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Arabic language teaching and the real linguistic situation:

What does linguistic empirical research teach us about Arabic

language levels?

Mark Van Mol KU Leuven, Belgium

Abstract

The field of teaching Arabic as a foreign language has witnessed a lengthy debate

on which variety level of Arabic to teach. Linguists’ attempts to identify distinct

registers within the Arabic language have created a challenge for authors of Arabic

language textbooks. It is clear that the Arabic language consists of (several) layers.

The theoretical divisions (from diglossia to multiglossia) scholars came up with have

had their impact on textbooks and programs for the teaching of the Arabic language.

Some prefer to maintain a clear distinction between a vernacular and Modern

Standard Arabic, while others concentrate on vernaculars only. More recently some

authors introduced Modern Standard Arabic together with one or more vernaculars.

The common challenge for all these authors lies in the integration of real-life content

material into Arabic language programs. To this end, the Leuven Language

Institute (KU Leuven) has composed the Modern Arabic Representative Corpus –

2000 (MARC-2000). One of the issues we have to solve in the corpus is precisely

the categorization of Arabic language levels. This categorization is important

because the aim of the computer programs we are developing is to offer authentic

language samples to students of Arabic adapted to their study level and necessities.

In this paper, we conduct an empirical investigation on our language samples in order

to identify which language elements are sufficiently important to serve as operational

criteria for the distinction between different levels. With an eye to language teaching

of Arabic the key question remains, indeed, to what extent a classification into

different operational language levels is useful and desirable.

Keywords: Arabic corpus linguistics, Arabic language teaching, Arabic language

levels

1 A brief historical survey on language layers of Arabic according to some scientific descriptions

We start with an overview of the history of the description of language layers in Arabic in Modern

Times. It is important to note here that, in my view, the descriptions that were made by the Arabic

linguists were genuine. We claim that the increase in the number of language levels corresponds

to the evolution of Arabic language itself over time. The first description by Marçais (1930c) as

diglossia seems to correspond quite well with the Arabic language situation in that period in the

region of North-Africa. His work shows that, de facto, two different language levels existed side

by side in North-Africa, leaving aside French as the language used by the colonists and the elite

and the regions where Berber language was prevalent. It is important to keep in mind that Marçais

wrote his articles, as far as the part on Algeria is concerned, 100 years after the French occupation,

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due to which the influence of French in Algeria spread year by year. It is very well conceivable

that also before the arrival of the French, a Fuṣḥā variety was used alongside the Algerian

dialect(s). The first being limited in use for written purposes, whereas the second was used for

daily communications. Another specific element for North-Africa, and especially the region of

Morocco and Algeria was the coexistence of two languages for oral communication, namely

Arabic and Berber dialects. It is not surprising that Ferguson in his articles in 1959 and 1960

sticks to the concept of diglossia, as the influence of Arabic language Academies was still limited

at that time in history. After all, Morocco and Tunisia only obtained their independence in 1956

and Algeria in 1962. The Academy of the Arabic Language in Rabat was founded in 1962, two

years after the publications of Ferguson. Even though Egypt gained its independence much earlier

(1922), the influence of Britain remained very profound till the coup of the Free Officers in 1952.

The academy of the Arabic Language in Egypt was founded in 1934. The Academy of the Arabic

Language in Damascus, on the other hand, was founded in 1919, but Syria gained its

independence almost thirty years later in 1946. Moreover, illiteracy was huge in these periods of

history.

The first scientific observer to distinguish between more than two levels was Blanc (1960)

(five levels), but he examined a very limited sample of what he called inter-Arabic speech of four

native speakers, two from Bagdad (Iraq), one from Jerusalem and one from Aleppo (Syria). These

four interlocutors lived in the United States when their conversation was recorded, which makes

the setting of the recorded language sample quite extraordinary, in the sense of “not quite natural”,

because people in the Arab world at that time did not travel as much as they do nowadays..

Moreover, language contact between Arabs in that period was not very intense. We may therefore

consider the study of Blanc as an experimental setting in which observations were made on

communication between Arabs of nearby regions of which 50 percent had an Iraqi origin. In 1973,

Badawi also made a distinction between five levels, based on an analysis of radio broadcasts in

Egypt. Badawi was the first to describe the language levels in terms of a continuum of which the

borders were not always clearly distinguishable. In contrast to Blanc, Badawi focused on language

levels within one Arabic variety, namely Egypt and limited to one medium: Egyptian broadcast

programs. Others adhered to the notion of diglossia, such as Diem in 1974, who examined

literature in 1974, and Tapiéro in 1976 for his teaching materials. Later on, other distinctive levels

were introduced. Mitchell (1978) came up with three levels (Triglossia) as did his pupil El Hassan

(1977, 1978). Meiseles (1975, 1980) made a distinction between four language levels

(Quadriglossia). Finally, Hary (1996) made a distinction between eleven Arabic language levels.

One of the last publications in the field from Dichy (2007) raises the concept of pluriglossia, but

in his paper he confines himself, in practice, to five distinguished levels. Notwithstanding all these

different opinions, even today some authors (e.g. Ibrahim & Mohab 2010 and Ibrahim 2012))

continue to base their analysis of Arabic on the dichotomist diglossic division between a High

and a Low variety.

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2 How did the Arabic language evolve in the last centuries?

The discussion on to what degree to distinguish between different language levels for Arabic is

not by definition a question of right or wrong. As I argued before, the different descriptions are

clearly linked to a certain historical period. When we place the Arabic language in reference to

the historical time lapse of the last centuries, we observe a certain evolution in the description of

language levels that might well be on pace with its historical evolution. To start our historical

survey, it might be fruitful to go back in history as far as 1831 when the famous lexicographer

and translator Rifā‘a al-Ṭahṭāwī returned to Egypt at the age of 30 after a stay in Paris that lasted

five years. al-Ṭahṭāwī founded in Cairo the School of Languages in 1835 and contributed a lot to

the renewal of the Arabic language at that time, especially by coining new terms and expressions.

