Grapheme-phoneme correspondences in German and associated challenges for Syrian-Arabic-speaking learners

Abstract

Many participants in European literacy courses speak Arabic as (one of) their first language(s). In Switzerland, people from Syria represent the second largest group of recognized refugees. The language systems and the sociolinguistic situation in Syria and German-speaking Switzerland show several similarities. Firstly, both German and Arabic have a fairly deep orthography (in contrast, for example, to the shallow orthography of Italian or Spanish). Secondly, both languages have a rich phoneme inventory with regards to consonants. However, the vowel system in German is much more complex than the Arabic one. Lastly, both languages consist of (sometimes very different) varieties existing in diglossic situations. In German-speaking Switzerland, both Swiss German and (Swiss) Standard German are used daily; in the context of literacy courses, however, Standard German is used almost exclusively. In Syria, Modern Standard Arabic is mainly used in written or very formal contexts and regional varieties of Syrian Arabic are spoken in less formal contexts. In this contribution, we investigate possible connections between grapheme-phoneme correspondences in (Swiss) Standard German and phonological awareness in Syrian-Arabic-speaking learners.