Dialect War

Dialect War - Dominic Brunaccioni




Hello everyone!




I hope you all are doing well, especially in times such as these. Personally, I’ve accepted that quarantine is going to last a while, and have been working on things to distract me in the meantime.

In terms of language, Arabic is now the language that I will be focusing on. While it is nowhere near a minority language, the Egyptian dialect that my tutor here in Connecticut teaches me is. Like I’ve said before, the formal Arabic I am learning at American is called لفُصحى, and is rarely spoken in modern Arab civilizations. While there are many Arabic dialects, مصري (Egyptian) is quite rare in speaking populations as compared to other dialects.

It is often looked down upon by other Arab nations, as told to me by some of my Middle Eastern/North African friends. The reason for this is because of the unique way it treats its alphabet. In Arabic dialects, not only does the pronunciation of certain words change (Like how we envision American English vs. British English), the alphabet and letters have distinct variations. For example, if you were to ask someone from Lebanon and another from Egypt to read out the letter “ج”, you would get two different answers. The Lebanese speaker would respond with “J”, and the Egyptian with “G”. Although it looks like the same letter, it has lead to drastically different words and phrases for each dialect.

When I’m with Salwa, she taught me Arabic with an Egyptian foundation. What surprised me is that whenever it came down to learning new vocabulary words, she would give me a French word. Her reasoning for this, she told me, was that due to the frequent colonization and transfer of language from France, and later Great Britain, most Egyptians substitute French for Egyptian quite commonly. This is another reason as to why the other Arab nations dislike the Egyptian dialect, as they see it to be unorganized and unoriginal; still a bright beacon of colonialism.



In terms of how this affects me, I’m very grateful to have Salwa as a resource and to know the Egyptian dialect. She has taught me out-of-the-box thinking in terms of language and is a resource I will continue to use even after I switch to Turkish next fall. I do wish that the other nations would relieve their hatred of the Egyptian dialect and focus on being more united as an Arab unit. Sure, while Egyptian is extremely different, it doesn’t mean its wrong. If anything, it’s unique, and I like it the way it is.

What to Do Now

What to Do Now - Dominic Brunaccioni



Good evening!




Since my last post, coronavirus had yet to destroy the rest of the semester as we know it, and so here we are. As far as I know, the Language Exchange Program (LEP) has been postponed to next semester. In other words, my aspirations of learning Indonesian have been put on hold until the start of next fall, if the school lets us go back. My trip to Spain, Portugal, and Morocco are up in the air, so learning Basque seems almost as fruitless as checking my local grocery store for toilet paper nowadays. So I have no Indonesian partner, and my trip to the Basque Country is now on life support. I am left without any clear idea as to what my logs will entail for the rest of the online semester.

There is one positive notion that I may share with you all. I am attempting to communicate with the Georgetown professor who is the head of the Turkish section in their language department so I can secure a spot in Beginner Turkish at Georgetown next academic year. Fingers crossed it all works out. I’ve been cleared by my first-year advisor, the SIS Peer Advising team, and the head of the language department at American. Hopefully, that is enough support for me to get into the class next year.

If there is any positive to the coronavirus, its that I’m back at home. That means being close to those I love and care for. One of those people is my old Arabic tutor that taught me a year of Arabic to prep me for my Freshmen year at AU. Being from Egypt, she has the Egyptian Arabic dialect, known as مصري. So I learned Arabic alongside a less used dialect. But upon my arrival at American, the Arabic program teaches Arabic using the formal and non-used dialect, with the letters from the Levantine dialect, known as الشامي. So I totally lost my مصري alphabet and pronunciation of words. Now that I’m back home, we have continued weekly meetings (On Facetime for the sake of social distancing) so I can ace my AU Arabic class, but also to reshape my مصري dialect.

So although everything seems lost, I look forward to a bright future. I hope everyone is healthy and are feeling mentally sound. Thank you for reading, I’ll see you online soon!




~ Dom

Missing Indonesian

Missing Indonesian - Dominic Brunaccioni

Good evening!

It is with a heavy heart that I report that Paskalis and I did not meet again this week. As it is midterm season, Paskalis needed the time to study. So I decided, with the time that I have, to extend the list of stuff when we get back to do. I created three more activities for synonyms. The first one is from the astrology poster I have in my room, even though I don’t believe in astrology too much myself, it was a good set of words. The second set is from my World Politics class about Gender Hierarchy and Joan de Arc. The third set is from my Lost in Translation full draft that was due today.

My goal is for Paskalis to easily begin to understand what words work for certain situations and when some don’t. Not all verbs in the exercises are synonyms, though. In fact, almost none of them are, as I want to do general word choice with him as well, but also to get the bigger synonym concepts more understood, instead of chucking nine words that all seem super similar. This will be for his benefit, of course.

Personally, I am nervous for when we come back. It seems like he has a lot prepared for me, a little too much. I haven’t even got the chance to memorize what was given two weeks ago, thanks to the enchanting atmosphere of mid-terms, which has really kicked my ass in terms of free time to study Indonesian/free time in general. Hopefully, when we get back, I will adapt to having more free time, and less time stressing/studying my heart out, in order to start comprehending Indonesian.

All I can do now is wait until after Spring Break. But the rumor going around campus that spring break may be extended will 100% affect our language experience, which saddens me. As I am close to being greenlighted for Turkish at Georgetown University next year, I will be focusing on that language more than any other.

See y’all after Spring Break!    

~ Dom

[Secretive, Gentle, Optimistic]

Born under the sign of the Bull, you have a _______ nature except when provoked. Then you become “mad as a bull.” But most of the time, you are loving, good-humored, and ________. You make a good public servant. Keeping this in mind though, you can be quite _______. The best colors for you are oranges and reds.

[Oppressed, Admirable, Honored, Weakness, Fantastic]

A ________ example of a woman breaking the cycle mentioned above was Joan de Arc. Not only did she break out of the _______ female mold of her era, she was seen as an ______ fighter, war hero, and an exemplar of the might of France. Going against what was common at the time, French men had no care that they were fighting alongside a woman--in fact, they were _______ to do so. While this “honor” would not be given to all French women until centuries later, Joan de Arc exemplifies a _______ in the gender hierarchy, the notion that the structure of traditionalism in male-dominated fields can and will be broken.

[Explore, Understand, Referring, Analyze, Surrounding, Ripping, Comprehend]

So if we are to _______ what the disputed conversations and academic history _________ the accent are really talking about, I think it would be best if we first ______ what some of the scholars define the Connecticut accent to be. Let us _______ the dialect before ______ it apart, piece-by-piece. _______ back to Santaniello’s piece, he generalizes a few aspects of the Connecticut accent before going into his rhetoric about the “multiple” different dialects--which is a bold claim we will ________ and likewise rip apart, later.