66), № 3. С. 153-158.В статье авторы исследуют роль европейских языков, а именно английского и французского языков, в формировании современной лингвистической ситуации в арабских странах. В работе авторыизучили влияние данных двух языков на новую вариацию классического арабского языка современ-ный литературный арабский язык на уровне лексикологии, синтаксиса и грамматики. Также было проанализировано региональное воздействие французского и английского языков в странах Магриба и Египте в частности.Ключевые слова: современный литературный арабский язык, кодификация, упрощение, иностранные заимствования.157Лапіна А. М. Вплив європейських мов на формування сучасного лінгвістичного середовища арабських країн / А. М. Лапіна // Вчені записки Таврійського національного університету імені В. І. Вернадського. Серія «Філологія. Соціальні комунікації». 2014. Т. 27 (66), № 3. С. 153-158.У статті автори досліджують роль європейських, а саме англійської та французької мов, у формуванні сучасної лінгвістичної ситуації у арабських країнах. У роботі автори вивчили вплив цихдвох мов на нову варіацію класичної арабської мови сучасну літературну арабську мову на лексикологічному, синтаксичному та граматичному рівнях. Також було проаналізовано регіональнийвплив французької та англійської мов зокрема у країнах Магріба та Єгипті.Ключові слова: сучасна літературна арабська мова, кодифікація, спрощення, іноземні запозичення.

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Текст научной работы на тему «The influence of European languages on Modern linguistic environment of Arabic countries»

Ученые записки Таврического национального университета имени В. И. Вернадского Серия «Филология. Социальные коммуникации». Том 27 (66). № 3. 2014 г. С. 153-158.

УДК 81.411.21'373.613:811.1/.2

THE INFLUENCE OF EUROPEAN LANGUAGES ON MODERN LINGUISTIC ENVIRONMENT OF ARABIC COUNTRIES

Lapina A. M.

Taurida National V. I. Vernadsky University Email: [email protected]

In this article the author studies the role of the European languages, namely English and French, in the formation of modern linguistic situation in Arabic countries. The work represents an examination of the influence of these two languages on the new form of Classical Arabic - Modern Standard Arabic in lexicology, syntax and grammar. We have also analyzed the regional impact of French and English concretely in Maghrib countries and Egypt.

Today, the language, that serve communicational needs of Arabic society is not that Classical Arabic, with which The Holy Quran was written, and which is taught in Universities. Its modern variety, which is named as Modern Standard Arabic has undergone grate changes in all the language levels, the main part of which has been the impact of European languages impact. This is the official language, that is used in mass media, science, law and education. That is why, in order to communicate in effective way and to translate Arabic correctly, the modern philologist should be aware of the specific features of grammar and lexical structures of Modern Spoken Arabic, that are the loantranslations or just calques from English and French and that are not documented in any grammar directory of Arabic.

From the end of XVIII century after the Napoleon's campaign western culture started penetrating into Arabic world and became something of the kind of vogue dictator in Arabic society. Later, the process of Arabic uplift of Arabic national self-consciousness and national self-identification took place, nevertheless the linguistic impact of Europeanization of Arabic society rest enormous. As the most predominant place in Arabic history is assigned to England, France and Spain, the main sources for the Arabic language conversion are represented by English language, French and Spanish respectively. In this work we are given the analysis of the English and French linguistic impact particulary.

Keywords: Modern Standard Arabic, codification, simplification, borrowing.

The primary aim of the research is to study the role of the European languages, namely English and French, in the formation of modern linguistic situation in Arabic countries. During our work we have studied the influence of these two languages on the new form of Classical Arabic - Modern Standard Arabic in lexicology, syntax and grammar. We have also analyzed the regional impact of French and English concretely in Maghrib countries and Egypt.

The actuality of the work lies in the fact, that today the language, that serves com-municational needs of Arabic society is not that Classical Arabic, with which The Holy Quran was written, and which is taught in Universities. Its modern variety, which is named Modern Standard Arabic has undergone grate changes in all the language levels, the main part of which has been produced by European languages impact. This is the official language, that is used in mass media, science, law and education. That is why, in order to communicate in effective way and to translate Arabic correctly, the modern philologist should be aware of the specific features of grammar and lexical structures of Modern Spoken Arabic, that are the loantranslations or just calques from English and French and that are not documented in any grammar directory of Arabic.

