ARABIZI – HELP OR HARM? ANALYSIS OF THE IMPACTS OF ARABIZI -THREAT OR BENEFIT TO THE WRITTEN ARABIC LANGUAGE? Thesis Submitted to The College of Arts and Sciences of the UNIVERSITY OF DAYTON In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for The Degree of Master of Arts in English By Abdurazag Ahmed Saide M.S. Dayton, Ohio December 2019 ARABIZI – HELP OR HARM? AN ANALYSIS OF THE IMPACTS OF ARABIZI - THREAT OR BENEFIT TO THE WRITTEN ARABIC LANGUAGE? Name: Saide, Abdurazag Ahmed APPROVED BY: ____________________________________ Bryan Bardine, Ph.D. Faculty Advisor. ____________________________________ Thomas Wendorf, Ph.D. Faculty Advisor ____________________________________ Kirsten Mendoza, Ph.D. Faculty Advisor ii © Copyright by Abdurazag Saide All rights reserved 2019 iii ABSTRACT ARABIZI – HELP OR HARM? AN ANALYSIS OF THE IMPACTS OF ARABIZI - THREAT OR BENEFIT TO THE WRITTEN ARABIC LANGUAGE? Name: Saide, Abdurazag Ahmed University of Dayton Advisor: Dr. Bryan Bardine In the 21st century, the Arab world has undergone significant change, which has had profound impacts in the lives of Arab people throughout many occupations, fields, and locations. New technological advancements, communication innovations, and globalization efforts have been the core drivers to open the Arab world to Western civilization. The Arab world is characterized by unique cultural traditions, moral principles, and religious beliefs that differ greatly from those of the West. However, the globalization movement has had multiple impacts on Arab culture and the Arabic language. When comparing the Arabic language with the languages of Latin origin, it becomes clear that there exists multiple distinctions, especially in their writings and language. These distinctions did not play such a serious role several centuries ago, but with the increased cooperation between Arab nations and the Western world, these language dissimilarities have become well-recognized. Social media such as internet chatting and cell phone texting have appealed to the younger Arab generation as a platform for them to adapt with the changing times. Arabizi has emerged as a form of shorthand combining traditional Arabic with English numerals. Arabizi is an efficient and iv effective solution for young Arabs to reduce the gap between Arabic and English and ease communication. However, as with any important social change, the widespread use of Arabizi in the modern Arab world has had both positive and negative effects on Arab language and culture. Identifying these positive and negative impacts is a critical issue. Multiple researchers, such as Wid Allehaiby, Ibrahim Al-Shaer, Lamiyah Bahrainwala, Ruba Mustafa have been interested in researching the effects of Arabizi such as diminished language skills such as poorer spelling and writing skills in the native Arabic language. This paper examines their research and studies to explore the benefits of using Arabizi in the modern Arab world. Also, because the Arabic language is so closely tied with Arab culture and the Muslim religion, a brief look at these threats is included. v Every challenging work needs personal efforts as well as the guidance of Elders, especially those who are very close to the heart. My humble effort I dedicate to my sweet and loving Mother & Soul of my Father, Whose affection, love, encouragement and prayers of day and night Love helped me achieve such success and honor. To My Wife Samar Elemam For her love, sacrifices To My Friend Dr. Thomas Wendorf who served as my inspiration and strength during stormy days. To Allah For always being with me-thank you for everything. vi ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS My special thanks to Dr. Bryan Bardine, my advisor, for his support, motivation, patience, and immense knowledge. His guidance helped throughout the research and writing of this thesis. I couldn’t have imagined having a better advisor for my thesis. Besides my advisor, I would like to express my appreciation to the rest of my thesis committee: Dr. Thomas Wendorf and Prof. Joe Pici, for their encouragement, insightful comments, and hard questions. My sincere thanks also go to Dr. Slade, the Associate Professor and chair of the department of English, for always having open doors to assist and help me. Finally, I must express my very profound gratitude to my mother Sofia Asadawy, the soul of my father, and to my wife, Samar Elemam, for providing me with unfailing support and continuous encouragement throughout my years of study and through the process of researching and writing this thesis. This accomplishment would not have been possible without them. Thank you. vii TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT…………………..………………………………………....….….………...iv DEDICATION…………………………….....……..………………….…...…...…….... vi ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS…………………………………………………..…...