Comments on: A new low.

By: Abū Ilyās

Abū Ilyās — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 02:29:16 +0000

Yes, that is very common here too.

Sad but true.

By: Al

Al — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 08:46:14 +0000

There’s a similar colour issue in the UAE, when i tell people I’m from England they look at my colour and think- “you’re not English”.
They will then procede to ask you about every member in your family tree until they finally pin you to somewhere other than England!

Pure madness.

By: Umm Musa

Umm Musa — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 07:45:44 +0000

Salaams,

I too would insist on re-enacting Braveheart (not all of it) and I’m from England – not the Scottish part of it either
.
Maybe the Saudi’s need to see things like ‘The Last King of Scotland’ and use real scottish oats etc…

Here in the UAE we too slip into neanderthal English, it just takes over lol.

Glad the blog is back, I used to read it when it was ‘hats on vowels’ – salaams to your Mrs and family.

By: iMuslim

iMuslim — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 18:32:07 +0000

Shim! How cute, masha’Allah!

By: Abū Ilyās

Abū Ilyās — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 11:04:36 +0000

Yes, I’ve no doubt that we harm their English learning when we “adapt” as we do, but it’s difficult not to as It’s often unintentional.

Even with my own children, I remember my wife telling me off for speaking to my kids as they spoke to me.

I’d find the childish grammar that they’d develop cute and would use it with them sometimes.

One of my children started to say “shim” as the feminine version of “him”, which I just loved and would use, until I was reprimanded for it : ( . “Shim no like it.”

But it’s true it reinforces bad learning, so if you want someone to progress you have to come correct yourself.

By: naeem

naeem — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 07:05:50 +0000

AA-

“Why you do this? This bad! No do this. OK?”

LOL! My wife and kids do it all the time when they talk to the driver. Their English becomes neanderthal-ish and its soooo funny, especially my kids.

But amazingly, their able to switch it right off when they talk to anyone else.

Another funny/frustrating thing is how the Arabs (Saudis and others) switch to a form of neanderthal Arabic when they hear me struggling to converse in Arabic. Its actually quite annoying as it doesn’t help me to learn the proper way of speaking….

Which actually leads me to conclude that when we speak broken English to newbies, we’re in fact hurting their learning experience.

By: Abū Ilyās

Abū Ilyās — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 20:38:46 +0000

I’ve been told that the solution to protecting my English in such circumstances is to try and read more.

Yeah, some people on ‘umrah can be surprisingly dense at times. On my first ‘umrah someone asked me if I was Muslim.

By: Muhajirah

Muhajirah — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 14:13:07 +0000

I teach this girl from Afghanistan and because she doesnt speak much english I too find that i start speaking like you describe. It just comes out of nowhere… >_<

Also, when i went for umrah, people would ask me where i’m from. When i said to them, England, they’d be like oooh London! For them the whole of England = London, which was annoying!

By: Abū Ilyās

Abū Ilyās — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 13:17:12 +0000

Wow! You’d have thought they would have clicked on at Britain.

I think there’s definitely a case to be argued that the Scottish tourist board needs raise our international profile.

Can we not start a war or something? I’m sure that’d get us on a few news channels worldwide and it’d be quicker than waiting for a world cup football victory (not that I’m a fan though).

By: mcpagal

mcpagal — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 11:53:26 +0000

Salaam, my sister once had this conversation with a fellow passenger on a plane to Pakistan:

Passenger: So where are you from?
Sister: We’re from Glasgow..
P: Glasgow? Where’s that?
S: It’s in Scotland
P: Scotland? Where’s that?
S: Err.. the top part of Britain?
P: Britain? Where’s that?
S *very confused*: Where London is?
P: Ooohhhh, you’re from London! You should have said!

It’s not like we were in a foreign country, we were still at Heathrow!