The subject of study is the Modern Arabic Language, used ubiquitously in all Arabic countries as the official through the analyzing of its linguistic usage in the press texts of Morocco, Tunisia and Egypt. The study is based on these countries because of their exceptional role in the developing of Arabic society.

The theory significance of the study is that this work results supplements and develop the few scientific researches on the processes influencing the formation of Modern Standard Arabic, which are the keys for its competent comprehension.

The practical significance of the study can be characterized by the recommendations for the Arabic translation based on the specific features of the number of lexical and grammatical structures popular in everyday communication in Arabic world.

Within the main aims, these are the chapters included in the research

1. The factors influencing the development of classical Arabic. The simplification tendency.

2. The Characteristic of The New Language. The Standardization Process.

3. The Influence of Europeanization on Arabic Language.

The Arabic countries of Asia and Africa as the object of linguistic research represent the extremely complex and unique phenomenon. In spite of ethnical differences ubiquitous use of Arabic language is characteristic for all of them. Nowadays all the population of Arabic countries know Arabic language although in different degrees that is one of characteristic features of the extralinguistic situation in Arabic world.

That fact, that every language represents a live system that changes within a time and historical circumstances is indisputable. In this regard, Arabic language is not an exception and the bigger the globalization is the deeper is the influence of other languages on it, especially European ones. From the end of XVIII century after the Napoleon's campaign western culture started penetrating into Arabic world and became something of the kind of vogue dictator in Arabic society. Later, the process of Arabic uplift of Arabic national self-consciousness and national self-identification took place, nevertheless the linguistic impact of Europeanization of Arabic society rest enormous. As the most predominant place in Arabic history is assigned to England, France and Spain, the main sources for the Arabic language conversion are represented by English language, French and Spanish respectively.

Nowadays the linguistic situation in the Arab World is far more complicated as it may seem to be. Fourteen centuries have pasted from the emergence of the Arabic and as any other language Arabic has been undergone a great change. Within the saturated history and enormous social, cultural and scientific interaction of Arabs with external, especially western, world the contemporary Arabic represents a wide number of language varieties from the classical "high" form to the colloquial "low" one. Following Badawi nowadays five levels of Arabic function, these are: "fusha al-turath" - Classical Arabic, "Fusha al-'asr" - Modern Standart Arabic, " 'ammiyyat al-muthaqqafin" - Educated Spoken Arabic/Formal Spoken Arabic, " 'ammiyyat al-mutanawwirin " - Semi-literate Spoken Arabic and " 'ammiyyat al-'ummiyyin" - Illiterate Spoken Arabic.

Between the general tendency for the simplifications there can be defined several particular changes. For example:

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1. The reducing of a sometimes wide number of possible plural forms of the noun to a single one or, in some cases, two. There was five variants of plural for the word wadin (valley) and now only two are in use - widyan and 'awdiya. The word jazirah (island) had formerly two plurals and now only one - juzur.

2. A normalization of the grammatical gender of the noun zawj, which indicates both male and female gender in classical Arabic. Now, the female form zawjah is used, however Egyptian novelist Najib Mahfuz consistentle uses the form zawj for both genders.

For the complete understanding of the term standard language meaning we turned to Mol, who underlines the political constituent of the decision in selecting the language form among various dialects, classical traditions or the creation of a completely new norm [6]. According to Mol [6] the process of standardization includes four aspects, these are: selection, codification, elaboration and propagation.

Following different opinions the term Modern Standard Arabic relates to different time frames. Rydings [7] says, that modern period of Arabic dates back to the end of 18th century. The same idea is followed by Tapiero [1]. Bathurst and Blohm [6] name the modern period the one after World War II. Nevertheless, it is generally accepted, that definitely the second part of 20th century became a turning point in the understanding of need for revision and codification of the contemporary form of developed Classical language.