…… vii LIST OF FIGURES ……………………………………………......................................ix LIST OF TABLES………………………………………………………………….…………….x CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION……….……………………….…………...…………...1 CHAPTER 2 DESCRIPTION AND GROWTH OF ARABIZI……..…………..……....3 CHAPTER 3 POSITIVE IMPACTS OF ARABIZI…….………….…………...……....13 CHAPTER 4 NEGATIVE IMPACTS OF ARABIZI…….………………………...…...16 CHAPTER 5 ARABIZI IN LIBYA……….…………………………………...……….20 CHAPTER 6 SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION…………………….…………....…..29 REFERENCES……………………………………………………………………….....32 viii LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1: On-line Survey Questions……………………………………………....23 Figure 2: Demographics and Use of Arabizi of Survey Respondents………….…25 Figure 3: Charts of question 9 and 13 writing skills in formal Arabic……………28 ix LIST OF TABLES Table 1. Numerals used in Arabizi to represent native Arabic sounds ……… 6 Table 2 Letters used in Arabizi to represent native Arabic sounds ……..…… 7 x CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION Because Arabizi has gained popularity among young Arab-speaking people recently, multiple researchers have been trying to identify positive and negative impacts of this language on Arab countries. Arabizi is a short-hand written version of Arabic that combines Latin alphabet with numerals. Because of its ease, brevity, and compatibility with technology, it is used primarily as a “chat language”. These features make it convenient to use with the internet and texting on cell phones. Certainly, it has undergone significant growth and popularity, especially with young Arabs. This growth has been propelled by rapid technical communication advancements, the evolving consolidation of Arab youth into the western world, and the widespread emergence of English as a prevailing international language. The growth of Arabizi is already showing that it could have profound effects upon Arab culture, traditions, and identity. It is therefore important to understand the impacts of Arabizi, both positive and negative, to the Arabic language as Arabizi continues to grow and spread. The purpose of this study is to examine the growth and impact of Arabizi on the Arabic language and on Arab society, as a whole. The Arab world is very broad and far reaching, and therefore the first goal is to explore the background, growth, and use of Arabizi throughout the Arab world. This will form the foundation for the next goal that is to examine the impacts of Arabizi on Arab society. As with any major social change, Arabizi has shown both positive and negative impacts. By identifying these impacts, a better understanding of future effects of Arabizi on Arabic language can be achieved. 1 This could be done through studing a single country, a more in-depth understanding of how Arabizi has evolved and its impact on Arabic language can be achieved. Furthermore, a single country analysis will demonstrate the impacts of Arabizi specifically to a select group of modern Arab people. These impacts, from the increased use of this encoding language system, are examined for both their benefits and detriments to the Libyan society. A key question of this study is: Is Arabizi contributing a loss of the Arabic language and culture through the written language? 2 CHAPTER 2 DESCRIPTION AND GROWTH OF ARABIZI The Arabic language plays an important role in the world community and in Arab countries. Today, over 300 million people in various Arab countries use the Arabic language as their mother tongue, making it one of the world’s premier major languages. Arabic is widely utilized as a major language in many non-Arab African countries as well, and as a minority language in other places, including Iran and Afghanistan (Abu- Absi, para. 1). In addition, over one billion Muslims in such countries as India, Indonesia, Pakistan and Tanzania study Arabic as a foreign or second language for liturgical and scholarly use. Religion (Islam) is a primary reason that the Arabic language remains one of the most important languages in these countries and throughout the world. The significance of Arabic in the world community was further underscored in 1974, when Arabic was adopted as one of the six United Nations official languages, joining English, French, Spanish, Russian and Chinese. Considering the significance of Arabic for multiple countries, the study of Arabizi is important. In fact, Arabizi is relatively new, with its earliest roots traced to the late 1990’s, when technology became more popular the Arabic culture changed to reflect that and one of these changes is the use of the Arabizi. However, with the explosive growth of communication technology, Arabizi has also experienced a parallel growth. Being predominantly a written language, Arabizi was created out of and exists today as both a necessity and convenience. It is primarily used for informal messaging,