Has The Slow Process Of Israeli Arab Assimilation Begun?

Go take a look at an interesting article Philologos has written at The Forward on Israeli Arabs and Hebrew. He refers to an article in the English edition of Haaretz that notes how Hebrew words and phrases are making their way into the Arabic of Israeli Arabs, possibly unconsciously.

What are the Hebrew words that creep most commonly into the speech of Israeli Arabs? They seem to divide between everyday expressions of social intercourse on the one hand, and words for things or situations that are associated by Arabs with Israeli culture on the other. Haaretz lists some words that belong to the second category, such as ramzor (traffic light), mah.som (checkpoint), g’lidah (ice cream), lah.maniyah (bakery roll) and sulamit (the hash sign on telephone dials). Belonging to the first category are words like b’seder (all right, okay), b’vakasha (please) and me’anyen (interesting).

Philologos comments on the apparent lack of a word for 'interesting' in Arabic and after some research concluded that indeed, there is no such corresponding word in Arabic.

Is this just a linguistic oddity, or is it indicative of a deeper feature of Arab culture — the absence, perhaps, of the very concept of “interesting” that is so basic to the Western mind, since what isn’t unusual enough or noteworthy enough to arouse curiosity is not considered worthy of attention?

He concludes by taking the phenomenon to its logical conclusion, asking whether the assimilation of Hebrew words and phrases into Arab is a possible sign of a larger overall assimilation of Hebrew into Arabic:

Is increased code switching to Hebrew among Israeli Arabs a first harbinger of what may one day become their wholesale adoption of Hebrew as their native language? Although it may seem remote at the present moment, it is not inconceivable that, if Arabic-Hebrew code switching continues to grow, such a development could start to take place a generation or two from now — at first among the best-educated and most integrated Israeli Arabs, and subsequently, among the Israeli Arab population as a whole. This has happened over and over with minority groups in the course of history, and although there are strong forces working against it in this particular case (for example, Israeli-Arab enmity, the universality of Arabic in all the countries bordering on Israel, the special connection between Arabic and Islam, etc.), it is not something that can be totally ruled out. It will be very interesting — me’anyen k’tir — to see how things stand when Israel has its 120th birthday 60 years from now.

Considering the episodes in our history of Jewish assimilation, it is novel to see this assimilation of Israeli Arabs, regardless of how low a level.

[Hat tip: David Hazony]

Technorati Tag: Israeli Arabs and Hebrew.