My project is designed to investigate the origins of different dialects as well as looking at the options for the future of the increasingly linguistically and culturally separated Arab World. “CHOOSING ONE DIALECT FOR THE ARABIC SPEAKING WORLD: A STATUS PLANNING DILEMMA,” by Robert A. Cote, will be very helpful for me when researching the second part of my project. His paper discusses the problems with Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) and possible solutions for unifying the region or at least individual nations. This tells me that, MSA is not a viable solution, and that one solution could be the changing of the official language of each individual nation to its vernacular rather than maintaining MSA. Some problems with MSA include: MSA is not taught until school starts, leaving 120 million Arabs without the option of learning it, MSA is no one’s mother tongue, illiterate adults will find it nearly impossible to learn. Cote then describes a survey that was conducted. Randomly selected Arabs from around the world were asked to give: A. The Arab region they understand the language of the best, B. The Arab region they understand the language the worst, C. The Arab region that has a language that would be best to unify the region with. The best was Saudi Arabia (half the participants in the study were from there). The worst was by far Morocco, followed by Algeria. As for the one to unify the region, the gulf dialect and the Egyptian one scored 29 and 26 votes respectively, so no one language won. From this the researcher concluded that possible solutions could be a mixed urban dialect, or each nation developing its own national vernacular, which would help unification and nationalism within each nation. This source provides two viable options for me to look into and eliminates the solution of using MSA for the whole region.
Sunday, January 9, 2011
Tuesday, January 4, 2011
Rise of the Rest Reflection
It is hard to hear from a Western point of view that your time will soon be up and that the Asian century has begun. However, Mahbubani makes a strong case, showing the hypocrisies and injustices entertained by the West, while Judt does the same for the United States specifically.
The first thing that struck me upon starting Kishore Mahbubani's "The Case Against the West", is the fact that European nations do still dominate the U.N. As Mahbubani points out, the U.N. Security Council, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and the G-8 are all controlled by the West. China is not even a member of the G-8, while countries with declining populations and less military power like Russia and Italy are members. This is clear evidence of Mahbubani's point. Mahbubani does not mention China's violations in human rights that it has failed to address, which could keep it from taking on a bigger role. Mahbubani goes on to describe and make evident the U.S.'s mistakes in the Middle East and the Iraq War. Another concrete example of Western hypocrisy that Mahbubani bring up is that of nuclear weapons. Not that the U.S. possesses WMDs while preventing other countries from obtaining them, but that they did nothing when Israel, a close ally in the Middle East, violated the NPT agreement. As a result, India and Pakistan felt no need to follow it. However, they were met with much opposition and sanctions upon testing. Global Warming is another point of failure by the U.S. Accounting for 29% of the emissions of Carbon Dioxide, the U.S. is by far the greatest contributer (China is only at 8). The greatest resistance to stopping Global Warming is coming from the U.S. government. Mahbubani's point is that the West is holding back progress by failing to accept that the Asian century has come, and because of this they are not the greatest liability on the world.
Mahbubani makes a very convincing argument, many of his points undeniably show the West holding back the rest of the world in resistance to a shift in power.
Judt focuses more on the U.S. specifically, rather than the entire Western World. He compared this recent transformation to the French Revolution, saying that the difference is that the unsettling changes during the French Revolution were the result of the Enlightenment. He lists different tragedies of the twentieth century such as Munich and 9/11 and states that these create a "Chamber of Historical Horrors". These things leave the message that all of that is behind us, which is a mistake according to Judt. Judt also criticizes the U.S.'s glorification of war, resulting from the fact that the U.S. has never felt the full consequences of defeat. For example the U.S. lost 120,000 troops in WWI while France lost 1.4 million. Judt points out that the new fear of terrorism in the U.S. is the only thing new about the terrorist situation. There has always been attacks on the presidents and monarchs of countries, terrorists have been with us for well over a century. We create "Islamofascists" as a terrorist enemy to hate. He also points out our hypocrisy in the field of torture. Judt makes a very strong case and argument for what the West does wrong. He is different from Mahbubani in that he isn't suggesting that the U.S. is holding back the Asian century. He focuses more on the U.S. avoiding and pretending that the 20th Century is full of history that will never repeat itself. Even so, Mahbubani's critique of the U.S. is much harsher because of the implication that it is holding back progress and an inevitable happening in the world.
The first thing that struck me upon starting Kishore Mahbubani's "The Case Against the West", is the fact that European nations do still dominate the U.N. As Mahbubani points out, the U.N. Security Council, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and the G-8 are all controlled by the West. China is not even a member of the G-8, while countries with declining populations and less military power like Russia and Italy are members. This is clear evidence of Mahbubani's point. Mahbubani does not mention China's violations in human rights that it has failed to address, which could keep it from taking on a bigger role. Mahbubani goes on to describe and make evident the U.S.'s mistakes in the Middle East and the Iraq War. Another concrete example of Western hypocrisy that Mahbubani bring up is that of nuclear weapons. Not that the U.S. possesses WMDs while preventing other countries from obtaining them, but that they did nothing when Israel, a close ally in the Middle East, violated the NPT agreement. As a result, India and Pakistan felt no need to follow it. However, they were met with much opposition and sanctions upon testing. Global Warming is another point of failure by the U.S. Accounting for 29% of the emissions of Carbon Dioxide, the U.S. is by far the greatest contributer (China is only at 8). The greatest resistance to stopping Global Warming is coming from the U.S. government. Mahbubani's point is that the West is holding back progress by failing to accept that the Asian century has come, and because of this they are not the greatest liability on the world.
Mahbubani makes a very convincing argument, many of his points undeniably show the West holding back the rest of the world in resistance to a shift in power.
Judt focuses more on the U.S. specifically, rather than the entire Western World. He compared this recent transformation to the French Revolution, saying that the difference is that the unsettling changes during the French Revolution were the result of the Enlightenment. He lists different tragedies of the twentieth century such as Munich and 9/11 and states that these create a "Chamber of Historical Horrors". These things leave the message that all of that is behind us, which is a mistake according to Judt. Judt also criticizes the U.S.'s glorification of war, resulting from the fact that the U.S. has never felt the full consequences of defeat. For example the U.S. lost 120,000 troops in WWI while France lost 1.4 million. Judt points out that the new fear of terrorism in the U.S. is the only thing new about the terrorist situation. There has always been attacks on the presidents and monarchs of countries, terrorists have been with us for well over a century. We create "Islamofascists" as a terrorist enemy to hate. He also points out our hypocrisy in the field of torture. Judt makes a very strong case and argument for what the West does wrong. He is different from Mahbubani in that he isn't suggesting that the U.S. is holding back the Asian century. He focuses more on the U.S. avoiding and pretending that the 20th Century is full of history that will never repeat itself. Even so, Mahbubani's critique of the U.S. is much harsher because of the implication that it is holding back progress and an inevitable happening in the world.
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