Many linguists, especially western, separate Classical Arabic, the literary language of previous eras and the contemporary form of traditional language, commonly known in Western world Modern Standard Arabic [8]. As the contemporary Arabic meets four characteristics of standardization it would be more correct to label this variety as Modern Standard Arabic in contrast of Arabic dialects and Classical Arabic.

Europe has always been the trendsetter in every sphere of life: science, art, government. With the beginning of European colonization of Arabic world, it also started acquiring European tendencies that in its turn influenced Arabic through all the Middle East in every language level: lexicological, phonetic and syntactic. The Modern Arabic grammar has undergone changes as well, only in spelling and morphology Modern Standard Arabic has preserved its ancient character. It should be mentioned that Modern Standard Arabic has been formed under the influence of English, French, Italian, Spanish, Dutch and others European languages, and in this work we study only French and English impact, as the biggest and the most essential one that spread not only in some particular region but became a part of lingua franca through all the Arabic world.

The lexicological level is the biggest one that was subjected to. In this field we can accentuate following groups of borrowings:

1).Semantic loantranslations. These are the words that accepted a new meaning similarly to its foreign analogue. There come several examples:

jj^j^ - "saving bank". Originally this word meant a crate for storing treasure. It became "bank" analogically with the influence of the French caisse.

- "movement", with the example of French mouvement is now also used in sociological sense as in political movement.

2).Word-formative loantranslations. These are the words and collocations formed analogically to the foreign ones, sometimes contrary to the rules of accepting language.

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For example, although, in Semitic languages compound words of the type preposition + noun are rare a lot of French words with the preposition sous - "under" induced the emergence of Arabic words with its preposition ^j:

jj*-^ - the lexicological loantranslation from English subconscious

3). The phraseology impact

uájJl jül - "save the situation" is the loantranslation from French sauver la situation. Uaj - "to ask the hand of'. The original Arabic word - has become more limited. On its place the loantranslation from French demander la main came into vogue.

Among syntactical constructions of Modern Standard Arabic the phenomenon with Arabic word - "there" takes a lot of attention. Nowadays it is used very widely ( ^ JJ ^Ua - "there is no hope" ) that can be explained as being the loantranslation of English word there from the expression there is, but it is not generally truth. In Classical Arabic there are constructions with ^-ía as ^j^ aj^j ^Ua jk- "there was three prohibitions". So, we can say that the English "there" just gave rise to a phenomenon completely alien to Arabic, but rather that among the contesting words it made ^Lía prevail.

The Europeanization of Arabic also gave rise to the emergence of collocations, not peculiar to it. For example:

1. Definite + definite (^j*^ + Uij** ) mjMI mjM - "double-sided conversation"

2. Name of place + name of place (^ ^ +

- jj¿j| ^j*-« - " battle Argun- Sakif' ^jjjj- j^-'¿jAtá3l Li - "route Cairo - London - New York"

3. Indefinite place name+ indefinite place name ¿j^j + aú^ ¿j^j)

¿jj^1 - "ground - to - ground rocket" j? ¿jj^1 - "air - to - ground rocket"

The translation of Western press often is accompanied with the loantranslation of not only word structures, but also of tense structure. For example, after analyzing several sentences we can find the tens structures that do not have place in Classical Arabic. For example the conditional structure jK, that is a loantranslation of English would have been or could have been. There are the examples:

1.) ^Jjllill IÍÁA jjSIu. ^úK " J j^Hjjj J'/" ",'j< á*.jij

If Cristiano Ronaldo had succeeded in doing that trick, it would have been the best goal in history.

The researches made have helped to build the complete understanding of the process of the Classic Arabic development and the Modern Standard Arabic formation. The language that is used by the speakers in modern Arabic world is not that Classical Arabic, with which The Holy Quran and first classical grammar works were written. The casting factor in the formation of new variant of Arabic is the globalization process, and applic-ably to Arabic world this is namely the Europeanization process.

The results show that the main mass of language modifications concerns the lexical system of Arabic language. The most interesting is the fact, that the new lexical structures has appeared not with the development of scientific and technical progress, but also as the substitutes of classical ones following the simplification tendency thereby cutting the volume of active language vocabulary.

