sibil

I'm entering a Comp Lit PhD program with just a BA.

Just accepted an offer from UC Irvine in Comp Lit.

Today I found out my PhD application was turned down, but they offered me admission into the MA program, with no funding. Looks like the same happened to one other person. Anyone else in this situation? What are your thoughts?

Modern Hebrew is definitely easier for an English-speaker to learn than MSA. The alphabet is simpler (though I agree with ColorlessGreen that this should not be a big factor), and more importantly, the grammar and syntax (and vocabulary to some extent) are much more familiar to an English/French-speaker than Arabic. Modern Hebrew is often described as a Standard Average European language with a Semitic rather than Indo-European base. On the other hand, MSA grammar, syntax, and vocabulary are much more 'foreign' to an English/French speaker and thus may pose more of a challenge. However, you should keep in mind how choosing Hebrew over Arabic will limit your project; Hebrew has ~10 million speakers, 75% of whom live in Israel, whereas Arabic is spoken by 500+ million people across the Middle East, North Africa, and elsewhere. You might also consider that English bilingualism in Israel is extremely high (such that most Israelis read/write English quite well), whereas this is significantly lower in much of the Arab world. Actually, virtually nothing is written in colloquial Arabic except for informal communication (email, chat, text, etc.) All Arabic newspapers (with perhaps a few rare exceptions) are written in MSA, as is nearly all other literature. Some people have written novels or poetry in colloquial Arabic, but even that is rare. Also as a linguist, I'd have to disagree. The difficulty of learning languages is of course relative to the learner's background, as you say, and for that reason learning Modern Hebrew is generally easier than learning MSA for people who speak English/French (see above). It's also a fallacy that no language is objectively more or less difficult for non-native learners to acquire; even given the relativity, Modern Hebrew would be much easier for an Arabic-speaker to learn than Modern Aramaic, despite Hebrew and Aramaic both being Northwest Semitic languages and essentially equally close to Arabic. This is because Modern Hebrew has undergone unnatural development (language reform, etc.) that led to its grammar becoming simplified and regularized, with the 'rough edges' filed off, so to speak. Modern Aramaic, not having undergone such developments, has retained a lot more of what makes languages difficult to learn: irregularity, exceptions to rules, quirky features unique to the language, etc. With all that in mind I think Modern Hebrew would involve less effort to learn than MSA for just about anyone who speaks English and French. But, as with learning any foreign language (especially one from a different linguistic family than your own), it will still be a challenge, which is why I suggest you not rule out MSA. Simply put, there is just a lot more to read in MSA!

I agree with ColorlessGreen - it can be done, the only question is whether you have the motivation. It takes a lot of work to develop strong reading proficiency in MSA in just two years if you're taking classes; it can take even more work if you're on your own. Since you said traveling is out of the question, I highly recommend you seek out a personal tutor. If money's tight, you can study Arabic on your own every day and then meet with a tutor once a week, once every other week, or even once a month if that's all you can afford, so that they can go over the progress you've made, answer your unanswered questions, correct your mistakes, etc. If possible, you should seek out someone with some level of teaching ability and/or a professional level of MSA (in other words, someone who was a teacher in an Arab country would be great, not just someone who learned it in school!) There are tons of resources for learning MSA, from books and CDs to a wealth of websites and forums. I would work out curriculum with an Arabic instructor (you might email some professors at different schools, explain your situation, and ask their advice) so you know what textbooks you'll use and how much you plan to cover each week - then stick to it. Find other students at your school or nearby schools who speak and/or study Arabic, and form a club. There are some really fantastic forums for learning Arabic online where you can ask questions as you go along (I recommend unilang.com, wordreference.com, and lisanularab.org, amongst others) and you can find people who will correct your exercises and answer your questions for free on websites like livemocha.com and lang-8.com. Finally, uz-translations.net is your best source for (not exactly legal) free PDFs of just about every Arabic textbook out there (along with a million other languages). Sorry if any of my advice was obvious, and good luck - Arabic is a tough language, but with enough dedication your goal is definitely accomplishable.

As of this posting, it looks like the only people who have heard anything are three people who emailed Columbia to ask, and all were rejected (sorry guys! ) Does anyone know when they're planning on letting us know about admissions? Has anyone been waitlisted or interviewed or anything? I'm anxious because it's so late (even though I know they gave responses this late last year) and Columbia is the only school that hasn't told me anything by this point. Here's hoping no news is good news for us at this point...!

If you can't understand what linguistics has to do with determining whether Yemeni Arabic is closer to fusHa than other dialects, then I don't know what to tell you. The question of relationships between dialects of a language (in this case, Classical vs. colloquial Yemeni Arabic) is a linguistic one. To use another biological example, if someone claimed dolphins are related to fish and I said they're actually more closely related to dogs than to fish (and provided evidence from a biological standpoint) would you respond "While the lesson in evolutionary biology was informative, I don't see what it has to do with the discussion at hand"? I see the distinction you're trying to make between "closer" in a scientific sense and "closer" from the perspective of an Arabic-learner, but it's still inaccurate. Anyone who is trying to become fluent in fusHa will find their studies complemented equally by the study of any currently-spoken dialect, if they learn about the specific changes that lead to the development of said dialect from fusHa. Any good Arabic course that teaches both Classical/Standard and a colloquial dialect should address that. If you just pick up the basics of a dialect, you might not get the connection to fusHa yet, but if one really studies the dialect, they will be able to recognize the continuity in vocabulary and pick out those features of the dialect (syntax, phonology, or what-have-you) carried over from fusHa. When you understand the science behind the language, it makes it easier to see how languages have developed and see at once how "close" and how "far" every dialect is from fusHa. In other words, when you know what to look for, every dialect becomes equally advantageous to the learner of fusHa. Someone just looking at a dolphin and a fish will say: "these two are obviously closley related; they look alike and live in the water." But someone who knows what to look for (things like bones and blood rather than external appearance) will conclude that dolphins and dogs are more closely related, despite not seeming that way from first glance.

