Learning Arabic in Summer 2008?

We are presenting this opportunity for all to engage seriously in learning Arabic language by participating in startalk this year. This is another opportunity to learn modern standard Arabic language in Cleveland/Akron, Ohio, area, this upcoming summer, 2008. This summer Arabic program is pending approval. We expect the approval by the end of February 2008.
For more information on startalk; please access the following links:

http://www.nflc.org/projects/current_projects/startalk/
http://www.nflc.org/projects/current_projects/startalk/Arabic.php

To participate in this program please use the comments link to tell us what kind of participation to expect of you or your child.

African Languages in Arabic Letters

Linguistically, many African heritage documentations were written either in classical Arabic language or in African languages with Arabic letters.
Pedagogically, many Africans were literate and well educated before the advent of Europeans on the African continent. Many kingdoms were built on this solid educational foundation in Ghana, Songhai, Mali, Nuba, Yoruba, Zulu ...etc. Perhaps Yoruba language which was been originally written in Arabic letters before the newly freed Yoruba slave, Bishop Ajayi Crowther returned from Freetown to Yorubaland and created new Yoruba letters in Latin letters. The creation of the letters was initially to translate Bible into Yoruba language...

Arabic Language from Timbuktu to Western Nigeria

Classical Arabic language is no strange to West and East Africa. In West Africa, particularly from Timbuktu ... to Yorubaland .... Markazu Taleemul Arabi and and its imeasurable impacts in spreading Arabic language throughout Africa and beyond has few comparison.

Ogunbiyi writes,

Yoruba language was all but settled by
1875 when the Church Missionary Society convened a conference
to put finishing touches to the Romanized Yoruba
orthography on which Samuel Ajayi Crowther and a host of
others (Christian clergymen and specialist linguists) had laboured
during the preceding 35 years. In spite of this seeming
fait accompli status of the Romanized Yoruba orthography,
a subdued feeling of resentment persisted among Muslim
scholars, especially those of them who were not immersed in
the Western education promoted by Christian missionary enterprise.
This subterranean feeling surfaced time and again
in form of direct and indirect attacks on the superimposition
of Christian/British colonial education over Arabic, the primary
tool of Muslim education, which preceded the entry of
Christianity into Yorubaland in the early 1840s.

Link:

http://hf.uib.no/i/smi/sa/14/14Ogunbiyi.pdf

Pedagogy of Classical Arabic in Africa

Africans pedagogical approach of Arabic language is unique in the sense that classical books like Ajroumiyyah and Alfey ibn Malik is usually first memorized in their entirety before venturing in other areas of the language ...
Links:
http://www.markazng.net/

Role of Arabic Scholarship in Spreading Islam

In 17th century Africa i.e before Europeans advent into Africa, Arabic language was the language of scholarship. Perhaps the best indication of this fact is the abundance presence of Arabic words in many African languages. And many of those words do not have any other synonym.
Example of Yoruba language words of Arabic Origin:
imototo-in Yoruba, imototo-in Arabic i.e cleanliness; alaafia in Yoruba and alaafiya in Arabic etc.
Bishop Ajayi Crowther, who was the first person to translate the Bible to Yoruba language...
Links:
http://www.dacb.org/stories/nigeria/legacy_crowther.html

Who Wrote Al-Ajroumiyyah?

A well known book in Arabic language Grammar: Al-Ajroumiyyah was written by a Berber scholar from the city of Fes, in Morocco. This indispensable text is famous and authoritative worldwide. And it has had indispensability status among Arab and 'Ajam (non-Arabs) in grasping the copmlex rules of Arabic language grammar. In West, Sheikh Adam Abdullah Al-Ilory (rahimahu Allah) played an enigmatic role in spreading the knowledge of Arabic language, its sciences and history as well.
Jazahu Allahu khayran.

Young Africans and Arabic

Many young Africans learn modern standard Arabic language simultaneously as they laern English and French in North, West and East Africa today more than in the past.

Significance of Spelling in Reading Arabic Text

Pedagogically speaking, spelling is the best way to learn reading. For instance, reading of English language are learned through spelling. Why not the same process in Arabic?