Assumptions

            I haven’t written a post on the vagaries of Arabic in some time, but this last week I made a discovery so mindboggling I can’t help but write about it. A few weeks ago I played “Blackbird” for my sophomores as a listening exercise. Since we’d been talking about metaphors in previous classes I was very happy that they quickly realized that the song is not about a bird. They got pretty close, actually, saying it was about some person who didn’t have freedom or opportunity before but now had a chance for it. This led us to talking a little bit about the Civil Rights Movement (my 30-minute spiel in simple English with Darija clarifications on the Civil Rights Movement still needs work), which they knew absolutely nothing about. This has put us on a kick talking about social issues in Morocco and on racism. Keep in mind that at the beginning of the year these kids couldn’t say “hello” and still only have a tenuous grasp on the past tense, though they kill in the present and present progressive, so we’re not talking high theory here.

            Keeping on this topic, last week I said an English word they’d never heard before. Assumption. “Younes,” they asked, “what does ‘assumption’ mean.” Realizing that I actually didn’t know it in Arabic, I defined assumption as something you believe without having a reason to believe it. Then I asked them how to say it in Arabic. They thought for awhile. Then they thought some more. Their eventual conclusion was that there simply wasn’t a word for it in Arabic. I found that a little hard to believe, but we moved on and they used it correctly for the rest of class. Since their first language is Tamazight, I decided I’d ask one of my English-speaking friends whose first language is Arabic what “assumption” is.

            He’d never heard the word before. So I explained it to him the same way I’d explained it before, giving examples of bad assumptions (an American who has never lived in an Arab country or met any Arabs might think all Arabs are terrorists, or boys in Morocco often assume girls who dress “loosely” are asking to be harassed) and good assumptions (if the next town in one direction is the same distance away as the next town in the other we can assume that it takes the same amount of time to drive to one or the other, but even this can be wrong because one might be uphill and the other down). He said that this was an entirely new concept to him, but that good assumptions could be covered by a certain word, however as we talked more about that word it seemed like the better translation was “conjecture.”

            Still unsatisfied I took to the Internet. On Facebook, Peace Corps Morocco has a group where PCVs can ask each other and various LCFs, tutors, and other English speaking Moroccans language questions. I explained that the word had come up in class and how I’d defined it. The first response from one PCV was this: “ ‘something you believe without reasons’ is oftentimes ‘fact’ here.” Rather flip, but sadly often rather accurate as well, which is part of the reason I want to talk about assumptions with my kids. Another enterprising PCV got an answer from Google translate, but we wanted confirmation. Another PCV suggested that since there isn’t much of a cultural context here for it just to go with “beliefs” or “opinions,” but I still wanted an answer. Eventually one of the Moroccan group members chimed in. His response was laughter. So as far as I know, there is no word for assumption in Arabic (any Arabic speaker reading this please comment and let me know if I’m missing something here).

            Now, this might be assuming too much (yeah, I groaned as well, but it was too easy), but I wonder if part of the problem the first volunteer brought up, that things you believe without reason are oftentimes “facts” here is because they don’t have a word for assumption. There is a lot of distance between fact, not fact, and outright false, and assumption is an important concept bridging that distance. Maybe I’m reading too much into the limits of language, reading Orwell too much at an early age will do that to you.

            In other news, a couple of weeks ago I was in Rabat for my Close of Service Conference. There isn’t really too much to write about it here, but it was an interesting and reflective time. Really highlights how close to the end I am. In fact, I realized, I have no more than 6 sessions left with any one class at this point. Less with some of them. Hopefully, most of those sessions won’t be solely mine anymore either, providing the bus system follows through the volunteer who is to replace me in site should be arriving later today!

            To finish up I’ll put in a Joha story since I haven’t in awhile. This is one of the ones I’ve used in play form in class, in this case with my freshmen to follow-up on their lesson on clothing:

            One day, Joha went to a shop that sold clothing. There he saw a beautiful pair of pants that he wanted to buy. After haggling for a good price the shopkeeper started to wrap up Joha’s purchase.

            “Wait,” said Joha, “I actually think I like that coat better, how much is it?”

            “For you,” said the shopkeeper, “I’ll say the same price as the pants.” Joha thanked him and took the coat. “Wait,” cried the shopkeeper, “Joha, you haven’t paid me.”

            “I’ve left you the pants,” replied Joha.

            “You didn’t pay for those either,” said the shopkeeper.

            “Of course not,” said Joha, “why would I pay for something I didn’t buy?”