Arablish | عربليزي

As a student who has spent most of his life speaking fluent Arabic and English, I still struggle with the two languages and code mix and code switch between them. Even though I have taken French courses for a couple of months, I never really felt comfortable speaking it since I am not fluent at it. Also, I want to avoid the humiliation of not being able to speak French that well. Language plays a big role in my life because it is the way of communicating and identifying somebody, at least in my perspective. Growing up with mostly attending private international schools, I was taught how to speak, read and write English and Arabic. In addition, going to an international school helped me make friends with students who were from all over the world and from places I’ve never heard of. Although we all had our own native language, we spoke and communicated only through English since it is a universal language. However, we all spoke it with our own unique accents. Furthermore, being able to speak both Arabic and English comfortably has led me to a series of Code Mixing or Code Switching moments in my life.

Code Mixing is when you mix up two languages in a speech. I am from Abu Dhabi, U.A.E and my native language is Arabic. It is also the native language of my religion Islam. I am both a fluent speaker in Arabic and English, and sometimes I tend to use Arabic words in English sentences and English words in Arabic sentences. Some words cannot be translated into Arabic and some Arabic words cannot be translated into the English language. My constant code switching has led to several confusions when I communicate, especially when I travel. For example, this summer I traveled to Mykonos in Greece. Sometimes, when asking a random pedestrian for the directions to a certain restaurant , I would accidently used Arabic words in English sentences. This had led a lot of confusion and weird looks from the local Greeks. This similar incident also has occured at school, I would use some English words when talking to my Arabic teacher and Arabic words when talking to my English teacher. This has resulted in many misunderstandings and humiliating moments. These types of incidents are called Code-Mixing or Multilingual.

My situation of Code-Mixing or Code-Switching have also caused me to shift into adopting different accents depending on who I am around. For example, I naturally have an average somewhat American accent when speaking the English language or speaking to a native English speaker. However, if I speak English to a person who has an Arab accent, my English suddenly sounds like theirs. The same incident occurs when I speak Arabic as well, if I am sat with people with a strong Emirati Bedouin accent my accent suddenly becomes bedouin. When I hang around Arabs who are from other nations, my accent quickly switches to theirs and I tend to use their vocabulary as well. In most cases, I tend to completely forget the Arabic language which has resulted me in having a very weak Arabic or Emirati Accent. The same happens in English, I will adjust my accent to where they’re from (but it rarely occurs).

The reasons and causes for Code-Mixing and Code Switching is that we tend to speak in different accents or mix up languages without realising or intending to do it. Studies show that Code Switching actually helps us think when we cannot find an appropriate term to use to express something. I believe that perhaps the main cause for my Code-Switching is that I tend not to be not equally competent in the two languages that I speak.