Has Italy come to terms with the inevitable? The unfurling of the red carpet is underway.
"Italy: Arabic lessons on public service portal," from AKI:
Rome, 17 July (Aki) - After English, Spanish and Chinese, the Italian state service e-portal has begun offering Arabic language lessons on line.The National Centre for Computing in the Public Service (CNIPA) which created and runs the site, is providing a course for complete beginners or for those with only a rudimentary knowledge of Arabic.
Reading, writing, listening and speaking are the four categories and the course makes much use of common expressions from everyday life.
A recent study conducted by a leading research institute in Italy, showed that the most popular non-European language to learn these days is Arabic.
It is understandable that the state would sponsor English and Spanish lessons, as these are primary languages on whole continents. And the Chinese surge on the economic scene creates a natural demand in the business world to learn that language.
And then there is Arabic. I wonder who was polled in that recent study. I wonder if the respondents speak any Italian at all.
Crossposted from The American Israeli Patriot.
...Italian education system soon to announce: A minaet for every school...
The only reason they'd want kids to learn Arabic is because the learning of the koran will soon become mandatory in Europe.
The UK is doing exactly the same thing, teaching Arabic instead of European languages.
Let's face it, no business is done in Arabic, and they only want to indoctrinate the children.
I don't seem to be able to post for the following trend (the one about the vitamin D lacking in Muslim women).
Anyway, state suported arabic lessons for the masses is another step for the islamization of europe. Bat Ye'or could see this coming decades ago.
I wonder: will they use the Qur'an to teach it? And Bukhari? That might create problems in classes, as soon as verses like 4:34 start being quoted.
...how about teaching what Muslims do instead of teaching what Muslims want you to teach...
Whats the difference between that and America pandering to the illegal central Americans?
It's beyond language substitution. In the UK, Urdu and Arabic offerings replace time allowances for significant studies in history, specifically, Churchill.
The teachers point of view. . .
snip
Crusader-
I too can't comment on that story.
As for this story, chalk it up to giving the people what they want. The peaceful ones want Arabic, then they shall have it. Before you know it, all of Europe, the US, Canada and Australia will be doing this. It's only a matter of time.
More Westerners need to know that language for strategic and security reasons, but not a handful of superficial phrases like, "Which way to the bus stop?"
jay
By itself, not too bad an idea - know the enemy lingo, so that the discrepancies between what they say in Italian/English vs what they say in Arabic is readily discernible by Infidel observers who have yet to form a hostile opinion on their 'guests'.
Phrases like this may come in handy for conversational Arabic in Italy.
"Hello, sir. Which way to the Colosseum for the public stoning?"
"This woman is annoying me. How shall we beat her?"
"I cannot have pork with my spaghetti - do you have any lamb sausage?"
They better role up their art because fundamentalist muslims don't like all those nudies and basically they just don't like art in any form.
I can see some benefits here - the more of us that know what they spew - the better.
I agree with freedomschool, Infidel Pride and R_not.
Knowing the enemy's language is part of knowing the enemy
Although I'm sure that the reason the Italians want to teach it is pure dhimmitude. I would have thought that West African languages would be more useful, though, so that the Italians can communicate with the boatloads of Malians etc. who regularly wash up on their shores.
Chinese is the new Japanese, and Arabic is the new Russian. I'm all for multi-lingual education. It looks good on the resume and can open job opportunities for you. As it stands if you want a good job in the intelligence communities today, then you should learn Arabic just as learning Russian was the key to a job back in the Cold War days.
I guess this is like turkeys designing a more efficient knife for slaughter.
One turkey to another, "Oh that is so much more efficient, do you think we will win an inventors prize?"
Chinese is the new Japanese, and Arabic is the new Russian. I'm all for multi-lingual education. It looks good on the resume and can open job opportunities for you. As it stands if you want a good job in the intelligence communities today, then you should learn Arabic just as learning Russian was the key to a job back in the Cold War days.
Posted by: Quan Tranh [TypeKey Profile Page] at July 18, 2007 3:50 PM
I doubt its for the intelligence communities. More likely its so they can understand their future masters.
Elias
Know thy enemy. Incidentally, do you know Arabic? If we had the right policy and policymakers on Islam, people like you would come in handy.
