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Middle East Policy Council

Teaching the Middle East: A Resource Guide for Educators

LANGUAGES IN CONNECTION By Khaled Islaih Linguistic diversity has been present throughout Middle Eastern history, shaped by shifting empires, the movement and interaction of people, nationalist and religious ideologies and more. The Middle Eastern language families have

Chapter Glossary Arab nationalism: An ideology that dominated the Arab world for most of the 20th century, based on the premise that Arabs have a unified language and shared history.

Arabization: Eﬀorts adopted by Arab governments in North Africa to claim Arabic language as an oﬃcial language after independence from colonial powers.

Modern Standard Arabic (MSA): The literary variety of Arabic language, used as the oﬃcial language in Arab countries.

Berber (Imazighen): Native (pre-Arab) inhabitants and languages, cultures of North Africa.

h i s t o r i c a l l y i n c l u d e d Tu r k i c

Diglossia: The existence of two forms of language: formal and spoken.

(Turkish), Indo-European (Persian, Kurdish), Berber (Imazighen), and

Hebrew Revival: How spoken Hebrew was resurrected and turned into Israel’s oﬃcial language.

Semitic (Hebrew, Arabic, Assyrian) languages. In today’s Middle East four languages have come to dominate: Arabic, Turkish, Persian, and Hebrew. Minority languages, which to varying degrees benefit from language preservation and/or revival eﬀorts include Kurdish, Coptic, Berber, Armenian, Assyrian and a handful of others.

How did these four languages (Arabic, Turkish, Persian, and Hebrew) come to dominate the landscape today? Some of them experienced long and varied imperial legacies. Turkish was the language of the expansive Ottoman Empire that ended by the onset of

Languages in Connection

Indo-European: A family of languages found in much of Europe and Asia. Persian is one of main languages that belongs to this family.

Minority language: A language spoken by a small group living in a society with a diﬀerent oﬃcial language. Some Middle Eastern minority languages include Coptic in Egypt, Kurdish in Syria, Iran, and Turkey, and Berber in North African countries.

Monolingualism: Speaking only a single language, or emphasizing a single oﬃcial language to the exclusion of others.

Multilingualism / Plurilingualism: the use of two or more languages either by an individual speaker or by a community of speakers. Multilingualism has many benefits in today’s world.

National / oﬃcial language: States often give special status to one or more languages.

Persianization: The cultural and linguistic assimilation of non-Persianspeaking people living in Persian cultural spheres.

Semitic languages: Languages that belong to a branch of the Afroasiatic language family originating in the Middle East. Semitic languages such as Arabic, Hebrew and Amharic are spoken across much of Western Asia, North Africa and the Horn of Africa.

Turkic: A family of languages (and cultures) based in Central Asia, northwestern China, and parts of Eastern Europe.

Turkification: The cultural assimilation of non-Turkic people, cultures and languages into the Ottoman Empire.

Zionism: Movement for the establishment of an independent state in Palestine for the Jewish people.

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Middle East Policy Council

Teaching the Middle East: A Resource Guide for Educators

World War I after a six-century reign. The Persian dynasties were highly influential in much of the region well into the 20th century. The Muslim empires responsible for most of the early spread of Islam used Arabic as their administrative language. The rise of Zionism after World War II brought with it a Hebrew revival. Throughout the 20th century, linguistic evolution in the Middle East has been cemented mainly by the rise of modern nation-states and their associated ethnolinguistic ideologies.

Arabic Arabic is the most commonly spoken language in the Middle East and North Africa. With about 300 million speakers globally, it is the fifth most commonly spoken language in the world (behind Mandarin Chinese, English, Spanish, and Hindi). Arabic is the oﬃcial language of 22 countries, and it is also used in religious observance by the world’s 1.5 billion Muslims. Arabic’s place as a prominent global language was solidified in three Arabic owes much of its global influence to historic moments. First, the revelation of the spread of Islam and the teaching of its the Qur’an was in Arabic. Second, Arabic was the holy book, the Qur’an, often upheld as the administrative language of the early Muslim empires, definitive example of classical Arabic. which ultimately expanded to include territory running all Pictured here, a 17th Century Qur'an the way from North Africa and Spain in the west to Central manuscript was written in China, an indication of just how far Arabic and Islamic Asia in the east. Third, during influence extends. This Qur’an resides now the 8th and 9th centuries and in the Chinese gallery, Royal Ontario lasting through the 15 th Museum. c e n t u r y, A r a b i c w a s a l a n g u a g e o f i n t e l l e c t u a l Photo Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons e x c h a n g e a n d s c i e n t i fi c innovation. In this vibrant period, important world texts were translated into Arabic from Greek, Persian, Coptic, and Sanskrit. Arabic was influential around the Mediterranean, in Africa as far as the Sahara region, and in Asia toward India and the Muslim Chinese provinces. Along the way, significant numbers of Arabic words found their way into other languages, including Spanish, English, Turkish, Persian, Urdu, Malay, Indonesian, and Swahili, to name just a few. In the 1950s, Arabic became the dominant language in the region The beautiful Arabic script is used in a as territories gained national sovereignty and embraced an variety of highly developed calligraphy ideology called Arab nationalism. This elevated the shared styles. This one reads: “In the name of God, the merciful, the compassionate.” aspects of the Arabic language and culture as a source of Languages in Connection

