Re: Desis, urdu..and english, and the in between stuff
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Scenario#2: You grew up in the middle east...hmmmmm question is, why is your urdu bad and hopping along with a "western" accent. If we take into account the same criteria as discussed in the previous example..should you not be speaking urdu with an arabic accent and mixing arabic words like "Ya Habeebi, Ateeni aik panni ka glass, shukran". Its my impression that desis growing up in middleeast feel like expatriates of teh second degree compared to those in europe and North america ( and australia perhaps) ..thus trying to be all western...but folks.. you are spotted a mile away J Those Hara Jeans have got to go, and the whole nike and reebok heyday is gone, so quit dressing like an extra from "footloose" and chill. On a positive side though, most of these folks are in another country and with limited opportunities to use urdu on an everyday basis since they are in international schools most of the times. Again parents fault and all...but its slightly ummmm dodgy shall we say.
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Well in Saudi Arabia, there is very little interaction between locals' and expats' kids, most never ever learn Arabic, except for a few words. And I never saw anyone emphasizing to their kids that they should learn Arabic. Maybe some do, but I have never seen it. It's just not needed. It is very common to not know a lick about Arabic customs, even though they might have spent 20 years there. If this is the case in SA, I imagine in Dubai or Abu Dhabi a person living in a gated community of expats can probably go without ever being exposed to Arabic.
Oh and the well off Pakistanis send their kids to the various American and British schools (lots of $$$$), whose entire purpose is to surround students with that environment. So naturally, speaking with that fake "Western" accent is necessary to show a return on the money to the parents hehehe.
But, like you, I also find that funny. Can't speak English with any proper accent, and cannot speak Urdu at all. What did they actually learn?
Going off on a tangent, this is one of the reasons whenever I hear people say "I should take a job in mideast, I want my kids to have an Islamic environment", I try to tell them your kids will hardly ever get exposed to that Islamic environment. If anything they will get even more confused.