More phrases soon to be "useful in everyday life":
"My daughter is only five, sir, you will have to wait a year before you can marry her."
"My son is not your catamite, sir, he is promised to the Imam."
"Of course I understand what happened to my wife was her fault, sir, for her improper covering of her meat."
Time to start compiling the Dhimmi's Phrasebook in Arabic, get a jump ahead.
I stumbled on the city of Palermo website it was in Italian, French, English and Arabic. They also seemed to have street signs in Italian and Arabic or at least the signs marking the city boundary.
Yes, Marwan’s D! Laughing at this one!!! As soon as we move to our new house [couple of weeks] I’ll have plenty of free time as I soak up Vitamin D outside in a floating chair in the pool to start working on this: “The Dhimmi’s Phrasebook in Arabic for Dummies!” None of this how to say hello and thank you and which way to the prayer area… Instead, “What time is the beheading?” “Are you wearing a vest with 'special' pockets?”
I’ve taken a couple of Arabic courses [language as well as reading and writing] since we’ve been in Saudi – not to “assimilate” or become part of the culture, but instead so that I can have a general idea of what is being said around me – or about me.
Any other suggestions as to what should be put into the Phrasebook, feel free to e-mail me.
It's okay.
I also agree that it is a good idea to know the enemy's language.
In fact, Robert and Hugh, it might be helpful to post phrases in Arabic on this site so the "aware of the problem" minority can get a leg up.
Blogging the Koran is all well and good, but it is preaching to the converted in many ways.
This could be news that can be used more effectively.
Simple words like "explosive," "destroy," etc., are a start.
Hopefully the Italians will have an English-Arabic site, but that seems unlikely.
These idiot EU politicians STILL haven't figured out that showing favoritism to Muslims wins them ABSOLUTELY no favors from Islam!
There is never a positive payback for the "unbelievers" even when they stoop to kissing Islam's *ss, as the Italian government is evidently h*ll-bent on doing.
Blood will tell.
Which Arabic? There is like a hundred Arabics. Arabic is such an antiquated and useless language. It needs to be scrapped altogether. Too bad it erased so many superior languages that preceded.
Arabic was imposed on the inhabitants of the ME. When you think Arabic, think oppression, chaos, bad omen!
And what a language it is! It puts Klingon to shame! HEE! HEE! If the devil had a language.... Everything Islam.
Re. the Arabic language - to ofcourse and Elias, and I speak as someone with a longterm passion for languages, I do beg to differ here.
Arabic, in its many differing dialects, is not the language of demons. It is merely one of the six to ten thousand languages currently spoken on planet earth.
It is not evil, in and of itself. It is just - a perfectly ordinary human language.
Like Hebrew, it belongs to the 'Semitic' language family (this is a linguists' technical term).
Arabic is not peculiarly difficult. It is probably less difficult to learn, for Westerners, than a tonal language like Chinese. It is not the hardest language in the world: that honour, as I understand, is contested by three languages - a. Arnindilyakwa, which is the native language of the tribe who live on Groote Eylandt in the Gulf of Carpentaria, off the coast of Australia's Northern Territory b. A language, whose name I cannot at the moment recall, that is spoken by a small tribe in the jungles of Papua-New Guinea and c. A language which is spoken in the Caucasus region. According to the professional linguists, these three are the most complex languages currently spoken on earth, and the hardest to learn.
A Jewish-background Christian once felt about Arabic as you two do. She had only ever heard it used to express hatred and anger. She thought of it as a hateful and ugly language.
Then, one day, she heard an Arabic-speaking Christian singing hymns of praise to Jesus, in Arabic, and she discovered that Arabic, too, could be beautiful. Arabic CAN be, and become, a language of love. The 'Our Father' is just as valid when prayed in Arabic, as it is in any other language.
Please, please do not forget that the entire Bible has been, more than once, fully and accurately translated into the various forms of Arabic, and is read in Arabic by devout Christians within the Arabic-speaking world. Even within the heart of the Empire of Islam, Arabic-speaking people listen secretly to gospel radio broadcasts, made in Arabic.