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Middle East Policy Council

Teaching the Middle East: A Resource Guide for Educators

This map illustrates the large number dialects of spoken Arabic, while the color groupings indicate their similarity to each other. Map Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

unity among the newly independent nations from Morocco in the west to Iraq in the east, Syria and Lebanon in the north to the Arabian peninsula and Sudan in the south.

Today’s Arabic can be understood to fall into two major categories. First, Modern Standard Arabic (MSA), which is largely a formal language found most often in writing (newspapers, novels) and heard in formal speeches and newscasts. However, MSA is rarely used among native speakers of Arabic in normal conversation. In the second category of Arabic are the regional or national dialects (about seven regional varieties). Linguists agree there is as much variation among them as there are among the romance languages in Europe. This means that most Arabs know MSA and can speak a version of it if the need arises (if an Egyptian is speaking to a Moroccan, for example), but feel most comfortable speaking in their local spoken variety of Arabic. This existence of parallel language registers (of both formal and colloquial speech) is known as diglossia. Diglossia makes Arabic particularly challenging to non-native speakers, as MSA, not individual dialects, is usually the type of Arabic taught formally to non-native speakers in classrooms in the Arab World or outside.

In May 2015, the Chronicle of Higher Education published an article titled “To Make the World a Better Place, Teach Arabic” by Brian Edwards, professor of English and comparative literary studies and director of the program in Middle East and North African studies at Northwestern University.

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Professor Edwards highlighted that “studying Arabic is a moral good and a matter of our national interest. Training a new generation to understand and converse in Arabic may help to reverse the previous generation’s misapprehension of the Arab world, especially as hate crimes against Muslims continue and anxieties about the Arab world fuel misunderstanding.” Edwards also advocates the teaching of various Arabic dialects instead of focusing only on MSA, a relatively new position, but one that is rapidly gaining traction in Arabic-language training.

Turkish The language of the influential Ottoman Empire was Ottoman Turkish (written in the same script as Arabic). With the decline of the empire in the early years of the 20th century, Turkish underwent a radical upheaval. Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of modern Turkey, promoted the adoption of European, “modern” values. Ataturk viewed the Arabic script (which enabled Turks to read the Qu’ran and other Islamic texts) as a threat to this secular worldview. One of his foundational acts in establishing the new Turkish republic was to abolish Ottoman Turkish in 1928 and call for the replacement of the Arabic script with Latin letters.

At the same time, in keeping with his Turkification agenda, Ataturk created a commission charged with the purification and de-Islamicization of Turkish through the replacement of Arabic and Persian loanwords. In practical terms, these policies meant that much of the population became illiterate overnight, and the newer generation of Turks became separated culturally from the previous generation, with whom even simple conversations became diﬃcult. Ataturk showed great commitment to this agenda, even traveling the country himself with a blackboard and a chalk, giving lessons to the suddenly illiterate locals in schools and village squares. Within a few decades, his language reform managed to succeed in what British Scholar Geoﬀery Lewis has called a “catastrophic success,” noting that the agenda established a new language even as it severed the modern republic from its rich history.

In a controversial break from the previously almost untouchable views of Ataturk, the current Turkish President Recep Tayyib Erdogan (founder of the conservative Justice and Development Party, an entity with Islamist roots), has vowed to ensure that all Turks learn their ancestral language. In December 2014, Turkey’s National Education Council introduced mandatory Languages in Connection

Mustafa Kemal Atatürk introducing Turkish in the new Latin alphabet to the people of Kayseri in 1928. Photo courtesy of the Turkish Government. 4

Middle East Policy Council

Teaching the Middle East: A Resource Guide for Educators

Ottoman-language courses for high school students at the country’s religious schools, known as Imam Hatip Schools. The classes are electives in secular high schools. The integration of Ottoman language courses in the Turkish education system, while not without controversy, aims to recapture Turkey’s lost heritage, making more than five centuries of history and literature much more accessible.