Although we do not have any audio recordings of that period, it seems obvious that for oral

communication Egyptians relied on their Egyptian dialect, whereas the use of Classical Arabic or

the very first attempts of what was labeled several decades later as Modern Standard Arabic, was

limited to written language use1. It seems logical that, for several reasons, among others the

inexistence of mass communication means and the lack of a need for the overwhelming majority

of the population to communicate beyond the borders of daily life settings, only two very clearly

distinguished language layers, the well-known diglossia, co-existed at that time. This situation

remained quite stable for about a hundred years, because Marçais (1930a) in his description

(although he focusses on the Maghreb) bases his concept of diglossia sharply on the distinction

between a written and a spoken language. Meanwhile, several social transformations have taken

place at the sociolinguistic level, both in private and public sphere. In general, three main

influences can be distinguished at the sociolinguistic level: the colonization and subsequent

independence, the spread of mass communication and the diminishing level of illiteracy due to

the gradual Arabization of Arab countries, although with a different pace for each country

separately. When we classify studies about Arabic language levels according to generations, some

interesting features can be remarked. When we consider a generation to last approximately 25

years we observe the following: between the work of al-Ṭahṭāwī (ca. 1830) and the publication

of Marçais (1930c) we count four generations, a period for which we assume that, as far as

language levels are concerned, no tangible evolutions took place, except the fact that the

intelligentsia in Egypt probably benefited from the work of al-Ṭahṭāwī to widen their knowledge

of Modern Written Arabic. The first split in language levels is observed approximately one

generation later, although not by everyone. Ferguson (1959, 1960) sticks to the diglossic

dichotomy of a High variety and a Low variety, whereas Blanc (1960) makes his well-known

distinction between five language levels. We might label this period as the pre-independence

period.2 43 years later, or almost two generations after the publication of Marçais (1930c),

Badawi (1973) presents the most detailed description of language levels in his famous

mustawayāt al-ʿarabīya al-muʿāṣira fī Miṣr. Baḥṯ fī ʿalāqāt al-luġa bi-l-ḥaḍāra. These and

following studies were published in the post-colonial period. It was a period when step by step an

Arabization process took place in different countries in the Arab world in order to replace the

language of the colonizers. This happened first in the primary schools and gradually also in

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secondary schools, high schools and universities, but also in the world of government and

administration. In this period, radio and television started to be broadcast in Arabic language,

which had an increasing influence on the population and the evolution in their language use.3 The

divisions in Triglossia and Quadriglossia also date from the post-Colonial period.

3 How did developers of teaching material respond to the problem of the multilevel character of Arabic?

It seems that the teaching of Arabic as foreign language outside the Arab world has always been

determined by historical circumstances and the specific needs in these periods. Centuries ago

contacts between Europeans and Arabs remained generally limited to a very small number of

specialists. The study of the evolution of the contents of language courses shows that historical

circumstances played a major role in defining the contents of language courses and the way

languages were taught. At the universities of Leiden in the Netherlands and Leuven in Belgium,

the study of Arabic was in its early days limited to the written language only. Courses

concentrated mainly on grammar and religious studies. The main aim was the study of the Koran

in the realm of the study on the comparison of religions. The books that were published to study

Arabic focused almost exclusively on Classical Arabic grammar of which the standard

grammatical works of Wright (1859) for the English speaking region, Blachère & Gaudefroy-

Demombynes (1975) for the French speaking region and Brockelmann (1941, based on Socins’

grammar) for the German speaking region testify. For these authors the only language layer of

interest was Classical Arabic. It was that language layer that had to be studied and taught in

Western universities. Only one linguistic skill was required, namely, analyzing and understanding

written (Classical) Arabic texts by means of grammatical insight. It is illustrative that up to the

year 1966 students could not enroll for the Arabic course at the University of Leuven unless they

had obtained their two-year university bachelor degree in philosophy or theology4. On the other

hand, the start of the colonization of different regions in the Arab world led to the need for the

foreign, in the majority of cases French, administrators to learn local dialects in order to be able

to communicate with the local population on different kinds of levels and situations. During the

colonization period, many different manuals were published to teach Arabic dialects of all kinds,

but exclusively in the languages of the colonizing countries, France, and to a lesser extent, Britain.

That is why the language of the colonizer became decisive for which Arabic dialect to study and

to teach and to publish on. It is clear that they chose to teach the variety that was considered to be

most effective for their purposes, namely local vernaculars. For the Maghreb dialects we find a

whole series of French studies and manuals that were published during the period of colonization.

Until today, these scientific works form a serious basis to engage in diachronic linguistic research.

They remain benchmarks to which we can refer today if we want to trace the evolution of different

Maghrebi dialects. English works concentrated on Arabic dialects in those countries where Britain

exercised its influence. For that reason we do not find many, if at all, German schoolbooks

thoroughly discussing Arabic dialects5. After the independence, we observe a change in interest

from dialects to the so-called Modern Standard Arabic6. This evolution is probably due to the

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increasing efforts of the different Arab countries to start Arabization campaigns in all levels and

domains of society, with variable success. The idea of a pan Arabic region was widespread and

flourishing. Arabic schoolbooks invariably printed a map of al-waṭan al-ʿarabiyy, suggesting that

the Arab world was meant to be united and in which al-Fuṣḥā was considered both to be

muwaḥḥida and muwaḥḥada, unifying and unified. This propagation of al-Fuṣḥā, which was the

language supposed to be used in written and oral formal media, literature and the like, probably

pushed the American and European language institutes to the study and publication of school

books and manuals that concentrated on Fuṣḥā or MSA. As if it was expected that sooner or later

Fuṣḥā would become the lingua Franca of the Arab world and that nobody in the Western world

was willing to miss that train. Indeed, from the late fifties on we see a series of books being

published to teach the language of all Arabs, Modern Standard Arabic. It started in the United

States with the book of Ziadeh and Winder (1957), followed by the so-called “Orange books” by

Abboud & McCarus (1975) and their team. But also in European countries interest in Modern

Standard Arabic as a means of understanding the “new” Arab world grew steadily. People wanted

to study the “unified Arabic” of al-waṭan al-ʿarabiyy, in the conviction that Educated Arabs spoke

this language, and were able to communicate by means of Fuṣḥā talk. In that period, books of all

levels of depth and quality were published in a variety of European countries (see e.g. Tapiéro,

1973; Reig, 1977; d’Alverny, 1982 for France; Ambros, 1969; Fischer & Jastrow, 1977 for

Germany; Van Mol, 1984, 2007 for Belgium; and Woidich & Rabha, 1998 for the Netherlands).

