Re: Overseas Pakistanis who are trying to adopt a Pseudo Arab identity?
In the case of Muslims living in the West, it’s got a lot to do with the recent drive towards establishing our identity as Muslims rather than someone pertaining to a certain race, country, tribe etc.
That’s got a lot to do with all that attention and focus on Muslims especially within the past decade and increase in Islamophobia in general. There has just been more intermingling between Muslim races now. A lot of people have started to realize that it’s not actually where you are from, but your identity as a Muslim that matters now. Your culture isn’t anything but the way you live your social life, food, language, music, clothing.
This change doesn’t just apply to some Pakistani kids listening to Nancy ajram and using a few words of arabic here and there in their everyday life, I also see some of my arab/somali friends wear shalwar kameez now and then and asking me recipes for making biryani or kabuli palao. A lot of them are big fans of Bollywood too.
I think it’s nice to see things blending in a little. It doesn’t mean they’re losing their identity or are confused.
As far as learning arabic in itself is concerned, i think nowadays, a lot of Muslims are sending their kids off to Islamic Schools where Arabic is taught as a second language, also a lot of colleges and high schools require you to take a year of second language and Arabic is listed on most of their curriculum, Urdu isn’t. Most Muslims just end up opting for that class. I think that’s where I picked what little Arabic I can speak from.
I’ve heard they have strong accents and it doesn’t go very well with the Native speakers. It’s probably just a little hard for us to detect but I’ve heard it’s fairly common and they’re generally given a hard time and made fun of for their accents when they go back home just like we do for our urdu.
I thought I was the only one who noticed that. I have seen that A lot! What I think is that for a while, the eldest kid being the only child, is mostly interacting with only his parents at home and they will speak to that kid in their native language, which he has a pretty decent grasp on until the child is sent off the school and picks up on English and starts speaking it instead. Most of the parents stop caring for enforcing their native languages by then and when the subsequent kids are born, they now have elder sibs who speak English and end up preferring it over Urdu. Even if some parents are strict about it and only speak their native language, the children will still speak English when they’re by themselves because most of the stuff they’re exposed to (cartoons, games etc) are also in English and now they have someone else to speak it with at home.