Persian The Persian language has gone through many transformations over time and is today spoken in significant numbers in Iran (where it is known as Farsi), Afghanistan (Dari), and Tajikistan and Uzbekistan (Tajiki). Old Persian was used in the time of the Achaemenids--also known as Cyrus the Great’s first Persian Empire (525-300 BCE)--and was written in cuneiform script. Between 300 BCE and 600 CE, Middle Persian developed and was ultimately written in the Pahlavi script. After Islam’s influx into the Persian regions, the Arabic script was adopted, creating what is now known as New Persian, in common use from about 800 CE and still used today in Iran and Afghanistan. Tajiki, by contrast, is now written in the Cyrillic alphabet due to Soviet influence. Interestingly, it is believed that Top: Old Persian Cuneiform script. Persian has borrowed more than 50 percent of its Bottom: New Persian in Arabic vocabulary, the great majority of it from Arabic, with other Script. Both sets of letters spell significant numbers of loanwords from Turkish and Greek. the name “Dariush.” Moreover, Persian has also influenced European languages such as French, Russian, and English, and been spoken in areas ranging from the Middle East to India. The language is considered a minority language in the Gulf countries such Bahrain, Oman, Yemen, and United Arab Emirates, and is also used in pockets of Armenia, Azerbaijan, India, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Pakistan, Turkmenistan and Turkey.

In Iran, the people of various cities and villages speak specific local dialects of Farsi, the most prevalent being the Tehrani dialect, with Shirazi, Yazdi, Mashhadi, and many others being spoken in large numbers within their respective regions. A standardized Farsi is used in education, media and oﬃcial correspondence, although its distance from the dialects is not as extreme as in the case of Arabic.

Like the other dominant languages of the region (Arabic, Turkish, Hebrew), Persian throughout the 20th century was also shaped

This stone cross tablet is inscribed in Middle Persian (Pahlavi script). Languages in Connection

heavily by nationalist visions. Persianization was a main driving force behind oﬃcial language policy and planning in Iran. Minorities were commanded to accept that diversity causes disunity, and implored to give up their own languages and adopt Persian. For 5

Middle East Policy Council

Teaching the Middle East: A Resource Guide for Educators

example, public education in Iran is conducted exclusively in Persian. Minorities such as Ahwaz, Baluch, Kurds, Azerbaijani Turks, and Turkmen continue to face diﬃculties in exercising their rights to use their ethnic languages in private as well as in public.

Hebrew (and other Jewish Languages) In the nineteenth century, Hebrew had no native speakers. Currently, Hebrew is the national language of Israel, and today it is spoken by nearly eight million speakers around the world. This remarkable achievement was envisioned and spearheaded by Eliezer Ben-Yehuda and his fellow revivalists. Born in 1858 in what is known today as Lithuania, Ben-Yehuda learned Biblical Hebrew in elementary school. By the time he was twelve, Ben-Yehuda was familiar with large portions of Torah, Mishna and Talmud. Hoping he would become a rabbi, his parents sent him to a yeshiva, where he continued studying Torah and Biblical H e b re w. H e a l s o s t u d i e d Lithuanian, Yiddish, Hebrew and Aramaic, and later, French, German and Russian.

With the rise of Jewish nationalism in 19th century Europe, BenYehuda became acquainted with Zionism and other political ideas of the day. Among those ideas was the belief that a common language was a basic criteria needed to define an entity worthy of national rights. This led Ben-Yehuda to conclude that reviving the Hebrew language in the Land of Israel would unite all Jews worldwide. In fact, Ben-Yehuda regarded Hebrew and Zionism as one and the same. “The Hebrew language can live only if we revive the nation and return it to the fatherland.”

