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@leefail has gotten me obsessed with how arabic would work in the batfamily
because arabic is natively spoken by 230 million people and is taught in any muslim majority to country because its considered poor faith to recite the Quran in any other language.
its also the most inconvenient and stupidly difficult language to learn in human history.
why?
because it is a colonial language
meaning the Arab empire happened and we all switched to arabic but unlike English... there wasn't the internet for people to learn how the 'og Arabs' spoke it and Arabs didn't slaughter and replace like the puritans they just taxed and converted (slaughter optional im not ignoring north Africa but it was region specific)
so that means that arabic which has a collective vocab of about 12.1 million words as well as a nasty habit of giving 100 words the same meaning as well as assigning 1 word like 8 meanings got practiced by these arabic speaking countries differently
so certain words fell out of use or changed meaning in one country while being startlingly popular in another
it also means that a lot of arabic regions maintained their older speech patters
latinised softer letters in levant countries closer to Cyprus due to the presence of Aramaic, syrianic and latin.
harsher more guttural sounds in regions that were closer to Iran.
so what does this mean? and Why does this mean arabic is a bitch to learn
well for one you don't write in your regional dialect, you write in modern standard or fus7a which is a whole other beast. Meaning that you don't really learn to speak in school.
two the dialects are significantly different enough across the region that people who learned arabic in Lebanon won't understand people from morocco.
now we are all SUPPOSed to speak Modern Standard Arabic but you have to understand how little it is used outside of like legal jargon. so you kinda lose it once you leave Arab formal education.
Which means if you immediately default to MSA 99% of Arabs will assume you are a cop like if you know the word for government but not skirt... come on man be less obvious.
Now most us speak 1 -3 dialects and understand 9-10
me personally I speak a levantine dialect and can understand most Egyptian, Jordanian and Gulf dialects. Iraqi and the rest of North Africa (with the exception of Tunisia) not so much.
Now what does that mean for arabic in the batfamily
its too useful for the Bats to not use
so do all of the bats speak arabic 1000%
Do all of them speak different dialects 1000%
Here they are imo
Bruce: Bruce is a cop (MSA) He can code switch and speak all the dialects but he just genuinely likes MSA, its the most complex and intricate form of the language and what's most commonly used for things like poetry and literature. But it does mean that his speech comes off very stilted and cringeworthy to most Arab speakers. The first dialect he learned was definitely Egyptian because its the one that's the most common in music and television as well as having the largest group of people speaking it (110 of the 230 million are from Egypt)
Dick: now I have no evidence for this but Dick Grayson would speak Lebanese arabic. It's notoriously the softest of the dialects and has the most higher pitched and flippy tones. His mother also grew up in France which would Fit for Dick since Lebanese Arabic tends to substitute harsher arabic words with French. the most common greeting in Lebanon is 'Hi, kefak ca va' which is English, arabic and French. And for a cameleon character with such an interesting and convoluted ethnic background I think picking the softest dynamic tongue with the most intersectionality fits.
Jason: Jason todd speaks Jordanian arabic, Jordanians are the most hilariously creative people in the mid east imo. there are turns of phrase from Jordan that kinda make you pause and blink for a second because damn... okay then. I have never met a Jordanian without a degree in the most creative insults you've ever heard. Jordanian arabic is also very close to stereotypical Levant arabic which still maintaining a lot more of the harsher more guttural sounds that countries like Lebanon and Syria tend to exclude. Jordan also has a huge Bedouin population and I just think he'd match that vibe
Tim: Tims parents were archeologist.. Egyptian. Tim has the heaviest Egyptian accent when he speaks arabic. His parents definitely had him learn it in hopes he'd follow their footsteps. Ja become Ga and he works so damn hard to keep the accent out of his words to try and hide any identifiers and he fails miserably. He also uses it the most out of the kids and he can read and understand MSA fluently unlike Dick and Jason who are fine readers but cannot speak it for the life for them. Tim also does the international students Mix and Match where you sometimes just use a word that's country specific to other countries. Tim doesn't tell Damian he understands it and so Damian has the most intense shock of his life when Tim replies back to his angry arabic muttering.
Damian: So I know that talia studied at the university of Cairo but I feel like Ra's speaks a very old form of arabic so I think Damian code switches quite often. I picture him speaking like a Saudi upper court dialect when he's talking with Ra's and I think talia does the same. But I think Damian is most comfortable somewhere in-between Jordan and UAE arabic with more levant terms of endearment (because of the aforementioned softness and ik talia isn't a soft parent in canon but she is one in my heart so there) and more casual speech following GCC speaking patterns. Tho I think Damian can understand and speak all of the dialects including the less popular ones like Moroccan daraji.
Steph: I have zero evidence and not even an elaboration but if steph was Middle Eastern she'd be Iraqi bc vibes so that's what she speaks fuck you im right. It's definitely on the harsher side tonally but idk she gives the energy of using it and teasing Jason and Dick for using frou-frou arabic. Tho I will absolutely make the argument that she learned Syrian arabic for a friend pre her involvement with the bats.
Also Steph, Dick and Jason do sip and bitch sessions and they disagree on the correct way to make coffee. Jason is absolutely a traditionalist, Dick is a Turkish coffee believer and steph adds way too much cardamom.
also also Jasons favorite poet is Darwish, Tims fave is Al-muttanabbi, Dicks is Gibran (ik he spoke mostly in English but tell me Dick Grayson isn't gonna freak over 'your children are not yours they are children of the world') , Bruces is Qabbani. Steph doesn't like poetry but she has absolutely read memoirs of a woman doctor by nasal el saadawi and loved it