But the most remarkable element that supports this thesis is that also books in Eastern Europe

relied on the MSA language layer for their teachings of Arabic language. In the Cold War period,

both East and West desired to gain a maximum of influence in the Arab world. Consequently,

precisely in this period we observe that both sides concentrate on MSA as a tool to understand

Arabs and to communicate with them. Indeed, in 1974, one of the most thorough teaching manuals

of that time was published in Leipzig (Eastern-Germany) by Günther Krahl and Wolfgang

Reuschel. In the trimmed down English version of the book (Schulz & Reuschel: 2000) the

(largely communistic) texts, which were of vital importance from the pedagogical point of view,

were deleted, albeit that some of the communistic terminology eluded the translators’ notice,

among others the word comrade, for example. We can consider these books as attempts to keep

up with the expected evolution of Arabic language use in the region.

In the last decade, several books have been published aiming at combining the Modern Standard

Arabic level with vernacular elements. Probably the main reason for these initiatives is the

growing conviction that some intermediate level of Arabic exists that ought to be taught to

apprentices of Arabic. The major proponent of that idea was Mitchell, who claimed that Educated

Arabs spoke a specific variety of Arabic which he labeled as ESA: Educated Spoken Arabic. The

two endeavors to respond to this presumed reality are the Al-Kitaab series of Brustad et al. (2004)

and the Arabiyyat al-Naas series of Munther et al. (2014). The difference between the two series

is that Brustad’s series discusses MSA together with two dialects, Egyptian and Syrian, more or

less separately, whereas the Younes’ series claim to integrate MSA and Levantine Arabic7. The

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question is whether there is sufficient scientific evidence to support such a claim. There is no

doubt that code-switching occurs, but another question that might be raised is whether these

initiatives have not been overtaken by the events in the field. Indeed, since the appearance of the

Al-Jazeera television channel, we have the impression that the great majority of journalists

working for Al-Jazeera present their comments and coverages in plain Fuṣḥā. My personal

experience, for the last decade, is that young people are capable to converse in Fuṣḥā and do so

when the opportunity calls for it. This does not mean that many external influences do oscillate

the performance of Arabic. Different tendencies push the practice of Arabic in the direction of

Fuṣḥā, whereas other circumstances lead to an increase in the use of vernaculars. It is clear that

IS promotes the use of Fuṣḥā by their adherents, because they attach a great importance to the

Koran and religious language. Al-Jazeera also promotes the use of Fuṣḥā because their main aim

is to cover the entire Arab world. On the other hand, I always have been struck by the fact that

Yasser Arafat and Palestinian spokesmen always used Fuṣḥā to convey their message to the Arab

world. Apparently they wanted their message to be understood by as many intellectual Arabs as

possible. The Arab world, indeed, has changed. Illiteracy has diminished. More and more people

understand Fuṣḥā, but do not always understand the dialects of each other. On the other hand, the

application of Fuṣḥā in written or oral communication, in the long run, largely depends on

education. One of the questions, among others, is what the effect will be of the collapse of the

Syrian and Libyan societies on language usage in these countries. On the one hand, we see an

impetus towards Fuṣḥā both from a secular and a religious basis but, on the other hand,

circumstances lead to a relinquishing to strive for Fuṣḥā, simply because the use of Fuṣḥā depends

on education, and people in instable states and refugees in camps or elsewhere try to survive and

lack the motivation or do not have the appropriate means to study Fuṣḥā. Also the emergence of

new communication means, such as sms, Facebook and twitter, seem to lead to a relinquishing of

the strive to also use Fuṣḥā in written communication8. In short, we observe opposite tendencies

of which we do not know the outcome yet. On the other hand, colleagues from Mohammed V

University at the Wocal8 conference, claimed that many youngsters are rather interested in the

study of European languages, especially in view of the job market, than in the study of Arabic.

But what about empirical linguistic research? What does this research tell us about Arabic

language levels?

4 The different approaches of scientists on Arabic language layers

What is remarkable is that the authors under investigation almost all examine language situations

that are not always comparable to each other. In other words, they draw their conclusions, not

only from different samples of languages, but also from different perspectives on Arabic language

use.

4.1 Different language samples by the investigators

When we compare the language levels the authors define and the number of levels they propose,

we arrive at a remarkable observation. Some of their conclusions contradict the conclusions of

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others. Let us start with the diglossia concept, regardless of the period in which this distinction

was considered to be the correct scientific description of Arabic language levels. The only

common basis is to be found in the work of Marçais (1930c) and Tapiéro (1976). Both base their

division on two different kinds of language use. They both make a sharp distinction between a

High variety, which is the written language (Fuṣḥā) and a Low variety, which is the vernacular.

