It's interesting to read the comment section of the public broadcaster. There is shock that a few citizens who might see a warning sign in the rise Arabic classes in the public schools are allowed to post on their site. Remarkable, really, this taxpayer support for a leftist fiefdom.

Women in Canada should fear for thier daughters.

It's they that will pay the future price of Canadian cowardice.

I wonder what the reaction would have been if during the cold war that a similar phenomenon was happening in the nation's capital except the language was russian?

The coummunist CBC, obligatorily and blindly, sees no problem with Canadian islamicization.

Helps when you are trying to read the original version for "how to make a suicide vest" on some jihadi website.

Can't trust a translation when you are doing god's work.

The CBC is Canada's worst enemy; operating against our interests. Put this bumper sticker on all of your cars. Sread the word about the CBC's dangerous socialist bias:

http://cgi.ebay.ca/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=170587777391&ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT

I wonder what second language the kids in french immersion are taking.

Arabic is popular in Ottawa and here in Edmonton most Muslim children are enrolled in Catholic schools. I wonder what the 'other' language most popular is here in Edmonton. I know of Chinese immersion, Ukrainian immersion, French immersion and if memory serves German immersion. With all the charter schools here there is probably an Arabic immersion as well. Although with the number of East Indian immigrants living in Millwoods there is undoubtedly a Hindi immersion school somewhere.

Once again the multicultists are dividing this nation based on race or culture and they use language training as the venue. This is an English and French, well not really, country I should not be forced to fund second generation immigrants with their mother tounge.

"If you read it in Arabic and explain it in Arabic then the meaning is more tasteful and you can get a more accurate meaning and that gives them identity and their culture,"

I think that sums it up, your taxes are paying to instill a "more tasteful" and "more accurate" "identity" and "culture" into the the Muslim-Canadian youth enrolled.

It's not Canadian culture or identity that's being supported, far from it, it's to tie them even closer to the roots of their faith and farther away from the culture of the country they now call home.

Yeah us, we is so sensitive and tolerant.

"If you read it in Arabic and explain it in Arabic ......... that gives them identity and their culture,"

The goal of Western multiculturalists in a nut shell! Anything but Canadian.

Ah, another box to tick off for the helicopter parents in Ottawa in getting their spawn into a suitable positions in the local high growth non private sectors.

What a wuss country this Canada has become....it's going to be a bad day when all this b.s. implodes and everything comes to a head.....

It's happening already knight 99, there are very few decents,,, for our university aged girls to pick from now. Harper needs a majority NOW to slow this erosion of our foundation, and the wealth that has been bestowed upon us, by decent pioneering minded people that moved here ONLY to carve out a better life! They did not come to this rugged land for the health care, the welfare the human rights, or the CBC's poofter slant, they came so their families could get away from this European socialist rot. We had the best of the best, the toughest, the most energetic inventive immigrants to create Canada and the US. Look at where most of the worlds greatest inventions came from, was it Arabia? Now we have internal enemies like the CBC Toronto Star Globe, CTV MSM Hollywood in general and the lib/ndp/bloc, busy tearing down what created the luxurys they enjoy. These are the scum on the pond people.

The Arabic language is not completely synonymous with Islam. There are millions of Christians who speak Arabic. In addition, the great majority of Muslims do not speak Arabic as their primary language.

I'd have no problem with my kid learning Arabic, French, Cree..or whatever. I don't understand how anyone can think that there is value lost in having an expanded vocabulary that stretches across more than one language.

ummm.....about how many classes does it take to learn how to say "allhu akbar"!

lev - wow - 3 million Arabs are Christian! I'm not very good at math unless the numbers have a $ sign in front of them but - help me out here - 3 million compared to 1.5 billion Muslims?

Seems to me to be about 2/10ths of 1 percent. Statistically insignificant I would say.

lev l- my bad. I thought I read "3 million" but you wrote "millions".

I should wake up a little earlier on Sunday mornings.

Windsor years ago under the auspice of Dalton gave the green light to teach Arabic. Dalton also funds Islamic Centres (schools) and has an imam in Queen's Park.
http://www.windsormosque.ca/index.php/subsidiaries

I think the appropriate bumper sticker would read in Arabic ....

"If you can read this, thank a Jihadist."

I think this is a little bit of an over reaction to a language class story. Yes, there was one mention of the Koran but it wasn't that it was being taught in the class. I don't see this as being much different from my son's Mandarin classes. He's not learning to be a communist, he's just learning the language.

Can anybody tell me if the Arabic being taught in those schools is the same Arabic that the pedophile used when he started a religion? I'm thinking that not many English speaking Christians can get a clear meaning from reading the KJV Bible so why would I assume that Arabic has not changed in the last millennium and a half. I know that in the less than half a millennium the KJV Bible has been around many words have changed their meaning and some have actually reversed their meaning.

courses offer an opportunity for his son to learn about his Muslim faith through Arabic-language versions of the Quran.

I am not against learning Arabic. In fact I think that learning Arabic or Mandarin should be encouraged. As well as learning French or other languages. What I am quite disturbed about is that the lessons put stress on reading Quran and not on learning modern Arabic. Learning Quranic arabic has nothing to do with learning language and everything to do with religious lessons.
****
Joe
It seems the children are reading Quran. That means they are learning classical arabic, equivalent to Canterbury Tales' English. From what I understand, they would have quite a trouble to understand modern speaking arabic,. The written arabic didn't change as much as English written language did.

