A Blog by the Editor of The Middle East Journal

Putting Middle Eastern Events in Cultural and Historical Context

Friday, June 6, 2014

More Debate on Colloquial, MSA, and Disney Dubbing

A week ago, I linked to Elias Muhanna's New Yorker piece questioning why Disney dubbed Frozen in Modern Standard Arabic instead of colloquial. It's provoked a lot of commentary, and now Marcia Lynx Qualey at the Arabic Literature (in English) blog has assembled a number of commentators and translators to debate the issue. Elias has responded and it is well worth reading: "Can’t ‘Let It Go’: The Role of Colloquial and Modern Standard Arabic in Children’s Literature and Entertainment."

On a related theme, also note this from Arabizi: “We must make space for non-standard Arabic if we really care about FuSHa”: Interviews with Spoken Arabic language teachers."

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