They describe the language situation in their respective period, with a time lapse of almost two

generations (46 years). They also limit their observations on samples of a limited region. Ferguson

(1959, 1960) and Diem (1974), on the other hand, diverge from these, in that Ferguson does not

make this dichotomist distinction between (Modern) written Arabic, but between Classical

(historical) Arabic and all kinds of vernaculars. It is clear that his scientific interests and objectives

differ from the two previous mentioned authors. He focuses on Classical Arabic, precisely

because he wanted to demonstrate an historical evolution, namely how and in what respect

vernaculars started to diverge from Classical Arabic. Diem (1974), in contrast to the others, bases

his findings mainly on literature. Indeed, in some written booklets vernacular is used in order to

make these more accessible to a larger public.9 The Triglossia option promoted by Mitchell

(1978) with his focus on Educated Spoken Arabic, distinguishes between Modern Standard

Arabic, which in his view is limited to the written language,10 educated spoken Arabic and

vernaculars. But a scrutiny of some of his articles, does raise some doubts about his findings with

regard to Educated Spoken Arabic. First of all, as far as I know, Mitchell & El-Hassan (1994) do

not give us much detail about their informants, nor about the exact composition of the Leeds

corpus. How was it sampled, who were the informants, in which places and which conditions

were the samples collected?11 But when we take a closer look at the language utterances in his

latest book and his articles about ESA, what strikes one most is that we almost only find rather

basic daily sentences, which could, in my opinion, as well be spoken by non-educated speakers.

When we choose at random a few sentences from his articles and book (Mitchell & El-Hassan

1994), it becomes clear that, although it might be quite possible that we have to do with educated

speakers, the contexts in which they speak require a plain vernacular style of language. The

sentences chosen do certainly not indicate that the corpus consists of high level discussions on

elevated or abstract matters. To illustrate we cite a few randomly chosen examples from his 1994

book: “Would you like to come with us?” (p. 22), “Isn’t there a taxi we can go in?” (p. 42), “I am

greatly indebted to you.” (p. 80), “What are you doing?” (p. 90). And two examples from his 1978

article: “He wears the suit.” (p. 238) and “I saw him coming out of the house.” (p. 252). Does this

mean that there is no such thing like Educated Spoken Arabic? Evidently not. But in my view, in

order to investigate educated speech, you need to examine Arabs talking about subjects of high

intellectual level, such as they do, for example, in programs like ar-ra’y w-ar-ra’y al-’āḫar on

the Al-Jazeera channel. In my view, the samples given by Mitchell are not representative of

educated speech, but rather represent daily dialectal conversations. We all know that the

circumstances in which language is used, to a large extent determine the language level. As far as

I can see, we also have no clear view on the level of education of the informants.

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The quadriglossia option of Meiseles (1977), but also the five-level option of Blanc (1960) and

Badawi (1973) are based on other kinds of language samples. Meiseles (1977) bases his findings

on a corpus of recordings taken between 1969 and 1974 from the broadcasting stations of Cairo,

Damascus, Amman and the Arabic broadcasts of the Israeli Broadcasting Service in Jerusalem.

Blanc, on the other hand, investigates Interdialectal Educated Conversation, a designation that,

in contrast to Mitchell, clearly indicates that his informants, although they were educated

speakers, conversed among themselves in dialect, a level that seems to concord with the sample

sentences of Mitchell, although the latter does not designate his samples as dialectal language.

But a scrutiny of the work of Blanc also raises some important questions on the level of education

of the informants that participated in his experimental concise conversation. First of all, the

publication date places the conversation analyzed by Blanc for the participants in the colonial

period, because the recording took place in 1958 and in the US. When we take a closer look at

the description of the participants by themselves (pp. 133-139) we obtain the following picture:

Bagdadi speaker 01 obtained his master in commerce and economics in 1953 (p. 134). The

question that is not answered is whether the courses in Bagdad in that period in higher education

institutes, but also in primary and secondary schools, were taught in English or in Arabic. In 1956,

he left for the US to continue his studies of economics. After two years he became a teacher of

Arabic as a foreign language. The second participant, a Palestinian, graduated from an English

secondary school in Jerusalem, probably12 in 1947. He did not complete his higher education

studies, but started to work for the UN. After working six years for the UN, he came to America

as a refugee. In the US, he first worked in Chicago for the Lions Club, after which he also became

a teacher of Arabic at Monterey. The third participant from Syria was born in 1934. In 1939, he

entered the French school in Aleppo, called the Lycée Laïque, but after the expulsion of the

French from Syria he entered an American school, which is how he learned English (from a young

age). After that he continued his studies in the American University of Beirut. He pursued his

studies in commerce in America, and finally also became a teacher of Arabic at Monterey. About

the fourth participant no detailed information is available. The aforementioned elements show

that it is not sure that the persons that participated in the investigation of Blanc received a thorough

education or training in Arabic. There is no doubt that they are native speakers, but it seems that

they have all been heavily influenced by foreign education. It also becomes clear from their ‘life

story’ that they were not at all trained at least in their homelands to become teachers of Arabic.

Anyway, it is conceivable that in the period they went to primary and secondary schools in their

home country Arabic language could have been treated as a marginal subject. This raises the

question to what extent they mastered Fuṣḥā. We clearly have to do with heritage speakers who

were educated in the pre-colonial period. There is no doubt that they were educated people, but it

is by no means clear whether their education was based on intensive teaching by means of the

Arabic language. Moreover, although they became teachers of Arabic, they all studied subjects

(mainly the field of commerce) without any direct relationship to Arabic language.

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In the second place, the conversation the four persons conducted did, in my view, not deal with

an intellectually elevated topic. Although the objective of the conversation is to examine educated

speech among Arabs, the subject of the conversation does not lend itself for a performance of

educated speech. 30 percent of the conversation is introductory, where the participants talk about

their origin and their youth. Only 10 percent of the conversation might be considered to deal with

a more elevated topic when the participants discuss political issues, but in the remaining 60

percent of the conversation they are almost exclusively talking about their dialects and the

different words they have for different objects, more specifically food and dishes. In some, this

language sample differs from the other language samples, in that the participants all had a

different education, in which they were heavily influenced by other languages. Moreover, they

lived abroad and they held their conversation in an experimental setting discussing mainly

dialectal issues. They are convinced that in a more or less remote time span Arabs will be able to

understand the dialectal words of other Arabs that differ from their own dialects. What strikes one

most is that none of them suggests an alternative Fuṣḥā word to be used in the future for

communication between Arabs for the dialectal words they mention.

