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<p class=MsoNormal><span class=headlinearticle2><b><font size=6 color=black
face=Arial><span style='font-size:21.0pt'>English is cool in trendy Beirut</span></span></font></b></span><span
class=headlinearticle1><b><font size=6 color=black face=Arial><span
style='font-size:21.0pt'> <span id="AssetWebPart1_ctl00___PageTitle__"></span></font></b></span><span
class=headlinearticle1><b><font size=6 color=black face=Arial><span
style='font-size:21.0pt;display:none'>TheStar.com - News - English is cool in
trendy Beirut</span></span></font></b></span><font size=3 color=black
face=Verdana><span style='font-size:11.5pt;font-family:Verdana;color:black'> <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span class=subhead11><b><font size=3 color=black
face=Arial><span style='font-size:12.0pt;color:black'><!-- SUB TITLE 1 --><span
id="AssetWebPart1_ctl00___SubTitle1__">Pushes aside French as the language of
status in Lebanese capital</span></span></font></b></span><font size=3
color=black face=Verdana><span style='font-size:11.5pt;font-family:Verdana;
color:black'><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 color=black face=Verdana><span
style='font-size:11.5pt;font-family:Verdana;color:black'><!-- PUBLISH DATE -->October
08, 2007 <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span id="AssetWebPart1_ctl00___Author1__"><st1:City w:st="on"><st1:place
w:st="on"><span class=articleauthor2><b><font size=1 color=black face=Verdana><span
style='font-size:8.5pt;font-family:Verdana;color:black'><!-- AUTHOR 1 -->Oakland</span></font></b></span></st1:place></st1:City><span
class=articleauthor2><b><font size=1 color=black face=Verdana><span
style='font-size:8.5pt;font-family:Verdana;color:black'> Ross</span></span></font></b></span><font
size=3 color=black face=Verdana><span style='font-size:11.5pt;font-family:Verdana;
color:black'><br>
</span></font><font size=1 color=black face=Verdana><span style='font-size:
8.5pt;font-family:Verdana;color:black;text-transform:uppercase'><span
id="AssetWebPart1_ctl00___Credit1__"><!-- CREDIT 1-->Middle East Bureau</span></span></font><font
size=3 color=black face=Verdana><span style='font-size:11.5pt;font-family:Verdana;
color:black'><br>
<br>
<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<!-- ARTICLE CONTENT--><span id="AssetWebPart1_ctl00___BodyLineup__">
<p><font size=3 color=black face=Verdana><span style='font-size:11.5pt;
font-family:Verdana;color:black'>BEIRUT–There's a deal being offered on
Mazda automobiles in this frenetic Middle Eastern capital, a city where little
stays the same for long.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 color=black face=Verdana><span style='font-size:11.5pt;
font-family:Verdana;color:black'>"Turn me on," urges a billboard on <st1:Street
w:st="on"><st1:address w:st="on">Zalka St.</st1:address></st1:Street> in the
east end of <st1:City w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Beirut</st1:place></st1:City>.
"Zero down payment, 1.99 per cent interest. Limited quantity."<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 color=black face=Verdana><span style='font-size:11.5pt;
font-family:Verdana;color:black'>Sounds good – but what is most
intriguing about this advertisement is not the nature of the offer. It is the
nature of the language in which the offer is being made.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 color=black face=Verdana><span style='font-size:11.5pt;
font-family:Verdana;color:black'>The offer is being made in English – and
only in English.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 color=black face=Verdana><span style='font-size:11.5pt;
font-family:Verdana;color:black'>The same goes for much, if not most, of the
brash outdoor advertising that sprouts like gaudy thickets of mercantilism
along the boulevards and avenues of <st1:City w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Beirut</st1:place></st1:City>.