I utterly reject the system of belief, the ideology, which is Islam. But I don't hate Arabic qua Arabic. If - per miraculum - all the Arabs and Arabic speakers converted to Christianity tomorrow, would you still call the Arabic language a language of demons? Would you tell an Arab Christian that they must not pray in Arabic, because it is a demon language and God will not listen to them?
It's not the language - it's what you say in it.
Languages, like peoples, and cultures, can be transfigured, transformed, redeemed. Elias - you, a descendant of the Assyrians, of all people, you should know that.
If Assyrian culture and language could be transformed by the Gospels - then so too can Arabic.
Good points dumbledoresarmy.
There are many issues to have with Arabic. First, is that it was forced upon the diverse peoples of the ME. It’s like English being forced on all Europeans. Arabic was enriched and refined substantially by various people who contributed to it from their native language. Generally, to have a country voluntary teach its children this cursed language shows an ominous trend.
Secondly, Arabic is a divisive language. There is really little value in learning it. Every area in the ME has its own dialect of it, some much more superior and easy on the ears than others.
Third, it is mainly an emotional language. I doubt any country can function sanely with it. (Although, if they magically all turn Christian that is a different matter.) Again: Who needs it?
To of course:
Islam - the belief system, the ideology - is the enemy, and the problem. Islam is practised by Muslims who do not speak Arabic, e.g. Turkish speakers, Kurdish speakers, Urdu speakers, Malay speakers, Hausa speakers, Swahili speakers, and Farsi and Dari speakers. Sure, they're all taught to think that Arabic is somehow superior, specially pure and holy, and that their own languages are IMpure and UNholy...but a linguist would laugh that one out of court, precisely as a linguist would also laugh out of court YOUR statement that Arabic is 'cursed' (which merely goes to the opposite extreme).
Arabic - like English, like Spanish, like Russian, like Latin two millennia ago - is an 'imperial' language. All imperial societies tend to attack the languages of those that they conquer.
An Irishman or a Welshman can complain about 'cursed English' just as bitterly as a Kurd about Turkish or a Pole about Russian! But just because a language is used by an oppressor, does not mean that the language itself is evil.
Let's just stay focused on Islam. Islam, the ideology, is the problem, not Arabic. Muslim countries such as Pakistan or Iran - where almost NOBODY speaks Arabic as their first language - are just as much of a mess as the Arab and Arabised countries.
Are you a linguist? What is the evidence that Arabic - the nuts and bolts of the language, the grammar, the lexicon, the phonemes - is specially and peculiarly 'cursed' or that it is 'mainly an emotional language' (do you mean that it has inherently NO capacity to express intellectual or spiritual or scientific ideas? I've already pointed out that the Bible has been translated, several times, into different varieties of Arabic, and the Bible Society appears to believe that these translations are an accurate rendering of the Biblical message.)
Sure, Arabic lessons can be a problem if they are ONLY taught by Muslims who use the lessons as a stalking horse for daawa. But it could just as easily be taught by Arabic-speaking Christians or secular scholars who are NOT pushing an Islamic barrow.
No one language, out of the thousands now spoken on earth, can claim to be the one and only language that all humans 'ought' to speak, because all the others are 'bad' or 'unscientific' or 'too emotional' or 'demonic', or, whatever. And the converse is also true: no language, not even the language that had the misfortune to count Mohammed as a speaker of one of its historic forms, is cursed. Hitler spoke German and wrote Mein Kampf in German. Does that mean German, too, is cursed forever and ever? Is Russian cursed, because of Stalin? Is Chinese cursed, because Mao wrote 'the little red book'?
Once again: would you dare to tell a Saudi or Yemeni secret believer, someone who has come to faith through secretly listening to gospel radio, that God hates their language and won't listen to them if they pray in it? That if they want to be heard by God they had better learn a proper, holy language ...like, oh, English?
I say it’s cursed because wherever it has gone Islamic oppression has followed. Would I tell a Christian who speaks and loves the language it is a sin? Absolutely not! People are free to choose whatever style they want.
What I do know is that Arabic is closely associated with evil: Islam. It remains to be seen if it can be freed from that association. You ask if I think God hates Arabic. Although, there is much in it to ridicule, I reply no, but He hates how it is manipulated by Satan.
What if Satan chose Arabic for a reason? I would like nothing better than to take it out of his grip.