As for the four levels (Quadriglossia), Meiseles based his observations on what he designates as

Oral Literary Arabic, an oral form of written language. The distinction on five levels is also based

on very divergent language samples. The most documented one from Badawi (1973) is based on

his, non-representative, observations of all kinds of programs from the Egyptian radio broadcast,

which comprises both read aloud speech from written documents and spontaneous speech in

interviews. All his samples contain speech uttered by Egyptians only.

We may conclude that all these authors discuss Arabic language usage from different sources,

angles or bases. These facts make the comparability of these different investigations difficult, not

to say hardly possible. Badawi determined his five levels not on the basis of conversation among

Arabs of different origin, but on language samples from a large variety of native speakers sharing

the same nationality, viz. Egyptians. Finally, Dichy (2007) traces at large the same division, but

he bases his analysis on the limited utterances of one Syrian speaker. Provided that that speaker

had reached a (very) high level of education, this might match with the observations of Badawi,

but one might still wonder whether the results of all these investigations can be compared with

one another on a firm scientific basis. These facts complicate to some degree the comparability

of these linguistic findings. Despite the same number of levels, the sociolinguistic situation on

which these divisions are based differ thoroughly. The eleven levels of Hary (1996: 82) are solely

based on one or two utterances of spoken Arabic, namely the different ways in which a person

can express in Arabic the sentence: I saw him. Finally, the triglossia option of Mitchell was an

attempt to describe Arabic language use in inter-Arabic or pan-Arabic communication. His main

aim was to prove that a new common koine had developed in the Arab world, of which he

arduously attempted to describe its characteristics.

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4.2 Researchers investigate different language elements

When we take a closer look at the abovementioned elements scientists investigate to describe the

different levels of Arabic, we observe that they draw their conclusions on a large variety of

different linguistic elements. Apparently the scientists differ in their choice of linguistic elements

to describe or define the different language levels of Arabic. In the following table we compare

the linguistic elements raised by four important authors to serve as a basis of comparison between

their views on different language levels.

Characteristic\author Marçais

1930c

Ferguson

1960

Badawi13

1973

Mitchell

1980

Total of

elements

% of

elements

% of

Authors

Lexicon 4 1 9714 2 104 56.5% 100

Phonology 1 2 11 12 26 14% 100

Morphology 1 9 1 11 22 12% 100

Syntax 2 1 7 5 15 8% 100

Style 4 - - 1 5 3% 50

Stress 1 - - 1 2 1% 50

Intonation - - 1 1 2 1% 50

Syntax - style - - - 5 5 3% 25

Tempo - - - 1 1 0.5% 25

Morphophonology - - - 1 1 0.5% 25

Rhythm - - 1 - 1 0.5% 25

Total 13 13 108 40 184 100% 55

Table 01: Linguistic elements quoted to discern between Arabic language levels

In table 01, we show the number of examples four renowned scientists consider to be important

indicators to discern between Arabic language levels. Although the different authors examined

Arabic language levels from a different angle, we observe that some linguistic elements are

quoted by all four as key elements to discern between language levels, whereas other elements

were only raised by a few or only one of them. Furthermore, table 01 reveals that, in general,

authors attach greater importance to some linguistic elements over others as key elements to

discern between language levels. We observe that all authors refer to the following four linguistic

elements, albeit in a different degree. First and foremost comes the lexicon. The lexicon is most

often cited as discriminative linguistic element between Arabic language levels with a large

majority of 56.5%. Most examples are given by Badawi (97), followed by Marçais (4 examples),

Mitchell (2 examples) and finally Ferguson (1 example). More than 90% of the linguistic elements

which the scientists consider to be important or crucial for the delimitation of different language

levels, besides the lexicon, are constituted by phonology (14%), followed by morphology (12%)

and syntax (8%)15. Other linguistic elements (the minority of less than 10%) are mentioned by

some of the authors, but not by all of them. Half of the above cited authors pay attention to style,

both Marçais (1930c) and Mitchell (1980) (3%), of which four examples are given by Marçais

and one by Mitchell. Both Marçais (1930c) and Mitchell (1980) mention one example for stress

(1%) and both Badawi (1973) and Mitchell (1980) mention one example for intonation (1%).

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Only one researcher (Mitchell: 1980) mentions linguistic elements that are neglected by all other

authors. These elements are: the combination of syntax and style (of which five examples are

given), tempo (only one example) and morphophonology (only one example). But what about

corpus linguistics? To what extent can corpus linguistics shine more light on the question of

language levels in Arabic? One of the advantages of analysis of corpora is that statistics come

into play, which will give us a more objective insight in the degree to which certain language

elements occur in different language samples. To this purpose we analyze the occurrence of

certain distinctive dialectal linguistic elements in a part of the Modern Arabic Representative

Corpus – 2000 (MARC-2000) that contains representative samples of Arabic language use in

different Arab countries.

5 A concise overview of the MARC-2000 corpus16

The MARC-2000 corpus currently comprises over 15,000,000 words of original Arabic language

use. The corpus is divided into three main parts. The first source contains Media language

(5,000,000 words), of which half originates from written sources and of which the other half

contains oral language production in the media (half formal and half informal speech). The second

source includes Literature (5,000,000 words), of which half contains texts from fiction and the

other half non-fiction. The third source are school books (5,000,000 words), which represent the

normative language, not in the way it has been described and registered in Arabic grammatical

works, but as it is conceived in practice by a large variety of school book compilers. All sources

date from the beginning of the second millennium (the year 2000) and cover five different

countries that represent different regions in the Arab world: Morocco, Egypt, Lebanon, the Gulf

and international sources, such as, for example, newspapers published in London. In what follows

we want to investigate to what degree language levels can be discovered and described by means

of a representative Arabic corpus. For this particular investigation we limit ourselves to the fiction

part of the corpus and to three countries that are represented in that corpus, namely Morocco,

Egypt and Lebanon (all approximately 625,000 words)17

5.1 Which linguistic elements can be examined by the MARC-2000 corpus and what kind of

results can be expected?