That's not how it works. Hopefully you would agree that Romanian, a Romance language, is more closely related to Latin than English-- and yet a Latin-speaker might have an easier time recognizing Latin loans in English than cognates in Romanian (i.e. Latin 'agilis' > English 'agile', Romanian 'ager'). Or to use another example: to the untrained eye, a hyrax (small furry rodent) does not seem to be related to the elephant in any way. However any evolutionary biologist can tell you that hyraxes are more closely related to elephants than other large, tusked mammals like walruses or boar. The surface appearance has little or nothing to do with the underlying genetic relationship. Moroccan Arabic has been more innovative than other dialects in some aspects (such as phonology), which makes it hard for someone untrained in historical linguistics to recognize the changes that made Moroccan distinct from Classical Arabic. However, Moroccan Arabic can be more conservative in other aspects (like syntax) and it has retained some Classical vocabulary that other dialects have lost (like هبط for example). It's exactly for that reason that you can't say one dialect is closer to CA than another (though I would concede that some dialects may be closer in one particular aspect, such as phonology or syntax). Some claim the Najdi dialect is the most conservative and therefore closest to CA, but this is also hotly contested amongst linguists. In the realm of vocabulary, for example, it may have fewer foreign loans than some other dialects, but its vocabulary has also evolved and it has lost some Classical words while coining some new ones, as all dialects have. In many places (especially in Iran and around the Gulf area), it's pretty common knowledge that Persian is closely related to Arabic (since they have such a great deal of words in common). Despite being such common knowledge, it is completely false; Persian and Arabic are about as related as English and Arabic (which is to say, not at all). Your having taken some MSA classes in Morocco does not mean you know anything about historical linguistics.

Rejected: Berkeley, Yale, Princeton Waiting: Columbia, NYU, U Chicago I'm worried since it seems everyone's heard from Chicago, including acceptances, rejections, and even being waitlisted. I haven't heard a word from them. Should I contact them or just keep waiting? (I'm not in a rush since I haven't heard from the other schools yet either).

My advice is, if there's any way you can afford to keep your car, keep it! I spent the first 20 years of my life in Laguna Niguel (10 minutes south of Irvine) and I can tell you, the area has terrible public transportation, and most things are too far spread out to walk or bike. It's very difficult to get around without a car, and if you're going to be spending 5-6 years living in Irvine, you'll want to be able to go other places. Orange County can get pretty boring (though it has fun things) so chances are you'll also want to drive to Los Angeles or San Diego sometimes (each is about an hour's drive away). Incidentally, I live outside of California now but was offered admission into a PhD program at UCI, so I'll be visiting on the 11th. They haven't told me anything about funding yet, which is making me a bit anxious..

Most typically, 'fusHa' (فصحی) refers to both Classical and Modern Standard Arabic. When a distinction between the two is made, 'fusHa' specifies neither Classical nor MSA; instead, Classical is referred to as `arabiyya turathiyya and MSA is called `arabiyya mi`yariyya haditha, to the best of my knowledge. Wikipedia adds this:

Did you get a rejection letter from them? I got an email last week specifically stating that I was not placed on their short list. I don't want to falsely get your hopes up if I'm wrong, but if you haven't received such a letter, maybe you're still being considered...

With regards to Emory, if it helps, I was invited for the recruitment weekend (and my interviews went great) but received a rejection email from them the other day. So perhaps that's another space for someone on the wait list.

Just to be clear, Yemen is great and all, but Yemeni colloquial Arabic is no closer to fusHa (Classical Arabic) than any other colloquial dialect, from Moroccan to Iraqi. It has retained some vocabulary or other features from the classical language that other dialects have lost, and it has equally lost things that other dialects have retained. There is no Arabic dialect currently spoken anywhere that is 'closer' to fusHa than the others.

I was admitted into UC Irvine's Comp Lit program without an interview this year.

Probably in March/April, unless you happen to be invited earlier for interviews or recruitment.

I applied for the Persian Language and Literature PhD program and am anxious too. I applied for the same last year, but they turned me down and offered me admission into their MAPH program with half tuition, which I didn't take. I'm cautiously optimistic about this year, though!

I haven't heard a thing from UCI and I applied to the Comp Lit PhD as well. I guess I'll email today and see if I can get a response. Edit: well, now I've heard, and they rejected me..

I was rejected from the MEALAC PhD the other day.

One school has made me an offer of admission with 50% tuition, which is still too expensive for me to afford. However, I am still waiting to hear back from the other schools I applied to. If I want to negotiate funding with the school that made the offer, is it crucial that I respond right away, or can I wait to see if other schools make better offers so that I can bargain by saying "University of XYZ offered me full tuition," etc. ?