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Welcome to
LearnArabic, the first of its kind initiative
from ownline.info to promote Arabic Language –
both in its spoken and written forms – among
non-natives, which comes as a culmination of my
efforts over the past three years and leverages
my nearly two-decades of experiment with the
language of nearly 300 million people worldwide.
My journey with
Arabic language started way back in mid-90s as a
scholarship student in Kuwait when I first
landed in that beautiful country to study under
the sponsorship of its government, along with
students from different countries and
continents. Despite our varied nationalities,
ethnicities and cultural backgrounds, the common
thread that united us all was the urgent need to
learn Arabic to be able to communicate with our
peers. Except for a handful of students, Arabic
was not the native language of most of us, and
we had little or no opportunity to interact with
native Kuwaiti students during our formative
years. This led us to adopt a hybrid Arabic in
the course of our early learning process
comprising both formal Arabic phrases and
expressions used by a few eloquent students,
mostly from African countries, from whom
new-comers like me would learn, as well as the
expressions derived from the dialects of our
teachers, majority of who hailed from Egypt and
some other Arab nationalities. This caused the
conversational language of some students to tilt
towards the dialects of our teachers.
It was in such a
setting that I learned to speak Arabic and later
got better exposure to Kuwaiti dialect during
the later leg of my high school and at Kuwait
University, where the native students made the
majority in my class. While it may not sound
challenging to learn a new language in a tender
age like that of mine when I first arrived in
Kuwait, especially when you have a plethora of
compelling reasons to learn a new second
language, I still encounter unnerving situations
when I have to switch between different dialects
depending on the person I converse with. Like
any foreign language speaker, this is the
challenge that puts my conversational ability to
a real test due to the sheer variety of spoken
Arabic dialects after nearly two-decades of my
experiment with “the language of Dhad” as Arabic
is known, and might also leave the prospective
learners of this website puzzled when they want
to learn and communicate in Arabic as a second
language.
For historical reasons, Indians make up a
sizeable non-Arab expatriate community in Kuwait
and other GCC countries, majority of who are
either unskilled or semi-skilled workforce.
These expatriates, unlike their western
counterparts, often show immense interest and
enthusiasm to speak Arabic, or are desperate to
do so due to the nature of their jobs, but
mostly learn it from their countrymen who speak
Arabic in their own style and tone. Needless to
say, this resulted in the creation of an altered
version of broken-Arabic infused with words and
sentence structures from the languages of
non-native speakers, who pay little or no
attention to the rules, structures and
particularities of Arabic language.
Unfortunately, native speakers also conveniently
resort to this version of Arabic when speaking
to Indian or other non-Arab nationals, depriving
the latter of an unparalleled opportunity to
learn the conversational language of the hosting
country and explore its culture.
Personally, I would often get annoyed by people
who insist to respond to me in broken Arabic –
simply because I am a non-Arab - although I
would start with them in a very fluent way. The
rudeness of some native speakers would even go
to the extent that while studying in Kuwait
University, security guards from a particular
Arab nationality would deliberately stop and
interrogate me at the entrance of my colleges by
asking that very awkward broken Arabic question
"صديق واين يروح أنت" (Where are you going,
friend?) due to my apparent Indian features,
while some others would seldom show the courtesy
to respond in proper Arabic. It goes without
saying that I would often feel offended by this
utterly impolite and racial behaviour for
singling me out for identity verification. This
prompted me to dedicate a whole section in this
website to help those who already speak broken
Arabic fix such conversational errors.
For a variety of reasons, Indians have long been
subject to negative stereotyping (negative
perception) in some Arab countries, and the word
hindee (which means Indian in Arabic) would
interchangeably symbolize foolishness and
bewilderment for many. You would often hear
natives use the world “hindee” to refer to a
cleaner, domestic help, or anyone who undertakes
blue collar and menial jobs. Similarly, in
another Arab nation people disapprove naïve
behaviour or mock at those who try to deceive
them by saying: “antha fakirnee hindee” (do you
think I am an Indian). A case in point, once one
of our prominent lecturers at the university was
explaining the term “stereotype” and he
unwittingly asked the class what would be the
first thing to rush to their mind when they hear
the word “Hindee” (Indian) and one of my
classmates replied him without giving it a
second thought: "غبي" (idiot). It was a never a
purposeful action or reaction, but merely a spur
of the moment comment without realizing my
presence in the class. Later, the lecturer, whom
I still hold high respect for his generous
gesture to specially mention me as one of the
guests of Kuwait at a ceremony held to honour
him following his appointment as the Minister of
Information, and the class mate, who was also a
good friend of mine, apologized to me for his
unintentional comment. But the incident
reflected on the bitter reality on how our
country and people were widely perceived among
some native Arabic speakers.
