First, a little bit about my family: They are an older Muslim couple who live right near a mosque in Amman. They have five daughters and two sons, and all of them are grown, but they come and visit often, since family is really important in the Arab world. At least one or two of their children will stop by each day to check in, bring grandchildren by, and have a cup of tea. My family is very, very nice and welcoming and constantly giving me delicious tea, coffee, and food. They are a typical Arab family, gathering around the television to watch news and Turkish soaps (dubbed into Syrian dialect) and speaking very quickly and vivaciously about everything… in Arabic.
When I first arrived in Jordan and found out that my host family spoke “little” English, I was excited. I thought it would be a great opportunity for me to really work on my spoken Arabic, and as long as they could tell me the basics in English, such as how to use the shower and where the food is, everything would be perfect. I have now lived here with them for two days, and I have learned quickly that “little” English is more like none at all.
This would be okay, of course, if we spoke the same kind of Arabic. In second level Arabic at Georgetown, everyone learns the difference between فصحة |fusHa (Modern Standard Arabic) and عامية | a’amiia (colloquial Arabic). The difference between the two can be compared to Old English and modern-day U.S. English or U.S. English and Ebonics. People can typically understand fusHa, but everybody speaks a’amiia. At Georgetown, I have learned exclusively fusHa, and my host parents speak almost exclusively a’amiia.
We can typically figure out what the other person is saying, with the help of lots of repetition and hand motioning, and if worst comes to worst, there’s the neighbor upstairs or some of the children who speak English. But because I am used to not only being able to communicate with others but to do so easily and (most of the time) fairly eloquently, it can be really frustrating not being able to communicate my thoughts with my host parents. There are times when I know exactly what I want to say in English, but even when it’s a really simple thought, such as “What is on this plate?”, I either don’t have the words to say it, or they don’t understand the words I am using. It is much easier, and at times quite comical, with the other students in the program because we are all in the same boat. Pretty much all of us have the same horrible accents and are slow at processing our thoughts. But at home it’s another story entirely.
Fortunately, my formal education in a’amiia begins on tomorrow (Sunday), and while it was definitely humorous for us to try to explain the concept of “awkward turtle” in our broken fusHa Arabic, I am looking forward to finally learning how to actually communicate with Arabs who aren’t my professors.
