Spoken Literary Arabic - Level 2

*Please note that this course will run only if two or more students enroll.

Course Description: In this course, students already familiar with basic literary Arabic grammar will continue to explore the world of the Arabian nights.

The language of the One Thousand and One Nights, a form derived from Classical Arabic, is a universe of its own: intricate yet elegant, polyphonic and harmonious. Just as Latin and Greek, Arabic, one of the major literary languages of the world, is sometimes considered grammatically complex and difficult to learn. For this reason, it is often taught in purely grammatical terms without the required amounts of proper spoken practice. Through the lens of the Arabian Nights, this course aims at offering a different approach, based on natural methods of language acquisition (TPR and storytelling) and the instructor's extensive experience teaching Greek and Latin as spoken languages. The goal of this introduction is to equip students with enough tools to grasp basic stories in Arabic about kings, thieves, genies and talking animals, through conversation. We will work our way through basic verb and noun morphology and syntax and core vocabulary. The texts used in class will be (very) abridged versions of longer stories found in the classic endless story cycle from the Middle Ages.

DETAILS

Level: Students will need to be familiar with basic Arabic morphology (present verb conjugation, noun declension and plurals), vocabulary (core vocabulary for nouns, basic adjectives for shape, size and quality), and syntax. Ideally, they should have attended the first level of this course.

Textbook: Instructor will provide materials.