By amberherrle
I have taken Arabic every semester since I've been at GW, the language has provided me with some of the most challenging moments in college and some of the most uplifting moments. By most studies, Arabic is one of the most difficult languages for English speakers to learn. Studying in Jordan, I sometimes get stuck on the nuances of Arabic that make it so difficult to learn. But, I wanted to share with you some of the beautiful, and cool aspects of Arabic that make the challenge of learning the language so worth it.
Roots - every word in Arabic has a three letter root. So no matter if you want to say, "exacerbate" or "we" or "pomegranate", there will only be 3 letters that make up the root and then those root letters are put into forms to create the word. So, take for instance the word "to study". The root of "to study" is د ر س . And so if you just put those three letters together you would have the verb "to study" but if you add a shadda above the "r" sound, you get the verb that means to make someone study (ie: to teach) درّس. For every root of a verb, there are 10 forms that you can put the word into to create more words. Although, not every variation of roots have an appropriate verb for every form.
On the same note, you can use roots to create active and passive participles. So you can essentially add vowel sounds (or adjust vowel sounds) and add an "m" to roots to create new words. So the word for author comes from the root letters which form the word "to writer". All you have to do is adjust the vowels to turn "to write" into "author".
I think that it's really fascinating to look at the way a language is built and the components of language that combine to create complex grammar concepts and dialogues. I hope I'm not boring you too much, but if I am - I'm done now!
This Tuesday, we are going with SIT to visit the northern area of Jordan. We will travel together to the ancient cities of Jerash and Um Quaiss for three days. Jordan is a relatively small country, so even though these cities are fairly large, they are still only about 30 minutes away from each other. And together, they comprise the must-sees of northern Jordan.
My classes are starting to finish up, as we prepare to move into our ISP research. The Independent Study Project is a huge reason many students choose SIT as the project allows you to explore any aspect of research on your own and under the guidance of SIT. I am still nailing down my research project but I will hopefully be studying the roles of mothers in countering violent extremism in Jordan. I am really looking forward to this aspect of my study abroad as it gives me a chance to get to know experts working in CVE here and explore a topic that I am extremely interested in.