Poetry
True or false -- Arabic poetry only exists in written forms.
False! Oral poetry is a major component of Arab culture.
True or false -- Arabic is the 2nd-most common language in the Arab world.
False! It's the most common one.
True or false -- no Arab countries were colonized by Europeans.
False! A bunch of them were.
True or false -- all Arabs believe that music is impermissible because it's against Islam.
False! Some conservative Muslims hold this position, but most Arabs love a good banger as much as the next person.
True or false -- Dr. Reynolds did his doctoral fieldwork in a small village in the Nile Delta in Egypt.
True!
True or false -- oral poetry is only recited by men in Arab culture.
False -- there are whole genres of oral poetry composed and recited by women, such as ghinawwa in Egypt and hawfi in Algeria
"Arabic" refers to: a) a language b) an ethnic group c) a region of the world d) a type of pasta
a) a language
Which of these is not an Arab country? a) Algeria b) Turkey c) Morocco d) Iraq
b) Turkey
What is the name of the stringed instrument that Dr. Marcus played in class?
Al-'ud
What is folklore?
The study of everyday life and how culture interacts with it -- customs, traditions, beliefs, ceremonies, poetry, vernacular architecture, etc.
True or false -- Arab poetry imported the idea of end rhymes from European poetry.
False -- in fact, evidence suggests that end rhymes became a part of European poetry through the influence of Arab poetry!
The phenomenon of a "high", written variant and a "low", spoken variant within a language is called what?
Diglossia
Algeria was colonized by which European country in the 19th and 20th centuries?
France
What is the name of the loud oboe-like instrument that is traditionally played at Arab weddings?
Mizmar
The author of the poem "Give me the reed flute and sing" is named what?
Khalil Gibran (Jibran Khalil Jibran)
Why have Arabs historically considered poetry to be a more trustworthy format than prose?
Because its metrical and rhyming patterns make it more orally stable, aka easier to memorize verbatim and thus pass on to others
Arabic belongs to which language family? (Hint: Hebrew is in the same family)
Semitic
True or false -- Saudi Arabia was never under direct colonial control during the colonial period.
True
What is the name of the type of note that is found in Arab music but not Western music?
Half-flat
What is the name of the small Egyptian village where Dr. Reynolds did his doctoral fieldwork?
Al-Bakatush
One of the early Arabic words for poetry is nazam, which literally translates to what?
Pearls or beads on a string: i.e. organized
Arabic has how many verb tenses?
Two
Which traditional Arab peoples are considered the ancient, idealized heart of Arab culture?
The Bedouin
How many nodes does a nay flute have?
Nine
What is the name of the group that Taha joins in The Yacoubian Building?
The Gamaa Islamiyya