The MARC-2000 corpus has been digitized and tagged according to a specific tag-encoding

procedure. This procedure enables us to find a number of linguistic elements throughout the

corpus quickly and without noise, which in raw corpora only could be found by means of

painstaking work. It also provides the facility to produce statistics that enhance our findings.

Indeed, studying preceding research the results found are described in vague terms that can be

interpreted in very different ways. Badawi (1973), for instance, uses the descriptions: “few, much

less, many, very much, this characteristic diminishes more and more”, etc. The same kind of

observations are found in most other studies on language levels. These, however, do not give an

objective view on the degree to which certain linguistic elements occur in language use, nor of

their importance. Some might interpret certain occurrences as “few” whereas others might

12

interpret the same occurrences as “many”. The use of statistics gives an objective view on which

researchers might agree or disagree about the intensity of the registered frequency, depending

maybe on their own experience and impressions, but the facts cannot be discussed, except when

other statistic results would be obtained after the same research is repeated on a comparable

corpus (see also Ditters: 2013). Our aim is to obtain objective data on Arabic linguistic features,

usages and occurrences.

5.2 The examination of the presence of dialectal linguistic elements in Arab fiction

When authors describe the notion MSA, they often refer to the language of literature as a pure

form. The question is to what extent that allegation is true. In order to find an answer we examine

the degree to which dialectal elements occur in Arabic Fiction in different regions of the Arab

world. In order to do so we choose five elements that are unmarked forms in dialectal Arabic. We

do not concentrate on one specific grammatical category, but try to investigate this issue by means

of five different indicators. The first element we choose is a verbal particle, viz. the counterpart

particle of the MSA particle of the future sa, which is ḥa in Egypt, rāḥ in Lebanon and ÈÁ or ÈÁdi

in Morocco. On the other hand, we examine another linguistic element that differs from those

already mentioned, viz. the encroachment of the dialectal relative particle elli in Modern Arabic

literature. Two other elements we use to measure the influence of elements from the dialectal

level in Arabic literature are on the lexical level, viz., the dialectal counterpart of the MSA

adjective with the notion of Ôayyib, and the occurrence of the dialectal counterpart of the MSA

adverb al-Þāna. As a last benchmark to trace dialectal influences in literary works we choose the

verbal prefixes of the durative present bi for Egypt and Lebanon and ka for Morocco. These

particles do not have any counterpart in MSA.

5.3 What does linguistic empirical research teach us about the presence of dialectal linguistic

elements in Arab fiction?

The first element we investigate is the frequency and distribution of verbal particles of the future

in Arabic fiction. The meaning of the numbers in the first column are explained underneath each

column.

Country EGY EGY EGY MOR MOR MOR LBA LBA LBA

Particle sa sawfa ḥa sa sawfa ÈÁdi/ ÈÁ sa sawfa rāḥ

01 →18 28.3 6.3 3.75 43.2 1.475 0.9 31.55 2.7 0.6

02 → 95 70 32.5 100 32.5 15 100 45 12.5

03 → 1133 252 150 1728 59 36 1262 108 24

04 → 74 16 10 94.8 3.2 2 90 8 2

01 Nominal average of occurrences of each particle for every book

02 Distribution and percentage of occurrences for all books

03 Nominal total of occurrences for all books together

04 Percentage of the particle on the total of particles for that specific country

Table 02: Frequency and distribution of verbal particles of the future

13

Table 02 reveals that authors clearly have the choice between the MSA particle and the dialectal

particle of the future, because both are used in literature. However, the dialectal one occurs most

prominently in Egypt (in 32.5% of all books and in 10% of all cases), followed by Morocco (in

15% of all books and in 2% of all cases) and finally Lebanon (in 12.5% of all books and in 2% of

all cases).

Country EGY EGY MOR MOR LBA LBA

Adverb ’al-Þān delweqti ’al-Þān dāba ’al-Þān hallaq

01 → 11.6 0.075 13.9 0.2 14.05 0.025

02 → 95 5 90 5 100 2.5

03 → 463 3 559 8 562 1

04 → 99.5 0.5 98.5 1.5 99.8 0.2





Table 03: Frequency and distribution of adverbs meaning now

Table 03 reveals that the choice for the dialectal adverb is less prominent than the choice of the

dialectal particle of the future. The order of the countries is the same as in table two. The dialectal

one occurs most prominently in Egypt (in 5% of all books and in 0.5% of all cases), on the same

level with Morocco (in 5% of all books and in 1.5% of all cases), followed by Lebanon (in 2.5%

of all books and in 0.2% of all cases).


Adjective Ôayyib kwayyes Ôayyib mezyān Ôayyib mnÐÎ

01 → 2.75 0.45 2.825 0.3 0.975 0.1

02 → 80 20 72.5 10 35 5

03 → 110 18 113 12 39 4

04 → 86 14 90.5 9.5 91 9





Table 04: Frequency and distribution of adjectives meaning good

Table 04 reveals that the choice for the dialectal adjective is more prominent than the choice of

the dialectal adverb but less prominent than the dialectal particle of the future. The order of the

countries, however, remains the same as in table two. The dialectal equivalent adjective of the

MSA counterpart Ôayyib occurs most prominently in Egypt (in 20% of all books and in 14% of

all cases), followed by Morocco (in 10% of all books and in 9.5% of all cases) and Lebanon (in

5% of all books and in 9% of all cases).

14

Country EGY EGY LBA LBA MOR MOR

Pronoun allati elli Allati elli allati elli

01 → 43.25 4.475 46.025 0.85 51.325 0.74

02 → 100 45 100 22.5 100 15

03 → 1730 179 1841 34 2053 54

04 → 90.5 9.5 98 2 97.5 2.5





Table 05: Frequency and distribution of the relative pronoun elli

For the fourth element we chose to compare the dialectal relative pronoun elli only with the

feminine singular counterpart in MSA allati because a comparison with all the other possible

counterparts in MSA would yield huge MSA numbers that would make the comparison less clear.

