Main language of film
When omar and his friends speak to each other, was it arabic?
How about when omar speaks to nadia?
Pardon my ignorance.
Thanks/ syukran / toda!!
Were they only speaking hebrew amongst the israelis themselves?
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MovieChat Forums > Omar (2013) Discussion > Main language of film
All in Arabic except the soldiers talking to each other and Rami talking to his mother on the phone (that was Hebrew).
sharewere those soldiers Jews or Arabs? If jews how did they know Arabic so well? If arab were they working for Israel?
shareI imagine learning Arabic is a requirement for service, since the soldiers work and patrol in the occupied territories. Being multilingual is much more common in many other countries, compared to the US.
shareYeah but it was still unusual. Arabic is a really difficult language to learn and vast majority are born into the language. Most Israelis have minimal interaction with palestinians and some with arab israelis, but for a Israeli soldiers to speak fluent conversational Arabic? I doubt this is common or realistic, but i hope someone can chime on it. Many CIA dedicated to the language still struggle to speak it, and for someone like Rami to speak it, I can understand. But for an average Israeli soldier, its strange. Unless those soldiers were Arabs and not Israeli Jews.
shareArabic might not so difficult to learn if your native language is Hebrew, as they are both Semitic languages. Everything is relative and this applies to learning languages. I guess CIA agents are English native speakers, which is why is so difficult for them to learn it.
Anyway, no, not realistic at all. I have spent two years in Israel and it is more likely that soldiers speak Hebrew to Palestinians. Israeli arabs and Palestinians do speak Hebrew, even if all of them might not be bilingual.
They were Jews, but Arab soldiers exist (except it's not mandatory for them to serve like it is for Jews) because about 20% of the State of Israel's population is Arab-Israeli. Arabic is also an official language in Israel along with Hebrew, so it's very common that a Jewish Israeli would know Arabic.
shareThanks!!
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