We are reminded here of a story of the American scholar and missionary, Dr. Van Dyck, who, while on his way to a village in the Lebanon, was accosted by a Moslem, who asked after his errand. Dr. Van Dyck replied, “I am going to the village of A—— to introduce three schools.” “Three schools,” said the surprised questioner; “why, that is a good many for so small a village.” “Well,” said Dr. Van Dyck, “I am to open a school, but if I do that the Greeks will open one and the Roman Catholics another, so that I consider that I shall really be responsible for three schools.” At Schneller’s school for orphan children in Jerusalem are some hundreds of boys. They are divided into families of from twenty to thirty, with a monitor or group-father over each. The forenoons are taken up with schoolroom exercises and most of the afternoons are devoted to learning trades. Shoemaking, carpentry, pottery, printing, wood-carving and dairying are taught. Blind boys are taught to seat chairs and weave straw mats. The chief hindrances in the promotion of school enterprises in Palestine are all reducible to legal disabilities, which are the occasion and encouragement for many other petty annoyances. It is at times very difficult to secure valid titles to purchased property and more difficult to accomplish safely the erection of suitable buildings.
Of foreign tongues there are many to be heard in the country. Some friends in Jerusalem were one day discussing the numerous tongues and dialects used in a conversational way in and about the city. They began to count them up and reached something over fifty. Not all of these are heard by the country people, but many of them are heard occasionally as pilgrims and other travelers pass. Until comparatively recently the leading foreign tongue was French, but lately its influence has been lessened in favor of English and German.
The language of the people is Arabic. It is a virile tongue and destined to increase in use rather than diminish, though it may never again have the ascendency enjoyed in the days of the caliphates. One is tempted to say that the Syrian finds his nationality in his faith and his politics in his church only. But it would also be true to say that, to many, their clearest bond of national feeling is in their boasted language and in the masters of their old literature. The Arabic classics hold an equal sway over Christian and Moslem natives. If there is any possible place or condition in which the bitterness of the rival faiths can be assuaged it is in the discussion of Arabic lore. The language and its masterpieces are the source of much intellectual and esthetic delight to the people. In these they must find all the gratification that in Western societies is realized in the pursuit of the liberal sciences and arts.
A HOUSE-ROOFING BEE (ET TAYYIBEH)
The country and desert folk of Palestine and Arabia are justifiable in much of their pride in their really beautiful language. Some of the gutturals may seem unduly harsh, and when fully pronounced the word endings may at times seem monotonous; but rightly rolled and molded there is nothing more beautiful and clear than a well-spoken chain of Arabic sentences. One must prefer the country to the city speech. There are twenty-eight distinct letters in the Arabic alphabet. The first two letters alif and bay correspond to the aleph and beth of the Hebrew, also to the alpha and beta of the Greek, from which comes our word “alphabet.” The two letters lam and aleph written together are sometimes reckoned an extra letter. Many of the other letters are variants of each other phonetically, such as different kinds of t’s, h’s, d’s, s’s and k’s. Dialectical variations account in part for these numerous sounds and for others which were not given a distinguishing sign after the alphabet stiffened into its classical form. For instance, there is a character pronounced to-day by some ḍha, by others za. Another is pronounced koff, but by others aff, and by the Bedawîn, goff. In Egypt the sound for the fifth letter of the alphabet is hard g, while in Syria it is j. The fourth letter th tends to become a plain t, as in katîr for kathîr, or in talât for thalâth.
There is a historical instance of such dialectical variance among Palestine country people (Judges 12: 6) where s and sh in sibboleth and shibboleth are the sounds in question. Both of these are represented in Arabic, the language of modern Palestine, in the letters sîn and shîn. This instance helps to suggest how close are the tongues of ancient and modern Palestine, Hebrew and Arabic. Aramaic was the historical bridge between the two.[[182]]
Many of the place names to-day in use are probably not Arabic at all, though sounding very much like it, but old Aramaic or Hebrew names adapted to Arabic-speaking mouths. One of the adaptations thus made to render the ancient tongue palatable to the modern pronunciation is the change of final l to n. So Israel becomes Israin. Similarly, Gabriel is frequently heard in Arabic as Jibran. Instead of Bethel the modern Palestinian says Baytîn, there being in Arabic no softening of the letters b, g, d, etc., after a vowel as in Hebrew. The Arabic language early lent itself to the grammarians who, with great skill, wrought out its inherent symmetry and logical possibilities. To look at the language as they have developed it and systematized it is quite a novel experience for one who has known only the European family of tongues. Stress is laid upon the substantial quality of almost every word except the mere particles, exclamations, etc. But the tendency is grammatically to refer the words to triliteral verbs. In the arrangement of verbs in paradigms the third person singular of the past or, rather, completed action or state of the verb, is made prominent. Inflection is managed by preformatives and afformatives denoting the person, number or gender; also by infixes and significant vowels to assist in determining voices and modes of action. The noun is similarly modified to denote gender and number. Verbs and nouns both take pronominal suffixes. There is a tendency to pleonasm in the use of pronouns and prepositions in connection with such suffixes. The dual is in constant daily use in the language.
What to us would seem like very picturesquely figurative tendencies in common speech are the relationships introduced by the use of such words as ab, father; umm, mother; dhû, master or possessor; ibn, son;[[183]] and bint, daughter. This is carried to such an extent as really to include nicknaming.
Arabic has a large vocabulary and permits considerable further expansion. In remoter regions the borrowed words are few, but among those who hear other tongues they are numerous. In this respect the tongue has had an experience not different from others. Still it retains considerable independence, as languages go, and covers a wide empire. Even where Arabic is not actually spoken, its influence has been considerable. It has loaned large numbers of words and its script has covered many other languages, as, for example, Turkish, Persian, Hindustani, Malay, the African dialects, etc. The influence of the Ḳurân and Islâm has been the real force in this expansion of idiom and script. Prominence in the written language is given to the consonants. Owing to its easily cursive form and the customary omission of vowels it can be written with great rapidity. For these very reasons it easily degenerates into a scrawl scarcely legible, but perhaps no worse than English or any language carelessly written. A piece of writing is called basîṭ when the vowels are left out, and mûshakil when they are written.