2006-08-19

The Influence of Arabic on English


I found this question from an Iraqi woman named Rahma, asking a Sheikh to give her a suitable FATWA. Her inquiry is full of mistakes: grammatical, semantic and in spelling. The text reveals most the influence of Arabic Language over the English Language, especially when someone translates his thoughts.

" rahma – house keper
alsalam alaikum i am too tired please help me in your anser.. my parents are too old father (76 years) and mother(71 years), they are alone in iraq without any brother or sister or son or douter, they have only two douters ,me and my sister in U.A.E. ,my sister cant help them becouse her hasbent cant that, evrey day i feel die . i want to go to iraq to be beside them but my hasbent did not accept to go with me to leve in our country ,he is a good moslim ,but he refuse travel to leve in iraq, he leve here from 10 years ago,..when he come to iraq to maerried me he said that we will leve in canada and i accept that .. now we have a boy (2 years) and i am pregnent, i want to be with my parents what can i do ..now i try to sponser my parents to leave here with us ,,if the goverment refuse that can i travel to iraq and left my hasbent..? please help me i feel too gulty ..i cant at any way left my parent specally in bad situation alone.. "

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Well, Rahma simply killed all the noble feelings and kindness towards her parents by the terrible English she used. It is true that Rahma was simply translating from Arabic to English, but in the worst way i have ever seen.

Osaid Rasheed said...

There is worse Mr. Rasheed !!

Anonymous said...

true, osaid, we are still learning.

Anonymous said...

Don't blame people for terrible English :)

George Orwell, a British national wrote about English language and politics. He says the reason why the English language has become so ugly is because of politicians corrupting and poluting it.

Some Iraqi nationals speak 4 languages, Kurdish, Arabic, Farsi and English. So, they code-switch regularly. This causes English language to be corrupted even further.