What an overseas debating championship taught me about my language

By Salma Elkhaoudi

I was born in Casablanca, Morocco, but immigrated to the United States at a very young age, immersing myself in the English language long before I had a chance to learn my own: Arabic. My interactions with the different Arab communities in my hometown taught me the extent to which we, as Arabs, are deeply anchored in our dialects despite sharing a common mother tongue.

As a Moroccan-native in America, that meant that communicating my thoughts and emotions to others was possible only by navigating Arabic’s intricate sea of vernaculars. This situation presented a predicament: in order to be fully understood as an Arabic speaker, one had to wrestle with the full nuances of a particular dialect, and there are more than 22.

I never understood why coffee shop conversations from city to city, for example, differed vastly in dialect, while news channels across the Arabic-speaking world broadcasted stories in the same classical form of the language.

As sociopolitical issues in the Middle East and North Africa gained attention via social media, exacerbated by the Arab Spring, the need for a unifying language that cuts across histories and geographies became all the more palpable.

The significance of classical Arabic resurfaced and the questions surrounding language took a different course. People wondered: Would a common language serve more fruitful in having these conversations and debates? Are we missing something important in our discussions — in the way we build our arguments — because we are linguistically fragmented?

That was what really blew me away by QatarDebate, a member of Qatar Foundation, which was at the center of these discussions. I had never before heard of a forum that serves to bring diverse competitors — across geographic, educational, cultural, and socioeconomic spectra — to think critically and exchange ideas in classical Arabic.

The objective of the initiative struck me as more than just an academic endeavor; it’s a celebration of a legacy and history of communication in a language with massive depth. And what better way to do that than through the art of debate?

Open exchange of ideas
As students at the University of Chicago, with a strong interest in Arabic, a group of friends and I decided that we wanted to be a part of this narrative. We expressed interest to participate in QatarDebate’s International Universities Debating Championship, thousands of miles from home, because we believe in the power of an open exchange of ideas in a language that binds so many regions and cultures of the world.

Omar Battisha, a first-year at the University of Chicago and a member of our Arabic Debate Team, had the following comments to share on the subject: “As an Egyptian-American who lives and studies in a country where there is a scarcity of formal opportunities to utilize the Arabic language, I rarely get to discuss any issues of importance in Arabic.

“In fact, the only time I get to exercise my Arabic at all is generally in light-hearted personal conversations with family. As a result, I’ve never been able to appreciate the depth of meaning that the Arabic language is famous for, and I aim to do so by participating in QatarDebate. I also hope that through my participation in the tournament, I will be able to develop my Arabic speaking skills, increase my Arabic vocabulary, and gain a greater breadth of knowledge in topics that concern the Arab World.”

Of course, an important facet of our participation in this competition includes developing important skills in debate and the Arabic language.

However, we are also drawn to the kind of community that this Championship brings together — hundreds of students will be flying into Doha, Qatar, this March from all over the world with similar goals and a similar passion for the Arabic language. We hope to join this international community and to foster one like we have done here in Chicago.

QatarDebate has inspired us to found an Arabic Debate Team here at the University of Chicago, under the umbrella of the Arab Student Association and in partnership with the Arabic Language Department.

We hope to unify Arabic-speakers and debaters across the Greater Chicago Area to come together in a similar forum here, and to bring our best competitors to future International Universities Debating Championships.

Salma Elkhaoudi is a 4th year Political Science major and Human Rights major at the University of Chicago. She is currently leading the University of Chicago team at the International Universities Debating Championship, and is a Peer Leader at the Pozen Human Rights Center at UChicago.