Today’s post is dedicated to a linguistic difference any students of the Arabic language lucky enough to have the chance to interact with native speakers will undoubtedly notice – the sparse use of punctuation in colloquial Arabic texting.
I’ll take advantage of the opportunity to introduce some key terms readers unfamiliar with Arabic will need introduction to and to underscore the point that learning a new language is much more than just learning vocabulary and grammar; it is essential to be aware of basic differences.
Formal and colloquial Arabic
First, very roughly speaking, Arabic can be divided into formal Arabic and colloquial Arabic.
Formal Arabic refers to the language used in writing, such as books, newspaper articles, and websites. Again, very roughly speaking, this variety of Arabic encompasses the classical language of the Holy Quran and of early Arabic-Islamic civilization, as well as the modern literary language – which is similar to classical Arabic but with certain adaptations and new vocabulary to address developing needs. This variety of Arabic is standardized, meaning that it is the same throughout the Arab world. For this reason, in addition to being used in writing, it is also used for radio and television news.
On the other hand, Colloquial Arabic refers to the variety of Arabic adapted from the formal variety in order to be spoken. Referring to this a variety is a bit of a misnomer, as Colloquial Arabic displays a great level of regional variety, with different regions having dialects which differ greatly from one another and from the formal language. These differences include changes in sentence structure, varying vocabulary, and differences in pronunciation and in intonation. I won’t go into too much detail in this post as this is ample ground for further blog posts, but suffice to say that some consider colloquial dialects languages in their own right, separate of one another and of literary Arabic (a contention I disagree with, but more on that in the future)) and that even native Arabic speakers from distant regions may have trouble understanding each other if they attempt to speak in dialect.
To better explain the different uses of formal Arabic versus colloquial, let’s say two Arab businessmen are in touch regarding a potential merger. They will speak on the phone in colloquial, exchange text messages in colloquial, and speak in colloquial during the course of their meetings, but the merger offer letter will be in formal Arabic, as will the contract itself. The news article on the evening news discussing the merger will be in formal Arabic. Again, this is just the tip of the iceberg!
Punctuation in colloquial Arabic texting
Which brings us, after some ado, to the main topic of this post. In my experience exchanging text messages in Palestinian colloquial Arabic with native speakers, punctuation is rarely used. Commas are nowhere to be found and often even question marks are not used. I have yet to come across the use of periods or exclamation points.
The lack of question marks is especially confusing due to the fact that in colloquial Arabic, the word for “is” is not commonly used (at least in Palestinian colloquial) and any statement can become a question simply by changing intonation, which obviously does not help in text messages. Therefore, in order to be able to follow a conversation, context is crucial. If necessary, ask the other party to the conversation for a clarification.
I still use question marks and even commas when texting. We’ll see what the future holds in this regard.
That’s it for today, I’m happy to hear your thoughts. Feel free to post your comments below!
Thanks for the post!
Do you think Arabic differs in its difference between colloquial vs formal from other languages?
Such an interesting read! I find it fascinating, especially because I tend to over use punctuation like exclamation marks in text putting two or sometimes three at the end of a sentence to place emphasis on the sentence.