This means, however, that the results of table 05 cannot be compared to the results of the other

tables. An important observation is that the order of the countries contrasts with the order for the

other grammatical elements investigated (see also note 18). The dialectal relative pronoun occurs

most prominently in Egypt (in 45% of all books and in 9.5% of all cases compared to the feminine

particle allati), followed by Lebanon (in 22.5% of all books and in 2% of all cases) and finally by

Morocco (in 15% of all books and in 2.5% of all cases).

Country EGY LBA MOR

Present particle Bi bi ka

01 6.1 5.875 0.925

02 42.5 25 4

03 244 235 37





Table 06: Frequency and distribution of the dialectal particle of the present

Another specific case are the particles of the present, because they have no counterpart in MSA.

Here too we observe that the order of the countries has changed in the same way as in the previous

table. The most prominent dialectal use is in Egypt (in 42.5% of all books, followed by Lebanon

(in 25% of all books) and finally by Morocco (in 4% of all books). In the following table we show

an overview of the intensity of the penetration of dialectal elements in Arabic literature by adding

up the results.

15


Density in

number of

grammatical

elements

Number

of books

Total of

occurrences

Number

of books

Total of

occurrences

Number

of books

Total of

occurrences

4 7 462 3 62 3 48

3 6 95 2 59 1 2

2 3 32 3 12 3 3

1 4 5 8 14 8 10

Total 20 594 16 147 15 63

Table 07: Comparison between the different books. Overview of the intensity and penetration of

different dialectal elements in every book separately

Table 07 brings us back to the original order, namely that in Egypt the penetration of dialectal

elements is the most intense one. Because we measure the results on the basis of corpora of

comparable sizes, the percentages give a clear view on the degree of that penetration. In order to

give a better comparison we add in table 08 two kinds of percentages. The first series of

percentages in the column next to the number of books following in decreasing order the variety

of dialectal elements in Arabic fiction of the MARC-2000 corpus are in italics. It is quite

astonishing that in Egypt 35% of the investigated books contain four quite divergent dialectal

grammatical elements. For Morocco (19%) and Lebanon (20%) the percentages resemble each

other. As far as the occurrences are concerned, in total Egypt literary fiction contains the highest

percentage of dialectal elements (74%) followed by Morocco (18%) the percentage of which is

much lower, and finally Lebanon (8%) where literature contains the lowest percentage of dialectal

elements in literature.

Country EGY EGY EGY EGY MOR MOR MOR MOR LBA LBA LBA LBA Total

Density

in

number

of gram

elements

Books % Oc-

cur-

rences

% Books % Oc-

cur-

rences

% Books % Oc-

cur-

rences

% %

Occu

rence

4 7 35 462 81 3 19 62 11 3 20 48 8 100

3 6 30 95 61 2 12 59 38 1 7 2 1 100

2 3 15 32 68 3 19 12 26 3 20 3 6 100

1 4 20 5 5 8 50 77 84 8 53 10 11 100

Total 20 100 594 74 16 100 147 18 15 100 63 8

Table 08: Overview and percentages of the intensity and penetration of dialectal elements in

every book separately

6 Conclusion

In this paper we intended to examine the issue of the occurrence of Arabic language levels, such

as they have been described by a number of authors and their repercussions on the teaching of

Arabic. We have demonstrated that authors that have examined language levels, more often than

16

not base their findings on different kinds of language samples, but also on different sorts of

linguistic features. We have tried to give a survey both of the linguistic elements on which the

chosen authors agree on their relevance, as well as on elements on which some authors stand

alone. Because most literature on language levels remains limited to an enumeration of examples

found in different areas of Arabic language use , they give no further insight in the degree to

which linguistic dialectal elements occur in Arabic language. In order to give empirical evidence

on this issue we conducted an investigation on the occurrence of some of the key dialectal

linguistic elements in the fiction sub-corpus of the MARC-2000 corpus. The results we have

discussed in the article lead to some practical conclusions, first of all with regard to the MARC-

2000 corpus itself. The results of our examination raise some new questions that have

consequences for the design and further categorization and meta-labeling of the corpus. The main

question we raise here is: do these dialectal elements occur only or mainly in the dialogues in the

corpus or do they also occur in the narrative text? The second question is: is there a significant

difference in the occurrence of these dialectal elements between dialogues and narrative text? The

consequence of these questions made it clear that we will have to make a clear distinction in the

database for all the literary works sampled between conversation parts and narrative parts. The

second main conclusion refers to the teaching of Arabic. The results make it clear that knowledge

of key dialectal elements is useful or necessary for those students that want to read and study

Arabic literature. It is beyond the scope of this article to give any advice on which level dialectal

elements should be introduced in the study of Arabic. Another question that arises, but that we

cannot yet answer is the following: is this trend in literature going to diminish in the future or is

it going to increase? The MARC-2000 corpus could serve as a benchmark for future research,

provided that a similar corpus will be composed a generation after the compilation of our corpus.

As we also have shown in the article, we counted several periods of 25 years as one generation to

illustrate the evolution in the past descriptions on layers in Arabic language. Predictions can be

made, but nothing is sure. To trace the evolution we will have to wait for the next ten years or so

to come.

1 For a detailed overview on the complex and confusing labelling of Arabic language layers see (Van

Mol: 2003: 22-70). 2 We do have to bear in mind that, historically speaking, the language situation in Egypt and the

Maghreb differs to a certain extent. For more details about the different language evolutions between

these two regions see: Van Mol (forthcoming). La langue arabe et la définition de ses différents

niveaux de langue. Exigences, possibilités et limitations d'une analyse numérique sur base de corpus

représentatifs in: Arabe standard et variations regionals, Quelle(s) politiques(s) linguistique(s) ?

Quelles(s) didactiques(s) ? éditions les archives contemporaines, col. PLID. 3 This does not mean that the barrier between the High Level and the Low level was lifted immediately.

