Important matter

[Boualem-DZ]

Saha shashi,
I was wondering why exactly derja, is it because of the ties to the country?

What I mean is that by the end of the day derja is just slang, its not really a valuable tool for life.

Derja is "funky" when you are young, but it is not the language you would use to study, write poems or read the amazing literature in Arabic. Yes your kids would be able to communicate with Algerians, but ... it is still just derja.

Personally I speak derja as good as any one from Algiers, maybe with a bigger dose of french than the average, but yet I can tune it back to very little french, by replacing french words with fos7ha.

What one should strive for is in my opinion "el fasaha", i.e. fluency (in Arabic of course).

So personally I would teach my kid the real deal, because I think derja doesn't support a child in reading, writing and on top it is restricted to one country and to some extent to a given region (northen Derja isn't the same as Southern) and so on.

Fousha Arabic opens the doors to text, literature, poesy and why not caligraphy, but mostly opens ones horizons to include the entire arab world, instead of excluding it and maybe being excluded by it.

When it comes to expressing one self Derja is just brilliant, but thats most of it, you can't really write poems in Derja and get the same kick as out of the texts of Abou Newas, the challenge is totally different.

However if you want to rap then by definition derja is just tops.

I used to be mostly French oriented in my readings and all, but now that I am down to earth again, I start to appreciate this other dimension that I have access to through arabic and its literature, wich I only got a glims of at school!

I agree Derja is funky but funky is not the heritage I want to leave behind me.

But shashi, I am not trying to tell you how you should educate your own children, I am just giving my opinion as to the place of Derja vs Fous7ha.

Best of luck
Boualem-DZ

[shashi_kapoor]

What I am really interested in at the moment is our Derja, to me it is what makes me proud and loud of being Algerian.

Pure Arabic is also interesting but I'd rather teach my kids our Derja first, then the Arabic language will follow.

Talking about Pure Arabic, I always hated it at school coz all the teachers were expert in torture , I also found the grammar a bit like from space,
But now I enjoy reading Old Arabic books sometimes, I find it cool.

Athalla kho