Eliezer Ben-Yehuda at his desk in Jerusalem, 1912. Photo from the Central Zionist Archives

In the year 1881, Ben-Yehuda moved to Palestine, then ruled by the Ottoman Empire. He settled in Jerusalem and on October 13th made the fateful decision to speak only Hebrew, both in the home with his wife Deborah, and outside with his like-minded Hebrew-revivalist friends. This idea caught on. The first Hebrew schools were established and Hebrew increasingly became a spoken language of daily aﬀairs. In 1922, it became an oﬃcial language of British Palestine. In 1925 it became the first “indigenous” language to be used as the medium of university instruction with the founding of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

The revival of Hebrew contributed to the marginalization of other Jewish languages in Israel and abroad. State policies and social norms heavily stigmatized the use of any Jewish languages other Languages in Connection

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than Hebrew. The methods used by the state of Israel to promote Hebrew as a national language were the same as those used by other governments to suppress indigenous or minority languages. The revival of Hebrew was responsible for the endangerment of Yiddish, Ladino (Judeo-Spanish), JudeoArabic, and others. In response, increasing numbers of young Israelis are joining the revival of Yiddish and other Jewish languages and dialects. Currently, four out of five Israeli universities have centers for Yiddish studies.

Linguistic Minorities

This Algerian road sign has the Arabic names painted over with their Berber spellings,which were themselves later vandalized.

In addition to the four dominant "national" languages described in the preceding pages, minority languages are common in the Middle East Photo by Avdennur At Qasi. and North Africa. These include Kurdish (Turkey, Iraq, Syria and Iran), Nubian (Egypt and Sudan), Assyrian (Iraq, Syria and Lebanon), Imazighen/Berber (Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia and Libya), and Armenian (Lebanon, Turkey). In modern history, ethnic minorities in the region have been denied many linguistic rights due to the rise of the aforementioned nationalist ideologies of Arab Nationalism, Turkification, Persianization and Hebrew Revivalism. For example, Arabization policies in North African states once banned Imazighen. Similarly, Turkey has a long history of banning the use of Kurdish language in public spaces.

Map by Arnold Platon.

This landscape has begun to change, in some cases for the better. The new Iraqi constitution has recognized the Kurdish language as a second oﬃcial language in the country. Morocco has granted the same status to Imazighen. Restrictions on Kurdish in Turkey have relaxed significantly in the 21st century and regular Kurdish broadcasts occur on television. In Libya, the fall of the Qadhafi regime helped Berbers secure guarantees for their culture and language in the new constitution. On the other hand, linguists observe that ethnic violence targeting minorities in Iraq and Syria has placed additional strains on already endangered languages. Some of them may be extinct in 60 years. The most endangered language in the Middle East today is a dialect of Northeastern Neo-Aramaic spoken in Mosul and the Nineveh Plains

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The approximate distribution of the Kurdish languages in the Middle East.

Middle East Policy Council

Teaching the Middle East: A Resource Guide for Educators

region of Iraq. Aramaic was the language of Jesus. The approximately 2000 speakers of NeoAramaic have suﬀered greatly at the hands of the Islamic State.

Towards a Multilingual Mentality This review shows that linguistic plurality is deeply rooted in Middle Eastern cultures and languages. However, the adoption of national oﬃcial languages by governments that associate a nation with one language has perpetuated monolinguistic policies and practices. These policies have marginalized and sometimes endangered minority languages in the region. In recent years, linguistic marginalization has been associated with social unrest and has been a contributing factor in the escalation of ethnic and civil conflicts in many Middle Eastern countries.

To ease social unrest and ethnic conflicts, people and governments in the region need to move away from linguistic ideologies that perpetuate discrimination against speakers of minority languages. Indeed, the region urgently needs a new generation of linguistic policies and practices to reflect the deeply ingrained diversity in its languages and cultures. The transformation of language policies in the region is also required to help people, communities and businesses live within a changing global linguistic landscape. The increasing flows of globalization, migration and new technologies are breaking linguistic boundaries and enabling more linguistic contact within virtual and real spaces. To take advantage of this changing landscape, many governments around the globe are revising their linguistic policies, perspectives and practices. Likewise, in the Middle East, many communities would benefit from the adoption of a multilingual approach.

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Teaching Tool

Languages in Connection—Linguistic Borrowing Language contact and the influence of languages on each other are very common phenomena. For example, language contact encourages linguistic borrowing. Loanwords begin their lives as a strange word within the new language, eventually becoming integrated over time and often not recognized by speakers of the language as being borrowed at all. As this chapter has demonstrated, language contact is an integral part of Middle Eastern culture and history. Languages such as Arabic, Hebrew, Persian, and Turkish came into contact not only with each other but also with Western languages such as Spanish, French, and English through trade, conflicts, wars, literature and translation. Explore the following resources with your students (or assign them as homework) and use the questions below to generate in-class discussion or to help students develop essay topics.

