It’s not that important, but still I’d like to know. Does anybody know where LingQ got the flag representing the Arabic language from? I’ve tried looking it up, and the closest match I can find is that it’s a modified version of the “Pan-Arabic” flag, but with black and green colors reversed… Did the developers at LingQ make it up?
I’m just asking out of curiosity. I think that a “neutral” flag fits better than the Saudi Arabian flag that some language courses use, or the “green-color of Islam” flag that you sometimes see. (Because Saudi’s speak a dialect different form the one taught at LingQ and because Arabs are a minority of the worlds muslims)
The best match that I’ve seen used is just the word “Arabic” written in Arabic on a white background. Arabic doesn’t belong to just one nation after all.
I think that the best fit for the Arabic language is the Egyptian flag. Because Egypt is the most crowded country… It’s not very important though. Spanish doesn’t belong only to Spain and Portugues doesn’t belong only to Portugal or English doesn’t belong only to the UK… But they can choose only one flag…
“But they can choose only one flag”
Not true - the LingQ icon for Portuguese is a half-and-half of the Brazilian and Portuguese flags. So I guess a similar mash-up of the Saudi and Egyptian flags would make sense, following the logic of ‘country that the language comes from / country with the most speakers currently’.
But Egyptian Arabic is a dialect quite different from the Modern Standard Arabic on LingQ… And the Gulf Arabic spoken in Saudi Arabia is quite different too. Standard Arabic is much more in the situation of Latin and Esperento. There isn’t one specific country that can lay claim of the language.
Fair enough. How long ago do you have to go to get to a time when there was just one major version of Arabic on the go? Presumably they had some sort of banner, even if the idea of national flags was a long way off.
LingQ was founded in 2007 by Steve, and his son, Mark. They are, respectively, king and crown prince of this remote country.
LingQ is one of, if not the most, multi-lingual countries in the world with, at minimum, 15 official languages.
Saudi Arabia is an absolute monarchy where the king is both head of state and government. At LingQ, Steve is head of state while Mark controls government.
Steve and Mark could have chosen another flag to represent Arabic.
Why Saudi Arabia? As royalty, the Kaufman’s can add any flag they like. Whatever their motivation, it is not for us to know.
We must be content in our lives, satisfied with the opportunities we have to develop our language skills and connections as LingQers. I don’t think it’s a bad life. Though, I wish they would add O’odham to the official languages:
“O’odham (pronounced [ˈʔɔʔɔðɦam]) or Papago-Pima is a Uto-Aztecan language of southern Arizona and northern Sonora, Mexico, where the Tohono O’odham (formerly called the Papago) and Akimel O’odham (traditionally called Pima) reside. In 2000 there were estimated to be approximately 9,750 speakers in the United States and Mexico combined, although there may be more due to under-reporting.” (Wikipedia)
If O’odham were able to meet the minimum LingQ requirements, would it be accepted as an official language?
I’m afraid it might be something resembling today’s “ISIS” flag… They took a historic flag and decided to make a mess of what it stands for… I wouldn’t recommend LingQ to use this one… Otherwise there is this one: The flag of the clan of the prophet Muhammad… But I’m not sure it will stand out as an flag representing the Arabic language to most people: https://flagspot.net/images/i/isl-qura.gif
If I wanted to raise a stink about flag-language association here, I could start with the Union Jack being used for English. The political entity covered by that flag includes several non-English countries where non-English, non-Germanic languages are native and recognized. Why not Flag of England - Wikipedia then? Or consider that the number of speakers of the quaint versions of English on those little islands is a mere 20% of the population of the US, and we could petition for a change to the stars and stripes.
But I don’t want to raise a stink – I’m just joking; it’s utterly unimportant; I’m happy with the flag choice as it is; my objections above are wholly tongue-in-cheek. The Union Flag suits the purpose here perfectly well. An alternative might be that combination of the US flag and the UK flag that you sometimes see, but I don’t particularly like that, and Canada, Australia, NZ, et al. would feel jilted.
It’s different from the Saudi flag next to my name here in the forums… I just find it weird that 1: LingQ uses two different flags for the same language and 2: the second flag appears to be thought up… At least I can’t figure out what country it belongs to (it could be a Palestinian flag upside down…)
Let me think of a way to sneak a Rick Ashley video in somewhere
