Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Live At Daybreak

Americans Have Increased Interest in Arabic

Aired November 23, 2001 - 06:55   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
DONNA KELLEY, CNN ANCHOR: Well the ripples of the September 11 tragedy are still spreading. There's a war, of course, and the anxiety over anthrax, but the ripple effect is happening in other ways too.

CNN's Garrick Utley looked into it.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

GARRICK UTLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): They are the few, the determined, young Americans learning to speak Arabic. How many Americans can understand this language spoken by 300 million people, understand their land, their faith, their culture, their history, their hopes and the anger of an Osama bin Laden?

When that anger reached the United States, so ill prepared was the nation that the FBI made an urgent appeal for help for linguists who could speak Arabic and other languages used by the terrorists and those who backed them.

(on camera): Why the shortage of linguists? Simple, the number of students at American universities who are studying Arabic runs between 5,000 and 6,000. Five times that number are studying Latin, three times that number are studying ancient Greek and twice that number are studying American sign language, worthy goals all.

(voice-over): At New York University, Kristen Sands has devoted her professional life to mastering a very difficult language and passing that knowledge on.

KRISTEN SANDS, NEW YORK UNIVERSITY: The most refreshing thing about teaching Arabic is their intense desire to learn the language, and so many of them fall in love with it and want to just keep working and working harder.

UTLEY: So why aren't more doing it? Perhaps it's because, aside from oil, there are few opportunities for outsiders to make money in Arab lands compared to other parts of the world. In Saudi Arabia, home of 15 of the 19 September 11 terrorists, American oil workers have lived in their own little America communities. Pumping oil does not require a knowledge of Arab language and culture.

Many Americans see the Middle East through the lens of the conflict between Israel, a westernized modern democracy, and an Arab world, which is not.

And then there is the power of popularized images. Books and movies like "Lawrence of Arabia" have molded western attitude towards Arab life.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Is it that you think we are something you can play with because we are little people, a silly people, greedy, barbarous and cruel?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ZACHARY LOCKMAN, NYU MIDDLE EASTERN STUDIES: And by and large, Americans, as a people, have been able to get away without knowing much about the rest of the world and have also had a great deal of historical amnesia so that if it happened more than a couple of weeks ago, it's ancient history.

UTLEY (on camera): Then there's the other side of the story of what Americans don't know about the Arab world. Once they acknowledge it, they catch up quickly. For example, walk into most any bookstore in the United States and you'll find a wide choice of best selling works ranging from Islam and the Koran to books on Osama bin Laden, the clash of civilizations, even books on biological terrorism.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I might as well make this our best seller table. It's huge.

UTLEY: It sells.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, flies out of here.

UTLEY (voice-over): Increased book sales are matched by rising university enrollment on classes on Arab language and culture. That's encouraging if it turns out to be a sustained trend rather than a momentary fad in the face of a challenge that is not momentary.

Garrick Utley, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com