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The perspectives of the research are in the improvements of work of philologists and interpreters in the fields of grammatical material drafting and educational process for the efficiency increase :

1. The general practice of drafting vocabularies and grammar textbooks must be changed taking into account new lexical, syntactic and grammar structures;

2. The translations from and to Arabic must be always oriented to the auditory of the concrete region, because if the interpreter loses sight of or underestimates the role of territorial differences of Arabic vocabulary, this can negatively affect the quality of the translation;

3. The education of Arabic language as the foreign one should be based on the manuals, composed with taking into account the features inherent to Modern Standard Arabic as the language that is de facto in use in Arabic society. Without this, the graduates Arabists can experience certain difficulties in the actual Arabic language environment.

References

1. Alhawary M.T, Modern Standard Arabic Grammar: A Learner's Guide / M. T Alhawary. - Oxford: John Wiley & Sons Ltd, 2011.

2. Blau J, The Renaissance of Modern Hebrew and Modern Standard Arabic Parallels and Differences in the Revival of Two Semitic Languages / J. Blau. - Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1981.

3. Blinov A, The Territorial Variant of Egypt and Its Reflection in The Press / A. Blinov. - Moscow: Maks - Press, 2007.

4. Holes C, Modern Arabic: Structures, Functions, and Varieties / C. Holes. - Washington: Georgetown University Press, 2004.

5. Kovalev A.A, Sharbatov R.W, The Textbook of Arabic / A.A Kovalev, R.W Sharbatov. - Moscow: Oriental literature, 2004.

6. Mol M. Van, Variation in Modern Standard Arabic in Radio News Broadcasts: a Synchronic Descriptive Investigation into the Use of Complementary Particles / M. Van Mol. - Leuven: peeters Publishers & Department of Oriental Studies, 2003.

7. Ryding K, A Reference Grammar of Modern Standard Arabic / K. Ryding. - Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005.

8. Ryding K, Formal Spoken Arabic/K. Ryding. - Washington: Georgetown University Press, 2005.

9. Sossur F. de, Cours de linguistique general / F. de Sossur. - Paris, 1972.

10. Stetkevych J, The Modern Arabic Literary Language: Lexical and Stylistic Developments / J. Stetkevych. - Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006.

11. Versteegh K, The Arabic Language / K. Versteegh. - Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2004.

Лапина А. Н. Влияние европейских языков на формирование современной лингвистической среды арабских стран / А. Н. Лапина // Ученые записки Таврического национального университета имени В. I. Вернадського. Серия «Филология. Социальные коммуникации». - 2014. - Т. 27 (66), № 3. -С. 153-158.

В статье авторы исследуют роль европейских языков, а именно английского и французского языков, в формировании современной лингвистической ситуации в арабских странах. В работе авторы изучили влияние данных двух языков на новую вариацию классического арабского языка - современный литературный арабский язык на уровне лексикологии, синтаксиса и грамматики. Также было проанализировано региональное воздействие французского и английского языков в странах Магриба и Египте в частности.

Ключевые слова: современный литературный арабский язык, кодификация, упрощение, иностранные заимствования.

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¡.АРМА А. М.

Лапша А. М. Вплив европейських мов на формування сучасного лшгвютичного середовища арабських краш / А. М. Лапша // Вчеш записки Тавршського нацюнального ушверситету 1ме-т В. I. Вернадського. Сер1я «Фшолопя. Сощальш комуткаци». - 2014. - Т. 27 (66), № 3. - С. 153-158.

У статп автори дослщжують роль европейських, а саме англшсько! та французько! мов, у формуванш сучасно! лшгвютично! ситуацп у арабських крагнах. У робот автори вивчили вплив цих двох мов на нову вар1ацта класично! арабсько! мови - сучасну лггературну арабську мову на лексиколопчному, синтаксичному та граматичному ршнях. Також було проанал1зовано репональний вплив французько! та англшсько! мов зокрема у кра!нах Магр1ба та Египта.

Ключовi слова: сучасна лггературна арабська мова, кодифжацш, спрощення, шоземт запозичення.

Поступила в редакцию 03.03.2014 г.

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