Water > Hear > Lebanese society > "Don't present in 3 languages!" or the question of language in Lebanon
I am from the French-educated community in Lebanon. This means that my parents first talked to me in French when I was born, and as soon as I could say a few words they started speaking to me in Arabic as well so that I would learn to switch from one to the other. Some families use French and Arabic for separate situations with their children, such as French at home and Arabic when there are strangers around. This way the child associates each language with a different mood, and doesn't confuse them. Other families don't establish this separateness, they use both whenever. Parents hold back English for a while so that they can use it when they don't want the kids to understand what they're saying. Personally though, I was exposed to English as soon as I could talk because we lived in Oman until I was 4 – so my parents didn't have that option.
At 5, those of us who enter 1st grade in a French school have classes in both French and Arabic. This lasts for 6 years, after which English is introduced as a mandatory third language. The English class is given entirely in English from the start, the teacher not uttering a word in a nother language: this is made possible by the fact by the time we take the class, we have had lots of exposure to it through TV, music and English-educated friends, so we are not starting from scratch. English-education schools have an excellent academic system, but I'm not too fond of the idea of having English as a first language. French is very hard to learn while English is very easy, and omnipresent in everyday life: students who started with French then learned English are perfect in both, while the reverse generally makes poor French speakers. Arabic-only schools are rare, as that is too limiting in a multilingual country like Lebanon, where it is shameful to be monolingual, unless one couldn't afford or have access to an education. The average student is supposed to be fluent in the 3 languages when graduating from high school, and this is why the Lebanese are successful and in high demand all over the world. Growing up with several linguistic structures is your mind makes it exponentially easier to learn new ones. Italian was a piece of cake, and I'm now finding Japanese and Armenian to have so many things in common with the structures I already know, that I'm assimilating them quickly. It is true though that I have a particular interest in languages that motivates me to learn.
In school, then, our daily life was trilingual except for those who went into a literary branch: then they had to pick a fourth language to learn, Spanish, Italian or German. There is however a clear divorce between written Arabic and spoken "Arabic", more correctly called Lebanese here. Written Arabic is based on the language of the Qur'an: it is therefore the Arabic that spoken in Mecca at the time of the writing of it. Lebanese however has its roots in the Aramaic language that replaced its close cousin the Phoenician language (very close to Hebrew). As the centuries went by, it assimilated a lot of Arabic (60% of the words in both tongues are the same, anyway, hence the impression that Lebanese is mainly based on Arabic) but also other tongues like Greek and Turkish, and in modern days, French and English. Lebanese is such a hybrid language that Arabs usually have a hard time understanding us -- many of the most-used words are totally unheard-of to them. It is difficult to write Lebanese and it is only done right now in advertising or chat; on the other hand if someone tries to speak written Arabic they sound like the equivalent of Shakespeare (more information on the Lebanese language here). In every day life we use Lebanese; in school and in written stuff (business, official...) Arabic. The natural consequence is that people who stop using written Arabic after school are far from perfect at it. That is what happened to me: since it is so easy to go through life here without using it, I would have trouble writing something lengthy in it although I can read it and the structure of the language itself is carved in my mind -- it's the vocabulary and the subtler declinations that would get in the way. As for Lebanese, since it was never spoken at home once I started going to school, and since for most of my life I had no friend with whom I couldn't use French or English, my vocabulary is again weaker than average. English, my third language, improved way past Lebanese, although the structure in which I think is French-Lebanese. I jokingly say that my Italian has caught up with my Arabic, too.
Now... I have several friends who are Lebanese Armenian. Their native language is Armenian, although they were born here. The Armenian community is so united that a mastery of Lebanese is not necessary, and quite a few of them speak it poorly. Those I know though are usually perfectly fluent in it. Some went to French schools, but what happened to me with written Arabic happened to them as well: no practice outside or since school means they can understand a good deal of french, but speak very little. Thanks to TV and music however, they know English. So where does that leave us? Me with my perfect English/French and hesitant Lebanese, them with their perfect Lebanese and hesitant English or French: we keep jumping between one language and the other, not to mention I now use the little Armenian I know as well. It strikes me as funny that I should think that having only 2 languages in common with someone is a language problem.
This jump between languages though is far from just being a solution to a language problem. It is one of the most startling features of the country. Very few real Lebanese will carry on a conversation in a single language. I never do it without a conscious decision. It is very common for a sentence to start out in Lebanese, turn into French, and have some English words thrown in before ending again in Lebanese. Why? Well, if I'm speaking in English and looking for a word, I'm not going to waste time looking for the word in English when I have it in mind in 2 other languages. There is also the fact that languages do not really translate from one to the other, and a word, expression or turn of phrase may have no real good equivalent in another tongue. So we use the most appropriate -- the best of all 3 worlds. Not to mention linguistic habits, a few words in each language that cling to us so much that we can't prevent ourselves from using them -- it's almost unconscious. I must exhaust my English-speaking friends when I travel and can't stop myself from saying "ya3ne" or "bass" in Lebanese, and "oui" in French when called. Here are a few short samples noted down in school and university, to show you how conversations usually go. Originally I was noting down everything funny that was said in class, for souvenir purposes.
TEACHER: Dans ton modèle, tu as...
STUDENT: Ne pas gazouiller, s'el vos plaît!
TEACHER: Your model... I should speak English because some students don't speak French. So in your model, these sides are... constituent les arêtes d'un tétraèdre...
TEACHER: Metl al aadeh, we have bad news, and worse news.
TEACHER: Some cities like Washington DC have a perfect grid formation. Beirut is a perfect cluster formation. You hope to God, if you take a service, enno l'zalame byaaref el mantaqa...
TEACHER: When you go from Lebanon to USA bi sir maakon jet lag. When you go from USA to Lebanon bi sir maakon depression.
STUDENT: Ils sont très faciles, ces exercices!
TEACHER: Le devoir de physique n'était pas plus difficile.
STUDENT: Ken habal.
TEACHER: Ken habal wel jawebet keno satal.
This khabsa [chaotic jumble] is informal and discouraged in an academic context. The quote I used in the title, "Don't present in 3 languages!", is actually what our design teacher kept telling us, to no avail. Old habits die hard: it is the favorite way of the Lebanese, and one that befits their generally informal mentality. We don't bother to translate technical terms, for example. To save becomes "sayyev" when conjugated in Lebanese, to format "farmet" -- I even heard the word "slallem" used to say slaloming between cars. Some other words have been there for so long we always forget they are not arabic, like "haster", go hysterical. Again, drop by my section on the Lebanese language for a more detailed look at these.
