<p>my cousin is comtemplating a major in arabic and she has some questions. mainly, she's wondering what the difference might be in arabic taught in a classics department vs. modern arabic? She's looked at a few schools with the major. Notre Dame has an arabic major in its classics dept, whereas Georgetown has its own arabic dept. and the classes are called (modern arabic). she's mainly wondering if it will hurt her if she doesnt take "modern arabic" but instead takes arabic in a classics dept. that has some emphasis on literature and writings as well as language study. thanks.</p>
<p>dont know if this matters any, but she is wanting to either work for the us government (intelligence, etc.) or go to law school. are the types of arabic all that different?</p>
<p>Okay, I'm not sure how Arabic will help your sister in Government. Is she planning to work in some International thing? how is going to help in Law School?</p>
<p>As for the differences, I am an Arabic speaker and Modern Arabic is different than Classic Arabic, if I understand correctly. It's just, I don't know what the types of Arabic are called in English, but I think Classic is the 'proper' language, if you will. See, here in Egypt, we have a slight problem. There is the proper language, which is written in novels and schoolbook and that was spoken a long time ago, and we have 'slang' Arabic, which is how people in everyday life speak to each other. Arabic slang is different then American slang, because adults always speak in slang as well. </p>
<p>All in all, I think your sister should take both - classic and modern if she wants to benifit from it - but I still don't understand what it has to do with government/law school?</p>
<p>There are actually many types of Arabic -- Classic, Modern Standard and Colloquial.</p>
<p>If a student is interested in studying the history of Islam, Classical Islamic Civilization or the Qu'ran, then they would need to learn Classical Arabic. </p>
<p>If a student is interested in participating in the modern Islamic world, they would need to study Modern Standard Arabic and one or more colloquial dialects.</p>
<p>Modern Standard Arabic is what is used in public speaking, movies, etc -- it is what the previous poster referred to as "proper Arabic". </p>
<p>Colloquial Arabic is what is actually spoken in each individual country and the pronounciations can be very different -- both from each other and from MSA (Modern Standard Arabic).</p>
<p>Eqyptian Colloquial is one of the most common dialects and I have been told that if you know MSA and Eqyptian Colloquial fluently, you should be able to understand most other colloquial dialects.</p>
<p>Regarding colloquial Arabic, The major groups are:</p>
<p>Egyptian Arabic مصري : Spoken by about 76 million people in Egypt and perhaps the most widely understood variety, thanks to the popularity of Egyptian-made films and TV shows
Maghrebi Arabic مغربي (Algerian Arabic, Moroccan Arabic, Tunisian Arabic, Maltese and western Libyan Arabic) The Moroccan and Algerian dialects are each spoken by about 20 million people.
Levantine Arabic شامي (Western Syrian, Lebanese, Palestinian, western Jordanian and Cypriot Maronite Arabic)
Iraqi Arabic عراقي (and Khuzestani Arabic) - with significant differences between the more Arabian-like gilit-dialects of the south and the more conservative qeltu-dialects of the northern cities
East Arabian Arabic بحراني (Eastern Saudi Arabia, Western Iraq, Eastern Syrian , Jordanian and parts of Oman)
Gulf Arabic خليجي (Bahrain, Saudi Eastern Province, Kuwait, UAE, Qatar, and Oman)</p>
<p>It is also important to know that certain schools emphasize classical Arabic and studies (Chicago) while others focus on modern language and studies (Georgetown).</p>
<p>Arabic majors (and schools that offer advanced classes in Arabic) are not common. You might have your cousin check out these schools -- </p>
<p>University of Michigan
University of Wisconsin
Dartmouth
Georgetown
Chicago
Johns Hopkins
Tufts
Princeton
Yale
Stanford
Duke
Columbia
University of Cali, Berkeley
Brown
Washington University, St. Louis
University of Georgia</p>
<p>I think most offer advanced classed in Modern Arabic or a major, either in the language or the language and culture. (a couple of schools might not -- can't remember)</p>
<p>If she is interesting in politics, government or international relations -- I would strongly suggest modern over classical.</p>
<p>I am at Tufts and we offer classes in MSA, and have a Middle Eastern Studies major, and currently an Arabic minor, which is being petitioned to change to a major and should be approved within the next year I would imagine as the program has grown tremendously. I love the arabic program here, my professor is an Iraqi native, she's great.</p>
<p>thanks for the info guys. My cousin has researched it some more and she found out that the prgm. at notre dame (where she really wants to go to school) has an Arabic studies major that includes modern standard arabic as well as a middle-eastern studies minor. Thanks again for all of the info. as far as the question of "why law school" above, thats mainly if she just decides she wants to go to law school, not necessarily complementing the arabic major.</p>