I still recall that in the eighties radio programs in Algeria about family planning in Fuṣḥā needed a

remake in dialect because people of the lower classes did not understand Fuṣḥā at all. A colleague

from Mohammed V University of Rabat stated this Wocal conference (2015) that several students in

Morocco urge the teachers not to explain the lessons in Fuṣḥā but in dialect because they claim that it

is that way easier for them to understand what is taught. 4 For a detailed account on the evolution of language courses in the course of history, for example, in

Belgium see Van Mol in Belgium see: Van Mol (2015).

Notes

17

5 Without considering, of course, the excellent scientific work on Egyptian dialects by Behnstedt

and Woidich (1985-1999). 6 But even after independence, books to teach Arabic dialects were still published, but from another

angle. Harrell’s publications (1962, 1965, 1966) on Moroccan Arabic served the increasing interests

of the United States in several Arab countries. The fact that socio-political circumstances influence

the interest in certain language layers is also illustrated by the books for the study of Arabic language

that were published following the migration of North-African laborers to Europe. My book for the

study of Moroccan Arabic (1980) and the accompanying dictionary Moroccan Arabic – Dutch (1981),

emerged from a specific need, viz. the arrival of Moroccan migrant workers in the Northern part of

Belgium, Flanders. As these people most often were illiterate, communication between these people

and the entertaining society was very problematic. The choice which language layer to study and

teach spoke for itself. The Moroccan dialect was the only means by which communication could be

made possible between these laborers and our Flemish volunteers and social workers. The same goes

for the Netherlands, where another teaching manual for Moroccan Arabic in Dutch, compiled by

Hoogland (1996) served the same interests. It seems clear to me and obvious that Holes’ Gulf Arabic

(1984) reflects the interests of Britain and the US in the oil industry in the Gulf region. It is also quite

amazing that the teaching manual of Iraqi Arabic by Van Ess was reprinted during seven decades

with only minor revisions from 1917 (!) till the last version I know of (1976). Only after the renewed

interest of the US in Iraq Georgetown University Press started with the compilation of a new manual

for the teaching of Iraqi Arabic in 2003. It was a revision of Erwins’ A Basic Course in Iraqi Arabic

(1960). It was followed in 2006 by Alkalesis’ Modern Iraqi Arabic. 7 From my personal experience I arrived at the conviction that the best way to learn the different Arabic

language levels is to learn it in different phases, layer after layer. Personally I first learned the

Moroccan dialect from Migrant workers in Belgium. Once I mastered it, I concentrated on MSA.

After my mastering of MSA, I went to Egypt where I was able to master Egyptian Arabic in a very

short time, due to the fact that I already mastered Moroccan Arabic. As for the Berber dialect which

I also tried to study by means of Moroccan Berber migrant workers, contrary to Moroccan Arabic, I

had to give up my attempts quite quickly because the differences of the Berber dialects spoken by my

Moroccan informants were so big that I started to mix up everything, due to the fact that they came

from very different regions. Studying these different varieties together was very tiring and confusing.

But when I went to study in Cairo for one year I had to look for somebody to replace me for my work

as an interpreter. I was astonished to find that the Belgian person who replaced me, and who had lived

for several decades between the Kabyle population in Algeria, was very quickly able to converse with

the Moroccan Berbers in their local dialect. It confirmed my conviction that students at best first

study thoroughly one layer of a language before they start to study a new layer. 8 See for more detail: Albirini (2016). 9 In Morocco, for instance, a booklet to prepare oneself for the car driving test recently has been

published in plain vernacular. In Tunesia before the Arab spring quite a number of magazines were

also written in plain dialect. See also Ibrahim & Mohab (2010) and Ibrahim (2012) who refer to

diglossia, as far as written language is concerned, because due to the lack of vocalization, written

texts can often be read both as Fuṣḥā or as dialect. 10 One of his statements: “We do not have to expect Arabs to talk like a book”, is quite tricky, because

we know, among others, from Diem (1974) and Ibrahim & Mohab (2010) that the language of Arabic

Books often can be read both dialectically or pronounced as the standard language. 11 In the introduction of his most important work (Mitchell & El-Hassan 1994: vii) he writes: “It would

be difficult to underestimate the value of this (Leeds) corpus for the study of variation in modern

Educated Spoken Arabic, since it is unique in its size, comprehensiveness, covering educated spoken

usage in all the major centers of the eastern Arab world, and drawing from a wide variety of contexts

of use. Area-wide studies of this type are very rare, and ones which rely on a large and

representative data base are even rarer.” However, no information whatsoever is found in this

book about the corpus itself. 12 There is some confusion in the text about the birth date of that participant. In the Arab text (p. 117) the

date is ’alf tsi‘mi:ye ts‘aw‘ishri:n (1929), but in the English version the date is erroneously translated

as 1939 (p. 134).

18

13 Although we analyzed all works in detail, we do have to admit that we did not yet analyze the work of

Badawi completely, because of the overwhelming amount of data. Badawi’s study contains the most

detailed description of the linguistic elements he considered to be crucial in the distinction of Arabic

language levels. In a following article we hope to discuss all the elements Badawi attaches great

importance to in a detailed study. 14 Badawi mentions 53 calques, 38 words and 6 collocations. 15 The number of examples varies also for these categories. For phonology most examples are given by

Mitchell (12), followed by Badawi (11), Ferguson (2), and Marçais (only one example). As far as

morphology is concerned most examples are given by Mitchell (11), followed by Ferguson (9) and

Badawi and Marçais each one example. Most examples from syntax are found in Badawi (7) followed

by Mitchell (5), Marçais (2) and Ferguson. When we consider the complexity of Arabic, it becomes

obvious that the examples given only represent a minimum of possibilities that could be found in the

Arabic language. 16 A more detailed description of the corpus in English can be found in Van Mol (2010) and in Arabic in

Van Mol (2014). 17 The results of the Gulf corpus are not included, because the compilation of that part of the corpus has

only recently been finished January 2016. 18 Note that we placed an arrow in the first column of the tables to draw the attention of the reader to the

fact that the countries in the table are ordered from left to right according to the decreasing

frequency of the dialectal element found. This means that the order of the countries in the head of only

only recently been finished January 201

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