Somali-born Mohamed Moussa said he learned Arabic when he was a boy and wanted his son to get the same education. He said the courses offer an opportunity for his son to learn about his Muslim faith through Arabic-language versions of the Quran.

"If you read it in Arabic and explain it in Arabic then the meaning is more tasteful and you can get a more accurate meaning and that gives them identity and their culture," Moussa said.

Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/canada/ottawa/story/2011/01/07/ottawa-arabic-classes.html#ixzz1AYh2mgMt

That is just code for i want to point out the infidels to my children freinds and relatives in this sh!t country with out them knowing , i also want to be able to better explain to my son in detail how to slit the throat's of infidels properly using the directions in the koran.with out them knowing.

This debate isn't about the value of learning another language. It is about how we are suddenly seeing a huge influx of Arab immigrants. This worries any sane person. We have seen what it has done to England, France, Spain, Holland Belgium, Sweden, Norway, Germany etc etc etc. We are setting ourselves up for exactly the same problems, with the benefit of the foresight that some of those other countries arguably didn't have. If I wanted my kids to grow up in an Arab community I'd move to the middle east. Its a saner more logical decision than moving the middle east here.

Minuteman

We don't have huge influx of Arab immigrants. We have large influx of Muslim immigrants.
Don't be so PC. ;-)

Hey.

I finally clued in and translated

وهذا شقيقي محمد, وهذا هو آخر ممثلي الأخ محمد

and found it to be "This is my brother Muhammad, and this is my other brother Mohammed."

Driving through Mississauga today I noticed a lot of stores with Arabic signage, which made my toes curl, until I remembered that the area included a couple of Coptic churches.

Still, I concede the point of the post.

"Most of my friends speak Arabic and I wanted to speak Arabic to them because they would be more comfortable speaking Arabic," Coutts said.

A slippery slope indeed.

Can women enroll?

If parents want their children to speak the language of their motherland that's fine I shouldn't have to pay for it thou.

Mississauga Matt - you made my day on the translation: وهذا شقيقي محمد, وهذا هو آخر ممثلي الأخ م حم

I couldn't figure it out . How did you do it - use a translator?

This is a whole lot different than the half-empty high school classes that taught languages. The students then either had to take a language as an option, kids who spoke the language at home and were in for an easy credit or James Bond wanna-bees. A lot of the latter found jobs in the military as "Communications Researchers" spending most of their career in G*d forsaken locations listening to Russian CBC or "atmospheric anomalies."

My grandmother emigrated from Poland and raised her kids to speak English as it was the language of their new country.

Orlin,

Click on Language Tools at Google.ca.

There is nothing wrong with learning other languages. There is something wrong when the language is attached to a group of nutcases.
Arabic, by the way, is REALLY difficult.

Personally I think that learning Arabic and Chinese, especially by Western kids is a great idea. Why? Potential future recruits for the CSE and CSIS, we need Canadians with that skill. This comes with the caveat they don't develop a multi-culti version of Stockholm Syndrome..

Its such a lovely language to listen to as well. Sounds like someone trying to swallow a camel p---s.

Intelligent kids and the parents who guide them recognize the value of learning languages that may further them in life. Chinese or any other none obscure language that actually may benefit a person in the future is what realistic people learn.

Dreamers and other useless floaters in society want to bang their bongos in the forest and recite old native proverbs. Learning Arabic is no different. That is why most Arabs know English as well as they do.

Learning languages is useful; starting with Ukrainian, Croatian and English I spent my high school years learning Fortran, APL, PL-1, Snobol, Cobol, Basic, PDP8 assembler and Focal. Used those far more than any other languages although did throw in the occasional English comment.

What is most concerning is the number of Arabic speaking people that now live in Ottawa. One can make the assumption that the women are generally pregnant and that the numbers will increase very rapidly. Where I live there seem to be a large number of Saudi "students". Curiously, they seem to all be couples with many of the women being dressed in burkas and generally pregnant. Fortunately none of them have had any major medical complications as the husband does all of the talking and insists that no man examines the woman. A preview of the Canadian future unless we stop islamic immigration now.

Why, I am taking arabic classes too.
I want to know what the enemy is talking about if they happen to be near. I want to be able to read their fliers and ads.
It only makes sense to speak enemy's language, just like German was mostly taught language before the WWII in Russia leading to so many successful infiltrations and interrogations during the war time.
Who else are we supposed to hire for intercepting the phone calls of muslim terrorists? Pakis? Arabs? Some aliens?

Anyone want to make a bet Before long Arabic will be forced on us all By "Moderate" Muslims". As well blasphemy laws & the beginning of the end of Womens rights with Sharia? After all, by that time they will be the second language in Canada.
Just like the Chinese in Vancouver want Mandarin as the second tongue. You can't really blame a war culture for out breeding a Nations own population, while that society commits suicide by abortion, infanticide with the end of the family the Marxists want so badly. Plus the wholesale departure from any moral or ethical system including religious affiliation. Vacuums exist to be filled.
JMO