Language Differences in Middle-Eastern Children
Speech and Language Styles/ Common Differences
- Middle Eastern languages are divided into 3 different language families: Altic, Hamito-Semitic, and Indo-European. The most common word orderr in Arabic is verb + subject +object.
- Most educated Arabs are bilingual. They speak modern standard Arabic as well as their local Arabic dialect. People of the Arabic culture generally speak very loudly because it connotes sincerity and strength.
- They also have a rapid rate of speech. Gestures, intonation, and facial expressions are important factors in communication.
- In the Arab world, a good personal relationship is the most important factor in successfully conduction business. Arabs consider eye contact as an indication that one is telling the truth and is interested in what is being said.
- Usually it is discourteous to say “no”. “Perhaps” and “maybe” are often used instead.
- To be respectful you should always use titles and last names in greetings.
- Some consonants in the Arabic language are not used in English. Among these consonants are glottal stops, voiceless and uvular fricatives, and voiced and voiceless pharyngeal fricatives.
- Retroflex /r/ doesn't exist
- /ng/ sound produced as /n/= nothin' for nothing
- /ch/ sound produced as /sh/= shoe for chew
- /w/ sound for /v/= west for vest--- /f/ sound for /v/= fife for five
- /t/ sound for voiceless /th/= bat for bath---/s/ sound for voiceless /th/= sing for thing
- /z/ sound for voiced /th/= brozer for brother
- No triple consonant clusters in Arabic, so epenthesis may occur--> kinduhly for kindly
- /hall/ produced as /hole/ - vowel substitution
- /boil/ produced as /bowl/- vowel substitution
- /snack/ produced as /snuck/- vowel substitution
- /chip/ produced as /cheep/- vowel substitution
- Omission of possessive 's and "of"
- Omission of plurals
- Omission of prepositions
- Omission of form
- Inversion of noun constructs
SLP Concerns
