C'est quoi ce bordel?
This morning while driving to and from Yoga i managed to hear the same article twice on NPR. Something in the article was Very Very Very confusing and disturbing to me. and i haven't been able to stop thinking about it since. If you know anything about Lebanon, PLEASE HELP! Here is what the story was about, as quoted from NPR's website:
"Lebanon reappoints pro-Syrian Prime Minister Omar Karami. But residents of the town of Hammana on Mt. Lebanon say the Syrian soldiers and intelligence agents based there have overstayed their welcome. Citizens say the foreign military presence has hurt the town's tourist industry and it's time for their Syrian "guests" to leave."
What this blerb does not mention is that the residents of Hammana on Mt. Lebanon interviewed for this article spoke to the interviewers in PERFECT PARISIAN FRENCH. The three "Lebonese" people who gave comment for this story sounded exactly as if they had been airlifted directly from the French Capital. No accent, no slight change of inflection, pure unadulterated native french. They were French people, speaking very passionately about how Syrians needed to get out of their country..... Lebanon.
I was so troubled, that i called Dan right away to ask him if they spoke French in Lebanon. (You can see now why i might appear, in some situations, to be an air-head. You too would wonder about the intelligence level of the future mother of your children if she called you out of the blue and without saying hello said, "Do they speak French in Lebanon?") Dan said he had never heard of any part of Lebanon where French was the native language. Curiouser and Curiouser! And NPR didn't mention anything about why our normal man-on-the-street Lebanese person was speaking French as a native language.
I can imagine only 4 Possibilities:
1) NPR didn't have enough money to hire a Lebanese translator to come out into the country with them, because all the translators are busy in Beirut where the big demonstrations are going on, so NPR had to find the one family in Hammana who spoke a European language.
2) Everyone in Hammana speaks French, and WTF?
3) French is the official language in some parts of Lebanon way out there in the country, and WTF?
4) NPR completely made this story up and thinks we can't tell between different foreign languages. To us Americains, they're all jes talkin' funny talk.
If anyone can shed any light on the curious linguistics in this story, Please Help! Call me right away! I am dying to know what's going on.
the mystery solved
So, it turns out that Leah's mystery has a simple, logical explanation: folks sometimes speak French in Lebanon. In fact, as a site about francophone countries tells us, Lebanon is a 'member state of the Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie (OIF)'. 'Although French is not an official language in... Lebanon, it is widely used in literature and films.' Who knew?!
Along with Lebanon, the site I read lists Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, and Egypt as the Arabic members of the Francophony; the first three are less suprising, but I wouldn't have guessed Egypt. Although, now that I think about it, I recall that Napoleon did spend spend a little bit of time there. So maybe there's some sense to it all in the end. In any case, it's nice to know that NPR isn't scamming us and that Leah isn't going crazy and hearing things.