List of English words of Arabic origin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_English_words_of_Arabic_origin

List of English words of Persian origin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_English_words_of_Persian_origin

List of English words of Turkic origin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_English_words_of_Turkic_origin

Are you proud to be a multilingual Lebanese? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KYfP8ozfQsk

Arabizi https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-SotOp07Fig

Faith Complex: Elana Shohamy on the Arabic and Hebrew Languages https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qG5PSsdBtCY

Stan by Your Land: The –Stan Countries in Asia and Beyond https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yXc3ExJGVYw&feature=youtu.be

Discussion Questions/Essay topics

Either use for classroom group discussion or have students compose a well-thought-out short essay that addresses one or more of the following questions in informing your reader about the topic we have been studying. Be sure to include specific references to your source(s) that are

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correctly cited, use proper grammar, and include introductory and concluding statements as well as transitions where appropriate.

1. How do you think trade, wars, and translation enabled language contact and linguistic borrowing between Middle Eastern languages and English? You can use examples drawn from the resources listed above or think of other examples not referred to in this Teaching Tool to develop your ideas.

2. How is new media and communication technology changing language use within Middle Eastern societies?

3. Explore groups on Facebook that operate in other languages—can you find examples where English is being used fluently in combination with another language? Why do you think English (and to a lesser extent, other European languages written in Latin script) become so pervasive in new media?

4. Were you surprised by any of the linguistic connections described in the links above? How so? Do you think there is such a thing as a "pure" language, uninfluenced by other languages? Why or why not?

5. Can you think of examples from your own life experience where you witnessed languages in connection and exchange? Describe.

Extension Activity and Essay

Have students watch the following documentary film in class or as homework and develop an essay exploring linguistic and intercultural connections. Students are encouraged to draw also from the above-mentioned resources in addition to others they may find through independent research.

When the Moors (Muslims) Ruled Europe: Documentary https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PM8HnvuKbAo

Directions to students: Compose a well-thought-out short essay that discusses language contact and linguistic borrowing in medieval times around the northern and southern coasts of the Mediterranean. Be sure to include specific references to the film or supplementary text(s) that are correctly cited and use proper grammar, include introductory and concluding statements and transitions where appropriate.

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Teaching the Middle East: A Resource Guide for Educators

Teaching Tool

The Language of the Qur’an The Qur’an, the holy text of Muslims, is often upheld as "the" defining example of classical Arabic. The Qur'an is believed by Muslims to be a direct transcript of revelations uttered by the prophet Muhammad. This belief means that the Qur'an is only really the Qur'an when it is read in its original Arabic (as opposed to in translation). Unsurprisingly, this leads to great interest in the language found in the Qur'an; non-Arabic words have proven to be particularly puzzling. The foreign vocabulary of the Qur’an has been investigated since the birth of Islam first by Muslim theologians and linguists, and later by non-Muslim scholars. Muslim scholars studied foreign words in order to defend the Qur’an’s Arabic character. In contrast, scholars such as Arthur Jeﬀery in his book The Foreign Vocabulary of The Qur’an (1938) used these foreign words as clues to determine the origins of the Qur’an. The work of classical Muslim scholars, who paid meticulous attention to all aspects of the Qur’an including words and expressions that were adopted and naturalized in the Arabic language from foreign sources, greatly inform these debates among Muslim and non-Muslim scholars. Early and medieval Muslim theologians such as al-Shafi’i, al-Tabari, and al-Qurtubi have pointed out that the presence of non-Arabic words in the Qur’an does not impeach the holy book’s essentially Arabic quality. Contemporary Muslim theologians and linguists point to the frequency of linguistic borrowing, showing how new Arabic and formerly foreign words were in fact used freely in Arabic poetry and culture prior to the revelation of the Qur’an.

Indeed, Arabic’s contact with other languages goes back to pre-Islamic times. Mecca, the birthplace of Islam was the cultural and trade center for Arabs, and the Kaaba was a pre-Islamic site of pilgrimage. Arab tribes and trade caravans went to the north and south and came into contact with other groups. Those who went to the north met Byzantine Christians; those who went to the northeast met Persians. As they exchanged goods and information about culture, civilization and literature, Persian and Greek words entered Arabic. Through similar processes, words from Syriac, Hebrew and even Turkish entered Arabic. Some of the borrowed words from the Qur'an include Mount (tur) borrowed from Syriac, sea (yam) from Coptic, brilliant (durri) form Abyssinian, paradise (paradise) from Persian, inscription (raqim) from Greek, and stones (sijjil) from Persian.

Instructions to Teacher: have students read over these two complex resources on the Qur’an and write an essay based on the below questions or on other questions the student uncovers in the reading process. Encourage further research on the topic of the Qur’an and its language.

