بسم
الله الرحمن
الرحيم
Arabic is easy for the
brain
By Shaikh
Riyad Nadwi PhD (in Cognitive Science)
7th September
2010
On Saturday morning I woke up to
find my inbox inundated with emails linking to an
article on the BBC's website entitled Reading Arabic "hard for brain"
with an embedded picture of little Muslim
girls in hijab reading the Arabic alphabet. Parents,
somewhat concerned about the potential strain upon
their children's brains, were inquiring about the
validity of the claims made in the article. Having
looked at the original research paper in the journal
Neuropsychology (Language Status and Hemispheric
Involvement in Reading: Evidence From Trilingual Arabic
Speakers Tested in Arabic, Hebrew and English
written by Raphiq Ibrahim and Zohar Eviatar, published
by the American Psychological Association 2009, Vol.
23, No. 2, 240–254), upon which the news item was
based, I think there is a need for some clarifications
that were, in the pursuit of sensationalism and perhaps
anti-Arabic bias, ignored by both the researchers
and the BBC science correspondent who authored the
article, Dr Katie Alcock. I apologise in advance for
the use of technical jargon but it is inescapable
in this instance. This is a blatant and malicious
attack posited within a scientific framework and therefore
it requires, at least in part, a discussion in scientific
terms. I will try to simplify my language as much
as possible.
Reading "Israeli Arabic
and logic" is hard for any brain
The problems with this research
are too numerous to cover comprehensively in this
short article, however there a few conspicuous ones
that can be dealt with succinctly. The first problem
is that the Israeli researchers have violated a basic
principle of authenticity in the representation of
a language upon which they have issued this verdict
of causal cognitive deficit. Instead of presenting
their subjects, in the experiments, with written Arabic
(to read) they created an entirely new orthographic
configuration for the language in question. Arabic
morphology is nonconcatanative and the forms of its
letters vary considerably depending on their positions
in a given word. Among the 28 letters of the Arabic
alphabet, 20 have different orthographic positional
representations. For example, the letterʿayn in its final, middle, first and "standalone"
forms are represented thus 
.
Therefore native readers of Arabic
do not learn to read words comprised of letters in
their standalone forms. This is different to English,
where the orthographic forms found in the English
alphabet are identical to those employed in English
word constructions.
Despite mentioning this difference
between the languages in the research paper, the sample
stimuli sheet (Table C1. Arabic) clearly shows
the Arabic used in the experiments was written without
any consideration of the multiple positional forms
of Arabic orthography. For example, the word maktabah
was not written in Arabic as it should be (
) but instead presented as a string of separate
standalone letters. See the word maktabah circled
in red from the sample sheet below:
I could not believe my eyes when
I saw this stimuli sample sheet in the appendix of
the research paper. Initially, I thought it might
have been a font recognition problem with my PDF reader
but, on closer inspection, I discovered that that
was not the case because the stimuli sheet was an
image, i.e. a photographic snapshot of the original
materials. What is even more astonishing is that there
is no explanation whatsoever in the research for this
bizarre choice of orthography. All they have to say
on the point is that Arabic was presented to the subjects
in Modern Standard Character Madinah S U Normal font.
No mention is made of the fact that they had invented
their own way of writing Arabic script i.e. by constructing
separated letter strings which cannot be considered
by any measure to be "Arabic words or Arabic
text". Arabic speakers have no familiarity with
this form of orthography.
If one's research methodology is
flawed then one's results are bound to be flawed.
The equivalent of this would be for me to present
English speakers with a string of consonants without
vowels, test their reaction times in milliseconds
and then declare some cerebral deficit for those who
speak English.
Another major problem is that the
researchers do not consider the subjects’ Arabic reading
as first language (L1) competence. They regard the
diglossia of ʿāmmiyyah (spoken Arabic) and fuṣḥa (Modern Standard Arabic) as two distinct
languages for which they argue "the two forms
of Arabic are different enough from each other to
result in the pattern typical of bilingualism"
and that the "Adults can minimally be considered
quadri-lingual, with SA [Spoken Arabic] as first language
(L1), and MSA [Modern Standard Arabic], Hebrew, and
English as additional languages. Because SA does not
have a written form, all reading and writing are in
the non-native language." For argument sake,
if we were to agree with them on this point, then
this raises a valid objection to the claim that their
subjects were "native readers of Arabic".