<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 color=black face=Verdana><span style='font-size:11.5pt;
font-family:Verdana;color:black'>"The Chivas Life." "For Burger
Lovers!" "Chicken Your Way." "Sally Hansen Line Freeze for
Lips."<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 color=black face=Verdana><span style='font-size:11.5pt;
font-family:Verdana;color:black'>Never mind the absence of French – long
the language of choice for cultured Lebanese – there isn't even a single
Arabic character to be found on most of these signs.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 color=black face=Verdana><span style='font-size:11.5pt;
font-family:Verdana;color:black'>"English is cool," said a Western
diplomat in <st1:City w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Beirut</st1:place></st1:City>.
"If you're hip and you're young, you speak English."<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 color=black face=Verdana><span style='font-size:11.5pt;
font-family:Verdana;color:black'>You do if you are Lebanese.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 color=black face=Verdana><span style='font-size:11.5pt;
font-family:Verdana;color:black'>According to Christian Merville, an editorial
writer at <em><i><font face=Verdana><span style='font-family:Verdana'>L'Orient
Le Jour</span></font></i></em>, <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Lebanon</st1:place></st1:country-region>'s
only French-language daily newspaper, English has <em><i><font face=Verdana><span
style='font-family:Verdana'>incontestablement</span></font></i></em>
(indisputably) supplanted French as the language of status in this resolutely
status-conscious land. Or, as Merville, puts it: "Rambo has replaced
Rimbaud."<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 color=black face=Verdana><span style='font-size:11.5pt;
font-family:Verdana;color:black'>He's referring, in the first instance, to the
action hero played by American Sylvester Stallone in a series of 1980s movie
thrillers and, in the second instance, to the mercurial 19th century French
poet Arthur Rimbaud.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 color=black face=Verdana><span style='font-size:11.5pt;
font-family:Verdana;color:black'>It's a play on words, but the point is clear.
English – particularly American English – has muscled French aside
in this Mediterranean land, whose capital was once known as le Paris du
Moyen-Orient. The <st1:City w:st="on">Paris</st1:City> of the <st1:place w:st="on">Middle
East</st1:place>.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 color=black face=Verdana><span style='font-size:11.5pt;
font-family:Verdana;color:black'>In many ways, the sobriquet remains apt.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 color=black face=Verdana><span style='font-size:11.5pt;
font-family:Verdana;color:black'>Despite the pummelling it has suffered during
a succession of wars, <st1:City w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Beirut</st1:place></st1:City>
continues to boast an array of continental charms, including fine restaurants,
an exuberant nightlife, a sophisticated café culture, and enduring ties to a
certain former imperial power whose capital is the Paris of Europe.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 color=black face=Verdana><span style='font-size:11.5pt;
font-family:Verdana;color:black'>Increasingly, however, when <em><i><font
face=Verdana><span style='font-family:Verdana'>les citoyens et citoyennes </span></font></i></em>of
<st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Lebanon</st1:place></st1:country-region>
converse with the outside world – or even among themselves – they
do so in English, not French.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 color=black face=Verdana><span style='font-size:11.5pt;
font-family:Verdana;color:black'>Granted, Arabic remains the sole official tongue
of the country properly known as Al-Joumhouriya al-Lubnaniya. But even Arabic
is starting to buckle somewhat under the globalizing force of English.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 color=black face=Verdana><span style='font-size:11.5pt;
font-family:Verdana;color:black'>This is Merville's view, anyway. He believes
that Arabic speakers in <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Lebanon</st1:place></st1:country-region>
increasingly express themselves in an impoverished vocabulary and tired
clichés.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 color=black face=Verdana><span style='font-size:11.5pt;
font-family:Verdana;color:black'>"There's a decline in the quality of
French," he said, "but there is also an extraordinary decline in
Arabic."<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 color=black face=Verdana><span style='font-size:11.5pt;
font-family:Verdana;color:black'>Arabic, of course, has been spoken in these
lands for millennia. French, however, arrived in the late 19th century, when
Jesuit clergy in <st1:country-region w:st="on">France</st1:country-region>
sought to counter increasing Protestant influence in the region by dispatching
legions of missionaries to the mountainous eastern shores of the <st1:place
w:st="on">Mediterranean</st1:place>.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 color=black face=Verdana><span style='font-size:11.5pt;
font-family:Verdana;color:black'>Following the break-up of the Ottoman Empire