The Arabic Qur’an and Foreign Words http://muslimmatters.org/2008/05/21/the-arabic-quran-and-foreign-words/

Is the Qur’an Translatable? by A.L. Tibawi (Early Muslim Opinion, 1962) https://dx.doi.org/10.1111%2Fj.1478-1913.1962.tb02588.x

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Teaching the Middle East: A Resource Guide for Educators

Discussion Questions / Essay Topics

Either use for classroom group discussion or have students compose a well-thought-out short essay that addresses one or more of the following questions in informing your reader about the topic we have been studying. Be sure to include specific references to your source(s) that are correctly cited, use proper grammar, and include introductory and concluding statements as well as transitions where appropriate.

1. Why is Arabic so important to Muslims? How has the standardization of religion and language shaped our understanding of identities, our relations with others, and the world around us? Give examples to illustrate your point of view.

2. What, from a Muslim point of view, might be the risk associated with translating the Qur'an into another language? Can you think of other types of writing that might be diﬃcult to translate without losing some of the meaning? Give examples and support your argument.

3. Why do you think scholars have found the question of borrowed (non-Arabic) words in the Qur'an so important and even controversial?

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Teaching the Middle East: A Resource Guide for Educators

Teaching Tool

Endangered and Minority Languages

The Middle East and North Africa are home to a number of historic language groups whose numbers are dwindling, while other languages were revived or have flourished. Explore the following resources with your students (or assign them as homework in small groups) and use the questions below to generate in-class discussion or to help students develop essay topics, perhaps having students focus in on one language or another in case studies.

A note to teachers: As with any source, and particularly on subjects with great political stakes such as language survival, the author’s views in the below resources may reveal bias. Students should be encouraged to read such content as instructive about the myriad viewpoints that exist in the world on various subject matter, and not as an attempt to support any one particular view.

Endangered Language Alliance: Neo-Aramaic http://elalliance.org/projects/languages-of-the-middle-east/neo-aramaic/

Is the Language of Jesus Christ Endangered? Aramaic in Ma’aloula, Syria https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iy38UQ9EQ6o

Saved by Language: A Ladino speaker in Sarajevo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xmh1SLRyA_Q

Revival of Hebrew https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pgjq8uqQ79E

Kurdish Project http://thekurdishproject.org/history-and-culture/kurdish-culture/kurdish-language/

Iraqi constitution recognizes Kurdish, other languages http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/politics/2014/02/iraq-kurds-minorities-language-rights.html

After 52-year ban, Syrian Kurds now taught Kurdish in schools  http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2015/11/syria-kurdistan-self-governance-teach-kurdish-language.html

Researchers Try to Save Some Middle-Eastern Languages From Extinction http://www.al-fanarmedia.org/2014/09/researchers-try-save-middle-eastern-languages-extinction/

The Language of North Africa http://bokamosoafrica.org/2012/08/the-language-of-north-africa.html

Inside Story - Berbers in North Africa https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0Oz-y7MjSk

A-WA: Israeli sisters of Yemenite Jewish background sing in Judeo-Arabic

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g3bjZlmsb4A

http://forward.com/culture/music/318147/a-wa-a-yemenite-israeli-pop-trio-gains-popularity-around-the-world/

Discussion Questions/Essay Topic

Either use for classroom group discussion or have students compose a well-thought-out short essay that addresses one or more of the following questions in informing your reader about the topic we have been studying. Be sure to include specific references to your source(s) that are correctly cited, use proper grammar, and include introductory and concluding statements as well as transitions where appropriate.

1. What factors do you think have to be in place for a language to flourish?

2. What factors could lead to a language’s reduction in usage or prominence?

3. What role can the state play in supporting or suppressing languages? What about education? Religion? Family? Politics? War? Give examples of how these various facets of society aﬀect language.

4. In the Middle East, how have individuals or groups worked to support or revive minority or endangered languages?

For Further Exploration

Using the UNESCO Atlas of the World’s Languages in Danger, listed below, can you find other endangered or even extinct languages in the Middle East? Select one of these languages and do further web and library research to determine a) where the language is/was spoken; b) what other languages it is related to; c) what factors, historical or contemporary, have contributed to its endangerment and/or extinction? and d) What eﬀorts have individuals or organizations made to prevent the language’s decline or support its revival? Develop a presentation to be delivered to your class, or compose a short essay that covers these issues but also proposes possible methods of supporting languages such as the one you have researched. Be sure to include specific references to your source(s) that are correctly cited, use proper grammar, and include introductory and concluding statements as well as transitions where appropriate.