In addition to these problems,
the researchers appear to be grossly ignorant of Arabic
and its orthography. For example, they erroneously
claim that "In Arabic, 22 of the 28 letters
in the alphabet have four shapes". Ask any
child who can read the Quran, even in a backwater
village in non-Arabic speaking India, to count the
different forms of the letters and s/he will able
to demonstrate the ignorance of these so-called academic
researchers. I am surprised that a prestigious
journal like Neuropsychology, of the American
Psychological Association, would publish such substandard
research. Judging from the grammatical errors found
in the paper (e.g. "This pattern in discernable
in Hebrew". p.250), I am guessing that even
the peer review may have been compromised, perhaps
for the sake of old-boy networks or Zionist back-scratching
of some sort.
The brain naturally prefers
left-hemisphere (LH) for languages
So what is the problem if Arabic
speakers use the left hemispheres of their brains?
There is an overwhelming body of research which shows
that language is predominantly a left-hemisphere activity,
even in the case of English (for a review, see Banich,
2004; Hellige, 1993, 2001; Hellige & Adamson,
2006). There is left-hemisphere superiority for processing
printed English. For example, reading-related deficits
are more likely and more dramatic after injury to
the left hemisphere than after injury to the right
hemisphere (for a review, see Banich, 2004; Hellige,
1993, 2001). Also, functional brain imaging studies
show that cortical networks within the left hemisphere
are more active than corresponding networks within
the right hemisphere during the identification of
words and pronounceable nonwords (e.g. see Binder
& Price, 2001; Hagoort et al., 1999; Herbster,
Mintun, Nebes, & Becker, 1997; C. Price et al.,
1992; Puce, Allison, Asgari, Gore & McCarthy,
1996). In addition, words are identified more quickly
and more accurately when they are flashed briefly
to the right visual field (and, thus, directly to
the left hemisphere: RVF/LH presentation) than when
they are flashed briefly to the left visual field
(and, thus, directly to the right hemisphere: LVF/RH
presentation). Tasks have included such things as
naming a briefly presented word or nonword (e.g. see
Bradshaw & Nettleton, 1983; Chiarello & Nuding,
1987; Hellige, Taylor & Eng, 1989; Levy, Heller,
Banich & Burton, 1983; Levy & Kueck, 1986;
Lindell, 2003) and deciding whether a string of letters
spells a word (e.g. see Babkoff, Faust, & Lavidor,
1997; Iacoboni & Zaidel, 1996; Mohr, Pulvermuller,
& Zaidel, 1994).
Studies examining language processing
in general and the processing of printed text in particular
have demonstrated left-hemisphere superiority across
many other languages, including other Western languages
like Spanish and German, as well as a variety of non-Western
languages like Urdu, and phonetic forms of Chinese
and Japanese (e.g. see Faust, Kravetz, & Babkoff,
1993; Hagoort et al., 1999; Hellige & Adamson,
2006; Hellige & Yamauchi, 1999; Illes et al.,
1999; Kuo et al., 2001; Nakamura et al., 2000; Rastatter,
Scukanec, & Grillot, 1989; Sakurai, Ichikawa &
Mannen, 2001; Sasanuma, Itoh, Moi & Kobayashi,
1977; Tzeng, Hung & Garro, 1978). They all show
left-hemisphere dominance with only a small number
of exceptions, such as the Japanese Kanji pictographic
system, which has been shown to have right-hemisphere
dominance (e.g. see Coltheart, 1980; Nakamura et al.,
2000; Sasanuma et al., 1977).
Even if the Israeli research was
sound in its methodology, the claims made would still
be equivalent to someone presenting Japanese Kanji
pictographic letters to the left-hemisphere (RVF/LH)
and concluding not only that the Japanese have brain
deficits but also that reading Japanese is "hard
for the brain" which of course would be an absurd
conclusion. It would be similar to me forcing a right-handed
person to write with his left hand and when he fails,
I declare that because some people are ambidextrous
"writing is hard for the brain".
Every language has its own particular
effect on the brain. Subjecting speakers of one language
to the peculiarities of another in order to establish
differences is interesting and scientific but to issue
verdicts of deficits on the basis of these differences
and to accuse a language of being hard for the brain
is not only unscientific but malicious. If some orthographic
characters in English or Hebrew are processed in the
right hemisphere of the brain, then that is an idiosyncrasy
of those languages, in the same manner as the pronunciation
of the letter ḍāḍ is unique to Arabic. Imagine the furore
that would ensue if I were to ask Hebrew speakers
to pronounce the Arabic letter ḍāḍ and, when they fail to do it correctly,
I declare in the headlines that speaking Hebrew inhibits
phonetic capacity in the brain.
The ridiculousness of this whole exercise
and the spin put upon it in the media by Dr Alcock
suggests that there is an ulterior motive.
