Brits should start learning some Arabic

Nothing other than business reasons. Yeah the lingua franca today is English but it hasn't always been English

Once upon a time, Arabic was the lingua franca (afaik so feel free to prove me wrong)

Also not to mention that if youre doing business with someone from another country, they're often pretty impressed that you can speak their language and more willing to do business

Not to mention that Mandarin and Arabic are some of the hardest languages on Earth to learn which would mean pushing peoples brains a bit

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When would this have been? Broadly speaking, moving from neolithic to present day we have:
Undetermined language, mixtures of celtic, norse and old french, moving into old english in the middle ages, Moving into a form of english that we would recognise today in the tudor period, and essentially an evolution of the terms used since then into modern language.

and because it is hard is no reason to do it, You just as well go argue that communicating with binary is hard, so we should all learn to talk to each other using a series of 0's and 1's.

Not to mention we do business with russia, france, germany, finland, india, pakistan, holland, spain, portugal, and have various dealings with many african states.
If there is a purely business justification, we should all speak every language under the sun? We is arabic so much better, when most of our bussiness of any size to these countries is defence related.

I think mandarin is probably the most important one to be learning, not sure why we still teach kids french as default. I don't see why Arabic would be particularly useful to learn.

Hahaha, wow. Impressive stuff from a future doctor. They speak Arabic in Israel and UAE too and everyone knows those populations are scattered with terrorists...

I should probably learn my own mother tongue before I learn another language.

It's also a shame that many people are writing off Arabic purely because it's a "Muslim" language, despite many non Muslims speaking Arabic, or any ill founded views. Some people have legitimate reasons ie: English is still the lingua franca of the world, but others, it's just like "aaargh"

What you consider to be "right or wrong" is not necessarily based on any objective truths, nor is it something everyone accepts.

Countries where Arabic is an official language:

Algeria (y), Bahrain (y,1), Chad, Comoros, Djibouti, Egypt (y), Eritrea, Iraq (y, 200+), Jordan (y), Kuwait (y, 1), Lebanon (y), Libya (y, 18+), Morocco (y?), Oman (y), Palestine (y, 6), Qatar, Saudi Arabia (y,180+), Somalia (y, 24+), Sudan (y, 33), Syria (y, 18), Tunisia (y), United Arab Emirates (y, 1), Yemen (y, 94+).

The brackets show the ones who still use the death penalty, and the number of people killed by it in the past 3 years. A number of them still use public executions. Safe to say most of them are pretty backwards.

No; it's a horrible language and a waste of time.

No thanks, if I wanted to learn that crap language, I would of done.

Just to clarify, my answer said "no thanks" simply because I'm not really interested in learning the language at this time. What my other responses have been about is something slightly different and isn't me saying that I wouldn't learn it for that reason.

Usefullness aside (which I think is quite subjective and depends largely on the person), unfortunately it's quite a difficult language, with a difficult script (no short vowels), and pronouncing ع gives me a sore throat.

Surely Hindi would be more useful

And I'll pray that you one day realise that the world does not revolve around your own narrow minded western perceptions, for which anyone to disagree is considered "brainwashed". What you consider to be "right or wrong" is not necessarily based on any objective truths, nor is it something everyone accepts.

Ne (=no)

This. We just need to be able to train up some Mandarin teachers French seems to be an ever dying language these days

It's also a shame that many people are writing off Arabic purely because it's a "Muslim" language, despite many non Muslims speaking Arabic, or any ill founded views. Some people have legitimate reasons ie: English is still the lingua franca of the world, but others, it's just like "aaargh"

There is actually no need for any hatred towards a language. It is fine if you do not want to learn it or do not like the sound of it but there is no need to bash the countries or the actual language for this.

There's also that country who we all know that still use the death penalty. They don't have public executions, but they used to. Oh yeah, that country's name. The United States of America

Some people here really do have a good reason why they won't learn Arabic ie: they won't need it, they won't visit these countries, it's not the lingua franca (atm) etc... BUT your point is like me saying because there are some backwards things in the United States, no one should learn English



How is ANY language horrible?



And how is ANY language crap? Though I think you probably need to brush up on your English



It's annoying. There are those who say stuff like "Oh it's a terrorist language"( see what I've quoted) and on the other extreme, there are people saying (essentially) "Why are you NOT learning it. You racist" when it's pretty clear from your past posts, that you're pretty liberal on things



Ayyyyynnn
Gaaayyyynnnn



This is true. As a BRIC nation, it might be wise to learn that as well. The annoying thing is that people will object to learning any non European language, purely because it plays on some people's already racist views that people have (as shown in this thread), when they can clearly benefit us as a country

Slightly off topic, the UK is meant to try and become this "heart of Islamic finance" in order to rival Dubai, and you've already got people saying "Oh they're bending over backwards" etc... I mean it's finance, in a different way, and if any thing it's ethical...



Nor is yours ie: like when you called British culture drinking,being prostitutes, gambling etc...



That would be "la"

I don't

There's also that country who we all know that still use the death penalty. They don't have public executions, but they used to. Oh yeah, that country's name. The United States of America

Some people here really do have a good reason why they won't learn Arabic ie: they won't need it, they won't visit these countries, it's not the lingua franca (atm) etc... BUT your point is like me saying because there are some backwards things in the United States, no one should learn English



How is ANY language horrible?



And how is ANY language crap? Though I think you probably need to brush up on your English



It's annoying. There are those who say stuff like "Oh it's a terrorist language"( see what I've quoted) and on the other extreme, there are people saying (essentially) "Why are you NOT learning it. You racist" when it's pretty clear from your past posts, that you're pretty liberal on things



Ayyyyynnn
Gaaayyyynnnn



This is true. As a BRIC nation, it might be wise to learn that as well. The annoying thing is that people will object to learning any non European language, purely because it plays on some people's already racist views that people have (as shown in this thread), when they can clearly benefit us as a country

Slightly off topic, the UK is meant to try and become this "heart of Islamic finance" in order to rival Dubai, and you've already got people saying "Oh they're bending over backwards" etc... I mean it's finance, in a different way, and if any thing it's ethical...



Nor is yours ie: like when you called British culture drinking,being prostitutes, gambling etc...



That would be "la"

La? Ne in my language means no

There's also that country who we all know that still use the death penalty. They don't have public executions, but they used to. Oh yeah, that country's name. The United States of America

Some people here really do have a good reason why they won't learn Arabic ie: they won't need it, they won't visit these countries, it's not the lingua franca (atm) etc... BUT your point is like me saying because there are some backwards things in the United States, no one should learn English

Hey, I'm no hypocrite, of course I find america's criminal justice system retarded. The use of the death penalty is, in my opinion, an indicator of a country stuck in the dark ages. The majority of officially Arabic-speaking nations also have this indicator, and many still even have public executions.

I wasn't arguing against visiting those countries because they still have the death penalty, rather I was supporting 'Mad Vlad's' point that:

"It's not like I'm going to need it seeing as the countries that speak it are as socially backwards as the writing direction and I have no intention of ever visiting them."

Indeed I agree with him countries that use it are socially backwards.