Mother Tounge

This blogpost is mostly based on the short story of "Mother Tounge" by Amy Tan. It talks about the authors experience as a Chinese Amrican and the discrimination towards her mother since she doesn't speak the "Standard English". It is a must read.

My ethincity can be mostly spilt up. I can really pick an ethnicity so to speak. What I mean is that I associate myself with Arabs, Muslim, White, and African (through my nationality...Obviously).  But I mostly associate with Arab, since that is the foundation of my history. Now what does this have to do with the titlew of the blog. Well both Arab and Muslims (the two which I associate with the most) both use Arabic as their Mother Tounge. Arabs are very important in terms of history, especially as a Muslim. History is very important in our beleifs and our general culture as Arabs. The Arab culture can be malleable, depending of the country, but the infastructure of the culture is the same.

In the present day, English has dominated the world's common/universal language. This isn't a bad thing, not at all my point, in fact English is a beautifal, sophisticated langauge full of life, and color. But as Arabs, it is a bad thing. The reason why I brought up the Islam in me earlier, is because Arabic is the only lanbguage that Islam uses. But nowadays, people have veered towards the English language so much, that in most places, it is spoken more than the national language. The next Muslim generation (including myself) have to convey that Arabic to the next generation and so on. It is going to be hard when most Muslims don't even speak Arabic anymore.

In my daily life, I dont really see people talking Arabic anymore, Arabic to me is the most beautiful, and is also a very ciommunicative language. The minor differences in speech and writoing can mean two toal different things. Even the writing is considered art. But no piece of poetry can beat the Qur'an, If you are anaware, the Qur'an is the Islam's Holy Book. The writing is elegant and graceful. It cannot be recreated by any person in the world, and that is a prioven fact. People have tried and have not prevailed. But the only catch to reading such beauty and exquisitness, is to have the ability to speak Arabic.

English is a beautiful language, but when you try to translate the Qur'an into English, that symmetry, that artistry becomes absent. It doesn't exist. Arabic is meant to be and stay Arabic.

This blog isn't about Arabic being the unlawfully runner-up, but it talks about my experience with people not communicating to Arabs in their own language. Every language is like a wife/significant other, No matter what, non are as beautiful as yours. I think thats a good way to end it.

A Good Name

My name is very common, yet it’s meaning is very obscure. Its pronunciation is altered from the name.

The meaning itself is high. Not high in length but high in nobility, dignity, poise, or any other adjectives you can add onto it. It just means high in self-value/importance. I don’t really find a connection or relate to the meaning. But usually in my country, which is Egypt, spell it differently. Instead of spelling it with an I, it is spelled with a Y. It isn’t a vexatious because it is only one letter and it is spelled only one way in Arabic.  It is also the names of one of the important characters in Islam. He was the cousin of the messenger, Muhammed, my peace be upon him. He then took the place of the messenger. The prefix of the name was called Khalifa, the successor. Not only did his name become kind of an onomatopoeia, he also started his own branch of Islam.

Now, my last name is disputable. It is Abousen. It is a very weird combination of names. I had asked my parents about its origin. So what was stated to me was surprising yet is logically sound. My ancestors were from Sudan, which is right below my nation, Egypt. Abou-Sen means father of teeth (Abou means father and Sen means teeth). My ancestors where business men, more specifically, they were merchants/traders. They would sell what was very expensive at the time and still is quite costly, ivory. They would sell the elephant tusks, which were also nicknamed as elephant teeth. So my ancestors were also nicknamed as the father of tooth.

My first name was more cultural, but my last name is also cultural and is developed through the time, which I find very interesting.

Cultural Markers Significance

This blog is going to talk about Cultural Markers. Cultural Markers can mean your religion, beliefs, languages, symbols, etc. As a Muslim, symbols, beliefs, and language is the most important. The importance will be explained later, but the topic that we will be getting into is how people mistake or assume from the actions or from where our religion originates from.

Misinformation can come from many sources, Media, assumptions, or just miscommunication. But this can affect the image of the religion and the people who follow and believe in the symbols.

I have only really had one conflict based on my religion/culture. I was at an airport in the US (The significance of the country will be explained) for an American Football competition. I was talking to the TSA man and he asked for my passport. I handed him my American Passport and he continued talking. He asked where I was from, and with what happened next I was certain he wanted me to say a state or a city, but I told him I come from UAE but I am Egyptian, and he suddenly had a change in facial expression and once he checked the visa stamp on my Passport, he asked me to go to the room to search me, it felt awkward and I felt more embarrassed as my whole team had to wait for me as I finished being vulgarly patted down and asked me to strip to my undergarments.

Now you can probably guess why he assumed that I had to be patted down and some. If you watching the news, ISIS has been a very big topic in the news lately from all attacks that they have claimed responsibility for.

This is one of the ways that the media can influence people's thoughts on topics and many other things. 

Intro

My name is Aly Abousen. I am from Egypt, Alexandria more specifically. I am 15 years old, and I live in the UAE. I’ve lived in the UAE for my whole life and it’s fascinating seeing it being developed from just a couple of houses and a desert around them to it breaking records for superstructures and police having Lamborghinis for cars. I’m interested in sports. I am a somewhat active person so I like to play new sports as well, that is if I do well at them. I play American Football because I love contact sports. And this would be the best to play in my opinion since the contact isn’t limited. I also swim quite a lot. I mostly do it just as a hobby but I do play competitive sports in swimming as well.

Music is a very important factor in my life. I feel elated whenever I listen to music. I don’t want to be that person that tries to Rap and/or Sing even though that person cannot do either, but music is important to me, and I imagine most of us. I really listen to all types of music. Jazz, Soul, Hip-Hop, R&B, and a small degree, EDM. Music isn’t the only art I am interested in. I’m also interested in Poetry. I do write down a few verses but I also listen more/ read more than I write. I like to read Edgar Allen Poe, William Shakespeare (Of Course), Maya Angelou, and the all mighty best poet to mankind, Dr. Seuss. He is linguistically clever and his rhyming schemes are well employed

I haven’t really thought much of the future. Mostly because I am too busy worrying about the present, and the problems it presents me with. I don’t really aspire to have a career because I haven’t really thought about it that much. Whenever I think of future I imagine a future where I make a good quantity of wealth, but family comes a bit later afterwards.

I do think that language is very important to learn and to study. Most people think that having one language is wholesome, but language is like a key for life (DJ Khaled reference unintended). And most people like when you can communicate in their preferred language. Proficiency might be important later but just understanding a language is good enough for me. I also think that language is important to a country as well. I believe the best way to disassemble a nation’s society is by removing its own language from it.