The real target seems to be
the Quran
Arabic is not only the mother tongue
of some 200 million Arabs but is it also the sacred
medium of Devine communication for nearly 2 billion
Muslims around the world. Through Arabic, Muslims
experience the presence of the Words of God in the
Quran. It is the language of our five daily prayers
and the source of names we choose for our children.
Arabic is sacrosanct in the worldview of a Muslim:
through it we receive guidance from our Creator and
with it we worship Him and pray for His Mercies.
The relationship between Arabic
and our faith – Islam – is inseparable. Without Arabic
we would have no Quran, and without the Quran we would
have no Islam. Therefore for those who speak Arabic
as their mother tongue, their connection to the Quran
is direct and profound. They experience not only the
supreme literary aesthetics of the Quran but also
the power of the Divine words upon every fibre of
their being. In the words of one baffled Christian
observer, "It is difficult to understand the
fascination that the Quran exerts without mentally
putting oneself in the place of the Muslim, who finds
God when he recites it, looks to it for guiding principles
and for whom the Quran is the presence of God"
(Jomier, J., 1978, Eng trans 1997. p.124).
In is no secret that in recent
times there has been a consorted global campaign to
create distance between Muslims and the Quran. This
onslaught has come in a wide variety of guises, ranging
from calls for reformation to malicious and direct
interventions. Where these attempts – by way of postmodern
mumbo jumbo philosophy, music and entertainment –
have failed to distract Muslims from the Quran, school
curricula have been manipulated to remove Quranic
content under the pretext of modernisation and preventing
terrorism.
The attack on Arabic by the Israelis
and the BBC appears to be part of this same campaign.
If Muslims were to believe that reading Arabic is
overly burdensome or tiring for the brain, then they
would become reluctant to send their children to learn
to read the Quran. Muslim children, regardless of
the language they speak, learn to read the Quran at
a tender age in the mosques across the world. This
experience creates a lifelong bond between the child
and the mosque. This is one of the reasons why our
mosques are overflowing at the seams while other places
of worship are struggling to survive.
The Israeli motive for attacking
Arabic could not be clearer. In 1987, they got the Palestinian Authority to agree to Israel’s annexation
of 80% of Palestine and now they are currently holding
"peace talks" in Washington to grab more
concessions over the remaining 20% of the land including
Al-Quds al-Sharif and Masjid al-Aqsa. Big pronouncements about peace do not hide their malicious intent. The fact
that the BBC is being used to attack Arabic in late
2010 during Ramadan with research that was published
in 2009, suggests that there are other timetable considerations
in play here.
Dissuading Muslim children from
reading the Quran concurs with the ‘doctrine of
pre-emption’. The argument runs as follows:
if Muslim boys and girls around the world are kept
away from reading the Quran for fear of brain damage
or mental strain, their belief will receive less focus
in their lives. As such, their belief in the
Quranic sanctity of Jerusalem and the Al-Aqsa
Mosque will be eroded. As a result, their stance
against Israeli oppression will be neutered.
The Quran and its Arabic is
made easy
Had Arabic been a strain on the
human brain, then whole populations in countries such
as Iraq, Jordan, Palestine, Syria, Lebanon, Egypt,
Tunisia, Libya, Algeria, Morocco and Sudan would not
have become Arabic speakers. It was primarily their
zeal to understand the Quran that led people to give
up their native tongues and adopt Arabic as their
main language. The Quran emphasises its Arabic nature
in no less than eleven different verses (12:2, 13:37,
16:103, 20:113, 26:195, 39:28, 41:3, 41:44, 42:7,
43:3, and 46:12) Allah (swt) says:
إِنَّا أَنْزَلْنَاهُ
قُرْآنًا
عَرَبِيًّا
لَعَلَّكُمْ
تَعْقِلُونَ
﴿يوسف: ٢﴾
"We have sent it
down as an Arabic Qur'an, in order that ye may learn
wisdom". (Quran 12:2)
Together with this repeated
emphasis on the Arabic nature of the Quran the Believers
are also informed repeatedly, in no less than six
different verses (19:97, 44:58, 54:17, 54:22, 54:32,
and 54:40), that the Almighty has made it easy for
them.
فَإِنَّمَا
يَسَّرْنَاهُ
بِلِسَانِكَ
لِتُبَشِّرَ
بِهِ الْمُتَّقِينَ
وَتُنْذِرَ
بِهِ قَوْمًا
لُدًّا ﴿مريم:
٩٧﴾
"So have We made the (Qur'an) easy in thine own tongue,
that with it thou mayest give Glad Tidings to the
righteous, and warnings to people given to contention."