in 1922, the territory now called <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place
w:st="on">Lebanon</st1:place></st1:country-region> became a French
protectorate, an arrangement that lasted only a quarter-century. But Parisian
influence – linguistic and otherwise – endured long after <st1:country-region
w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Lebanon</st1:place></st1:country-region> became
an independent state in 1946.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 color=black face=Verdana><span style='font-size:11.5pt;
font-family:Verdana;color:black'>"Cultured Lebanese were all educated in
French-speaking countries," said Ghassan Moukheiber, a <st1:City w:st="on"><st1:place
w:st="on">Beirut</st1:place></st1:City> lawyer.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 color=black face=Verdana><span style='font-size:11.5pt;
font-family:Verdana;color:black'>Even families that could not afford to send
their children abroad typically dispatched them to local schools where the
language of instruction was French, not Arabic.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 color=black face=Verdana><span style='font-size:11.5pt;
font-family:Verdana;color:black'>Explanations vary for the recent ascent of
English.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 color=black face=Verdana><span style='font-size:11.5pt;
font-family:Verdana;color:black'>Some observers here – oddly, these
individuals tend to be native French speakers – advance the view that
English is a "simpler," less challenging tongue than French.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 color=black face=Verdana><span style='font-size:11.5pt;
font-family:Verdana;color:black'>But others note that English opens more doors
nowadays than French ever could. It is the primary language of the Internet,
for example, as well as the lingua franca of industrial and commercial
globalization.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 color=black face=Verdana><span style='font-size:11.5pt;
font-family:Verdana;color:black'>In <st1:country-region w:st="on">Lebanon</st1:country-region>,
as in much of the world, <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">U.S.</st1:place></st1:country-region>
television and films are a powerful cultural force, easily exceeding the
influence of their French counterparts.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 color=black face=Verdana><span style='font-size:11.5pt;
font-family:Verdana;color:black'>At the same time, Lebanese citizens who may be
contemplating an international move – as many do – are far more
likely to be accepted as immigrants in English-speaking countries such as
Australia, Canada or the United States than they are by France.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 color=black face=Verdana><span style='font-size:11.5pt;
font-family:Verdana;color:black'>"English," said a French-speaking
diplomat, "is a lot more useful if you want to go abroad." <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 color=black face=Verdana><span style='font-size:11.5pt;
font-family:Verdana;color:black'>Still, French is far from dead in <st1:country-region
w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Lebanon</st1:place></st1:country-region>.
Especially among gatherings of well-educated folk, it is not uncommon nowadays
to hear the conversation shift easily from Arabic, to English, to French, and
back again.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 color=black face=Verdana><span style='font-size:11.5pt;
font-family:Verdana;color:black'>"It's a wonderful trilingual
country," said the Western diplomat. "In a single sentence, you will
hear all three languages."<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 color=black face=Verdana><span style='font-size:11.5pt;
font-family:Verdana;color:black'>And, although dramatic and unmistakable, the
current shift toward English is not uniformly spread among all of <st1:country-region
w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Lebanon</st1:place></st1:country-region>'s four
million citizens.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 color=black face=Verdana><span style='font-size:11.5pt;
font-family:Verdana;color:black'>Fluency in French is still highly prized in
the affluent Ashrafiye district of Beirut, for example, a neighbourhood mostly populated
by Maronite Christians, for whom the language of Voltaire continues to imply
good breeding and high economic status.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 color=black face=Verdana><span style='font-size:11.5pt;
font-family:Verdana;color:black'>The country's large Shia Muslim community,
meanwhile, is said to be the sector of Lebanese society most drawn to English,
but no group in the country is immune to the economic opportunities or the
cultural appeal now associated with the language of – well, of Sylvester
Stallone. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><em><i><font size=3 color=black face=Verdana><span style='font-size:11.5pt;
font-family:Verdana;color:black'>Repos dans la paix, </span></font></i></em><font
size=3 color=black face=Verdana><span style='font-size:11.5pt;font-family:Verdana;
color:black'>Arthur Rimbaud. Rest in peace.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
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