Deeply upset by the predicament caused by this
state of affairs, I pioneered in April 2006,
while I was still studying at Kuwait University,
a website called bavabathulHind (Arabic for
Gateway to India) and its news section
akhbarulHind (India News). The website was aimed
at bridging the vast knowledge gap about India
among my Arabic speaking class mates by
highlighting the bright side of the emerging
India far from its infamous and widely held
image of a dominantly poor and illiterate nation
reeling under numerous socio-economic
challenges. The website also gave me a dedicated
window to publish my Arabic articles and unleash
my repressed feelings. A single handedly
initiated and managed venture, bavabathulHind
was the talk of the town and won the laurels of
many for its unique approach in delivering clear
and well-focused message.
I penned the majority of its Arabic articles
which lavishly shed light on the impressive
achievements India has made in recent decades
across various spheres including Information
Technology, space technology, the socio-economic
status and achievements of Indian Muslims,
India’s historic links with Arab world and the
success stories of Indian diaspora worldwide,
among others. When Geocities ceased free hosting
services in October 2009, the website became
defunct for a while, but was later archived by
another free-hosting provider due to the high
number of visitors and it can still be visited
at www.geocities.ws/indigate. Although it has
been abandoned by me after my graduation in late
2007 and no update has been made since then, it
makes for a good read for Arabic readers and
people interested in rediscovering the emerging
India. Currently the website doesn’t deliver the
same look and feel it once had as some of its
elements were not properly archived and some of
its links are broken especially AkhbarulHind
website which I created subsequently to
circumvent disc space limitations of Geocities.
The latter was dedicated for publishing news and
special coverage about India in international
media that I used to translate from English to
Arabic, helping me to hone my writing skills and
build a successful career trajectory as a
bilingual editor.
On the other hand, in many instances I would
feel high-spirited when some of my Kuwaiti
professors and later many of my colleagues at
work in the UAE would show deep admiration of my
unique writing style in Arabic. To impart what I
have learnt throughout these years to my fellow
countrymen as well as the wider English speaking
expatriate community in GCC, I launched
LearnArabic in 2016 with a vision to make
learning Arabic easier and accessible to
everyone after nearly a decade of my first foray
into the cyberspace with bavabathulHind. The
launch also marked my comeback to cyberspace
after a self-imposed exile during which I
launched an e-commerce venture in 2011 that went
bust without making significant progress. The
failure of the e-commerce venture led me to a
serious introspection on how I can build on my
erstwhile success story of bavabathulHind, to
empower my countrymen and other non-Arabic
speakers who are eager to get their hands on the
much-needed language skills.
As the slogan of the website “Learning Arabic
Made Easier” signifies, in launching LearnArabic
website, my aim is to create a free, easy-to-use
and interactive platform which uses expressions
closer to real life scenarios and situations. To
ensure seamless access to our lessons for
everyone, “LearnArabic” offers its lessons
absolutely free unlike many similar websites
which would ask you to pay for their online
lessons. The website also aims to help
non-native expatriates working and living in the
GCC countires as well as those who search better
pastures here boost their career propsects as
proficiency in Arabic is becoming increasingly
important for job seekers in the Gulf
countries.The websit also aims to support the
growing trend among regional governments to
promote Arabic in government transactions.
Language is an integral part of culture and
there is an inseparable relationship between
both of them. By teaching others our language,
we not only promote our culture, but also
influence perceptions, and gather support for
our just causes. As a way of saying thank you to
Kuwait, my second home which enveloped me with
its kindness and warmth for nearly 11 years as a
scholarship student, and to the UAE, my third
home which continues to overwhelm me with its
efficiency, openness and expat-friendly
atmosphere, I am using across LearnArabic
lessons a combination of Kuwaiti conversational
language as well as the names of the UAE
landmarks and streets. But it doesn’t limit the
usefulness of these lessons because all Gulf
dialects are closer to each other which prompted
me to name it GCC spoken Arabic. I have also
provided colloquial variants wherever necessary,
including the Levant and Egyptian dialects,
alongside the modern standard Arabic, the
backbone of the Arabic language.
Thank you visiting the website and I wish you
all a productive journey with LearnArabic, in
the same way I started my journey with this
wonderful language nearly two decades ago.
Mohamed Abdul Jaleel
Founder, LearnArabic, An ownline Initiative
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