(Quran 19:97)
وَلَقَدْ
يَسَّرْنَا
الْقُرْآنَ
لِلذِّكْرِ
فَهَلْ مِنْ
مُدَّكِرٍ
﴿القمر: ٤٠﴾
"And We have indeed
made the Qur'an easy to understand and remember:
then is there any that will receive admonition?"
(Quran 54:17)
The easy and appealing nature of
the structure of the Arabic is recognisable by anyone
who genuinely studies the language without bias or
malice. This is so even among non Muslims, such as
the world renowned Harvard professor Jaroslav Stetkevych,
who wrote:
"[T]he fact that Arabic
long survived and still had the vitality to burgeon
anew might be due to religious and social factors,
but the quantitative ability to expand and the qualitative
capacity to attain perfection and to maintain its
essential characteristics are merits of the language
exclusively."
He also explained what he meant
by this claim: "To the Western student unfamiliar
with the schematic morphological structure of Semitic
languages, the first experience with Arabic suggests
an idea of almost mathematical abstraction. The perfect
system of the three radical consonants, the derived
verbal forms with their basic meanings, the precise
formation of the verbal noun, of the participles -
everything is clarity, logic, system and abstraction.
The language is like a mathematical formula. This
is, of course, a first notion but it also is the ultimate
truth. In between there lies the great body of language:
rich and various, with its pitfalls and puzzles, but
what impresses itself upon the mind is the abstract
idea." (Jaroslav
Stetkevych, (1970) The Modern Arabic Literary
Language. University of Chicago Press, p.1.)
If Arabic were a strain on the
human brain, then it would not have been able to serve
as the main international language of science and
intellectual thought for nearly a thousand years.
Modern Western scientific advances owe an enormous
debt of gratitude to the Arabic language for its contributions
to science.
Conclusion
This BBC news article was a calculated
and malicious attack on Arabic in the blessed month
of Ramandan when those responsible know that Muslims
– men, women and children, around the world – would
be spending long hours in the days and nights of Ramadan
reading the Quran in Arabic. Most Muslims try to
read the complete Quran during this month and many
complete it several times before the month is over.
Children are encouraged to read and memorise as much
as possible in this month. So it comes as no surprise
that those who would wish that Muslims abandon the
Quran would choose this month to publicise their spurious
and malicious theories regarding one the most revered
languages in the world.
Reading Arabic is not more strenuous
for the brain than watching a series of flickering
pixels on a screen to create pictures in our minds.
If we permit our children to spend hours glued to
pulsating screens (TVs, computers, consoles, mobile
devices etc), then sending them to learn to read the
Quran in Allah's house (masjid) will not only
serve as a relief and respite for their brains but
it will also be a nourishment for their hearts and
fortification for their faith and souls.
When the Quran is made easy for
us by the Almighty, who then in the world can make
it hard? If you feel that in order to enter the modern
scientific world you must abandon Arabic and adopt
some European language, then know that the Japanese
who are not bonded to their language through a Divine
revelation like the Quran, have mastered modern technology,
risen to the pinnacle of science and current modern
standards of living without abandoning their language.
One way to defeat this relentless
onslaught of attacks on our faith, attacks on our
sacred texts, attacks on the dignity of our Prophet
(sallallaahu alaihi wasallam), attacks attacks
on our women, attacks on the clothes we wear and attacks
on our sacred language, is to deny the instigators
their ultimate target, which is our children. They
have made our children their primary target. Put you
ears to ground and you will hear them say that this
is a "generational struggle". What this
means is that they have given up on trying to take
me and you away from Islam but the effort is now firmly
focused on disconnecting the next generation from
the legacy of the Prophets of Allah and from the heritage
of received wisdom in Islam. Creating distance between
our children and the Quran is vital to their effort.
Do not allow them that chance. Fortify your children’s
hearts with the Quran and preserve your sacred language
by making sure your children will able to teach it
to your grandchildren.
وَقَدْ
مَكَرُوا
مَكْرَهُمْ
وَعِنْدَ
اللَّهِ
مَكْرُهُمْ
وَإِنْ كَانَ
مَكْرُهُمْ
لِتَزُولَ
مِنْهُ الْجِبَالُ
﴿ابراهيم: ٤٦﴾
Mighty indeed were the plots which they made,
but their plots were well within the sight of Allah,
even though they were such as to shake the mountains.
وَمَكَرُوا
وَمَكَرَ
اللَّهُ
وَاللَّهُ
خَيْرُ الْمَاكِرِينَ
﴿آلعمران:
٥٤﴾
They plotted and planned and Allah is the best of planners
كل عام وأنتم
بخير
Eid Mubarak
(Sh) Riyad Nadwi
Oxford,
UK
27th Ramadan
1431