UNESCO Atlas of the World’s Languages in Danger http://www.unesco.org/languages-atlas/index.php?hl=en&page=atlasmap&iso=lad

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Sources and for Further Reading BBC Language Guides Turkish, Arabic, Persian, and Hebrew

http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/other/turkish/guide/

http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/other/arabic/guide/

http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/other/persian/guide/

http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/other/hebrew/guide/

Call for prayer (Adhan) http://www.islamcan.com/audio/adhan/azan1.mp3

Dania Ben Sassi - A Revolutionary Amazigh Song http://revolutionaryarabraptheindex.blogspot.ca/2011/12/dania-ben-sassi-revolutionary-amazigh.html

Exploring the Rich Diversity of Human Languages www.langaugesoftheworld.info

Introduction to the Quran: The Scripture of Islam | NotreDameX on edX https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1QubL8q84es

Language and Ethnicity http://middleeastpdx.org/arabculture/unit-3-language-and-ethnicity/

Languages of the World www.ethnologue.com

Middle East Endangered Languages http://elalliance.org/projects/languages-of-the-middle-east/

Music from Across the Arab World https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1maK5xBaBIc&feature=youtu.be

Qur'an Documentary https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yVER__C7lhE

Write your name in Arabic calligraphy http://www.firdaous.org/write-name-arabic-calligraphy.htm?13-a

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Common Core/Standards Common Core/Standards/College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) Anchor Standards Reading

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.R.1  Read closely to determine what the text says explicitly and to make logical inferences from it; cite specific textual evidence when writing or speaking to support conclusions drawn from the text.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.R.4  Interpret words and phrases as they are used in a text, including determining technical, connotative, and figurative meanings, and analyze how specific word choices shape meaning or tone.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.R.10  Read and comprehend complex literary and informational texts independently and proficiently.

Anchor Standards Writing

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.9-10.2  Write informative/explanatory texts to examine and convey complex ideas, concepts, and information clearly and accurately through the eﬀective selection, organization, and analysis of content.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.9-10.4  Produce clear and coherent writing in which the development, organization, and style are appropriate to task, purpose, and audience.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.9-10.5  Develop and strengthen writing as needed by planning, revising, editing, rewriting, or trying a new approach, focusing on addressing what is most significant for a specific purpose and audience.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.9-10.7  Conduct short as well as more sustained research projects to answer a question (including a selfgenerated question) or solve a problem; narrow or broaden the inquiry when appropriate; synthesize multiple sources on the subject, demonstrating understanding of the subject under investigation.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.9-10.8  Gather relevant information from multiple authoritative print and digital sources, using advanced searches eﬀectively; assess the usefulness of each source in answering the research question; integrate information into the text selectively to maintain the flow of ideas, avoiding plagiarism and following a standard format for citation.

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Middle East Policy Council

Teaching the Middle East: A Resource Guide for Educators

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.9-10.9  Draw evidence from literary or informational texts to support analysis, reflection, and research. CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.9-10.10  Write routinely over extended time frames (time for research, reflection, and revision) and shorter time frames (a single sitting or a day or two) for a range of tasks, purposes, and audiences.

Anchor Standards Speaking and Listening

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.SL.9-10.1  Initiate and participate eﬀectively in a range of collaborative discussions (one-on-one, in groups, and teacher-led) with diverse partners on grades 9-10 topics, texts, and issues, building on others' ideas and expressing their own clearly and persuasively.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.SL.9-10.4  Present information, findings, and supporting evidence clearly, concisely, and logically such that listeners can follow the line of reasoning and the organization, development, substance, and style are appropriate to purpose, audience, and task.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.SL.9-10.6  Adapt speech to a variety of contexts and tasks, demonstrating command of formal English when indicated or appropriate.

Standards by Subject/Grade (9-10) Reading: Informational Text » Grade 9-10

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.9-10.1  Cite strong and thorough textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RH.9-10.2  Determine the central ideas or information of a primary or secondary source; provide an accurate summary of how key events or ideas develop over the course of the text.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RH.9-10.7  Integrate quantitative or technical analysis (e.g., charts, research data) with qualitative analysis in print or digital text.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RH.9-10.10  By the end of grade 10, read and comprehend history/social studies texts in the grades 9-10 text complexity band independently and proficiently.

