Yvonne Lewis-Mustafa didn’t speak a word of Arabic when she stepped off the airplane in Jordan. She only knew English and Spanish.
And after six years of teaching English in the Arabic-speaking country, she still didn’t fully grasp the sentence structure.
So she came to MSU.
The English senior is in her fourth semester of Arabic language and culture classes. She hopes her knowledge in the language will help her communicate better with Arabic-speaking refugees coming to the United States when she is working as a teacher.
“I feel that it’s given me an advantage and has given me a good understanding of the dynamics of culture,” she said. “Arabic is something we are so unfamiliar with, so far from what we speak. English has a relationship with Spanish and French, but Arabic is so different. I think it’s going to be widely needed.”
Arabic language and culture classes at MSU have witnessed an increase in enrollment in the last three years - and many people think the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks will bring in more students.
Malik Balla, MSU’s only professor of Arabic language, said he predicts his fall classes will be full - a change from the previous open classes.
“Sept. 11 was about two weeks into classes,” he said. “There were some students who were interested, but by then, it was too late to enroll - two weeks in a language is a lot of time.”
Balla said he’s heard from many more students who are interested in taking the language. He hopes the university will find more teachers for the language, but didn’t know of any plans to hire more.
“I’ve received many e-mails from students from all over MSU and the state asking whether we offer Arabic language beginner classes in the spring semester,” he said. “Unfortunately we don’t because we don’t have enough staff for the demand.”
Hussein Ibish, Midwest regional director of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee in Washington, D.C., said questions about Middle Eastern culture since Sept. 11 have lead more Americans to study Arabic.
“We want to know what happened and why,” he said. “We want to know if the attacks are an authentic expression of Arabic culture - they’re not.
“It could set you up with a very interesting employment with a public sector or government employer.”
In Michigan, Balla said the state’s large Arabic population makes learning the language important.
“We have the biggest Arabic community outside the Middle East,” he said. “And the students are starting to get interested in learning the language of their parents.”
But Balla said professors also are interested in taking his classes.
“They show interest in knowing more about Arabic language and culture so they can present it in what they are teaching,” he said.
Another of Balla’s students, Felicia Eshragh, said she is enrolled in Arabic because she always has been interested in what’s going on in the Middle East. The international relations sophomore has visited Israel and said she would like to return to that area soon.
“The language works you, but it also helps you understand part of the world that the media portrays as one of the least friendly areas,” she said.
Eshragh said she has noticed more of her peers showing an interest in Arabic language and culture since Sept. 11.
“I think the emphasis of the language has been pressed a little more,” she said. “Some people think Arabic language is a bad thing to be involved with. The enrollment could go either way, but I hope that it would go up.”
George Cartsonis, spokesman for Oakland Community College, said the college added an intermediate-level Arabic language class to the schedule this semester - and it’s already full.
Although Cartsonis isn’t sure the addition of the class was directly related to the terrorist attacks, he said it wouldn’t come as a surprise to him.
“Last semester, in the fall, we offered one basic class and it filled to capacity, 31 students,” he said. “This semester we offered two classes, the basic class and the follow-up class. We’ve increased by 100 percent in terms of classes offered.”
Wayne County Community College saw Arabic class enrollment jump from no students in fall 2000 to 51 students in fall 2001. Henry Ford Community College in Dearborn doubled the number of sections offered to meet demand.
Alexander Knysh, professor of Islamic Studies and chairman of the Department of Near Eastern Studies at the University of Michigan, said the university has not experienced any major upsurge in enrollments in elementary and intermediate-level Arabic since Sept. 11.
But Knysh said he expects those classes to be filled in the fall.
“We do expect a substantial increase in enrollment in our Arabic classes in the coming academic year and in the spring and summer semesters of 2002,” he said. “We also offer a variety of nonlanguage classes relating to Islam and Arabic-Middle Eastern history and culture. Enrollments for these courses have increased significantly.”
Jameel Aftab, president of the Muslim Students’ Association, said many Muslims learn Arabic because the Quran, the Muslim holy book, is originally written in it. The psychology senior said he thinks the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks will affect the enrollment in Arabic language.
“I think that’s the source of so many people wanting to learn more about the culture and the language, because they want to learn why this happened to us,” he said. “I think the students that might usually take Spanish or French might choose to take Arabic because people might want to learn it to see what it’s about.”
Megan Frye can be reached at fryemega@msu.edu.
