|
ExPat Women in the Kingdom – losing the English language? It’s been a busy weekend thus far with visiting friends and family here in the Kingdom. Last night with a group of friends an interesting and lively discussion occurred. All of us are ExPat wives in that we are western women who are now living in the Kingdom and most of us married to Arabs. I’m the newest kid on the block so to speak and most of them have been in the Kingdom 10 years plus. I appreciate the candid revelations which were shared.All have learned at least some arabic. But as one lovely woman put it, “I still have litle arabic and each day my English degenerates a bit more as well.” Yes; we all acknowledged that we find ourselves guilty of the same tactic…as an expat who is married to an Arab there is naturally a greater exposure to the local nationals and living on the local environment (vice a Western oriented compound). As a result, we are less likely to be surrounded day to day by individuals for whom English is their first language or even surrounded daily by individuals who even speak English at all. To survive, you pick up what arabic you can and pick it up quickly regardless of how grammatically correct it may be. In addition when attempting to communicate with someone who may have a little bit of English, instead of speaking structured sentences, we all find ourselves shortening our English and simplifying it as much as possible towards facilitating understanding. The question to ask is are we short-changing ourselves by this? Are we short-changing the person with whom we wish to speak? But whether in Saudi or not, this is probably a likely tendency that we all will make as we strive to be understand in a global environment. 11:23 AM - 2 Comments – 0 Kudos – Add Comment – Edit - Remove |
Filed under: gender, Saudi Arabia, Saudi culture, Saudi customs