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Middle East Policy Council

Teaching the Middle East: A Resource Guide for Educators

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.9-10.4  Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in a text, including figurative, connotative, and technical meanings; analyze the cumulative impact of specific word choices on meaning and tone

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.9-10.7  Analyze various accounts of a subject told in diﬀerent mediums (e.g., a person's life story in both print and multimedia), determining which details are emphasized in each account. CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.9-10.10  By the end of grade 9, read and comprehend literacy nonfiction in the grades 9-10 text complexity band proficiently, with scaﬀolding as needed at the high end of the range. By the end of grade 10, read and comprehend literary nonfiction at the high end of the grades 9-10 text complexity band independently and proficiently.

History/Social Studies » Grade 9-10

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RH.9-10.1  Cite specific textual evidence to support analysis of primary and secondary sources, attending to such features as the date and origin of the information.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RH.9-10.4  Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in a text, including vocabulary describing political, social, or economic aspects of history/social science.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RH.9-10.10  By the end of grade 10, read and comprehend history/social studies texts in the grades 9-10 text complexity band independently and proficiently

Writing » Grade 9-10

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.WHST.9-10.2  Write informative/explanatory texts, including the narration of historical events, scientific procedures/experiments, or technical processes.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.WHST.9-10.4  Produce clear and coherent writing in which the development, organization, and style are appropriate to task, purpose, and audience.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.WHST.9-10.5  Develop and strengthen writing as needed by planning, revising, editing, rewriting, or trying a new approach, focusing on addressing what is most significant for a specific purpose and audience.

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Middle East Policy Council

Teaching the Middle East: A Resource Guide for Educators

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.WHST.9-10.7  Conduct short as well as more sustained research projects to answer a question (including a selfgenerated question) or solve a problem; narrow or broaden the inquiry when appropriate; synthesize multiple sources on the subject, demonstrating understanding of the subject under investigation.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.WHST.9-10.8  Gather relevant information from multiple authoritative print and digital sources, using advanced searches eﬀectively; assess the usefulness of each source in answering the research question; integrate information into the text selectively to maintain the flow of ideas, avoiding plagiarism and following a standard format for citation.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.WHST.9-10.9  Draw evidence from informational texts to support analysis, reflection, and research.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.WHST.9-10.10  Write routinely over extended time frames (time for reflection and revision) and shorter time frames (a single sitting or a day or two) for a range of discipline-specific tasks, purposes, and audiences.

NCSS Themes 1.

Culture

Through the study of culture and cultural diversity, learners understand how human beings create, learn, share, and adapt to culture, and appreciate the role of culture in shaping their lives and society, as well the lives and societies of others. In schools, this theme typically appears in units and courses dealing with geography, history, sociology, and anthropology, as well as multicultural topics across the curriculum. 4. Individual Development and Identity

Personal identity is shaped by family, peers, culture, and institutional influences. Through this theme, students examine the factors that influence an individual’s personal identity, development, and actions. This theme typically appears in courses and units dealing with psychology, anthropology, and sociology. 5. Individuals, Groups, and Institutions

Institutions such as families and civic, educational, governmental, and religious organizations, exert a major influence on people’s lives. This theme allows students to understand how institutions are formed, maintained, and changed, and to examine their influence. In schools, this theme typically appears in units and courses dealing with sociology, anthropology, psychology, political science, and history.

9. Global Connections

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Middle East Policy Council

Teaching the Middle East: A Resource Guide for Educators

The realities of global interdependence require an understanding of the increasingly important and diverse global connections among world societies. This theme prepares students to study issues arising from globalization. It typically appears in units or courses dealing with geography, culture, economics, history, political science, government, and technology.

NCSS C3 Framework D2.Geo.2.9-12.

Use maps, satellite images, photographs, and other representations to explain relationships between the locations of places and regions and their political, cultural, and economic dynamics

D2.Geo.4.9-12.

Analyze relationships and interactions within and between human and physical systems to explain reciprocal influences that occur among them.

D2.Geo.5.9-12.

Evaluate how political and economic decisions throughout time have influenced cultural and environmental characteristics of various places and regions.

D2.Geo.6.9-12.

Evaluate the impact of human settlement activities on the environmental and cultural characteristics of specific places and regions

D2.Geo.7.9-12.

Analyze the reciprocal nature of how historical events and the spatial diﬀusion of ideas, technologies, and cultural practices have influenced migration patterns and the distribution of human population.

D2.His.1.9-12.

Evaluate how historical events and developments were shaped by unique circumstances of time and place as well as broader historical contexts.

D2.His.3.9-12.

Use questions generated about individuals and groups to assess how the significance of their actions changes over time and is shaped by the historical context.

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Developmental dyslexia in different languages