Marginalised youth form language of escape

SYDNEY // Lebanese-Australian youths are developing their own dialects as a way to provide them with a sanctuary from the racism and contempt they are facing. Researchers say this distinct language has developed within Sydney's large Arabic Lebanese enclaves within the past five years as a beleaguered migrant community absorbed the shocks of international terrorist attacks and the anti-Muslim sentiment they unleashed in Australia. The phrases are often a bewildering juxtaposition of Arabic words spoken at home and the English of the outside world, where "yallah" means "goodbye" or "OK" while "shoo" is "what's up?" "It is a phenomenon of isolation," said Rosemary Suliman, a senior lecturer at the University of Western Sydney, who is originally from Sudan and has been living in Australia for more than 30 years. "I think it is a movement from the mainstream because of the recent negative stereotyping of Arabic people in Australia. "It is a defence mechanism. The situation is not a very healthy one. There is hostility and a feeling that they have been rejected by society. If they feel they are not being welcomed, they withdraw." "You've got this fascinating language that is now straddling those two spheres," said Bruce Moore, head of the Australian National Dictionary Centre in Canberra. "It is giving these young people who may feel trapped between these two worlds a way of asserting and defining their own identity." Mr Moore said the process usually starts in a closed group before it gradually spreads. "The kind of words that we are talking about includes the word 'habib', which is used almost as a synonym for Australian 'mate' but in Arabic means 'darling'." At a cafe in the bustling Sydney suburb of Auburn, where migrants from Somalia and Iraq mingle in Islamic bookstores, Turkish restaurants and Chinese bakeries in one of Australia's most multicultural areas, teenage cousins Ahmad and Eihab Alameddine chat away in a private code they started using at school. "It's our second language. No one can understand us and that is all we need," said Eihab, 18. "If we want to talk about something that we don't want no one to hear about, we use it and no one will know." "We make it up sometimes on the spot," he added, before turning away briefly to greet an old school friend to swap stories - or "oreez". "What you doin', cuzrix an dat? Shundat, bruv?" Eihab asked, his comments loosely translated as "How are you, cousin? What are you up to, brother?" In full flow, their language of discourse - a seemingly jumbled mass of words with only a fleeting resemblance to English or Arabic - is impenetrable to all but a small group, while other young Lebanese-Australians in different parts of Sydney have also created their own covert jargon. Ahmad, born in Sydney to a Lebanese Muslim family, smiled with satisfaction as he explained how their special way of communicating has developed. "We just mix up the words a bit. It's good. It's a habit. Whatever comes up, comes up," said the 17-year-old, who has enrolled on a building studies course at a local technical college. The teenage cousins want their unique idioms to set them apart from everyone but their closest friends as they deal with the harsh realities of life as young Muslims in Australia. "It gets hard at times, but you've got to cope with it," Ahmad said. "That is life especially after the Cronulla riots [in 2005] and all the racism going on." In Sydney, both Lebanese Muslims and Christians form a sizeable group. Over the past 30 years newcomers from Lebanon have accounted for 40 per cent of migrants to Australia from the Middle East. Many young members of the community have been brought up amid the fear and suspicion that world events, including September 11 and the bombings in London, Madrid and Bali, have cast upon them. Developing their own way of talking has become an escape for teenagers like Ahmad and Eihab, especially when they travel to unfamiliar and often hostile parts of Sydney. "When you are in your area it is all right, you feel safe," Eihab said. "But when you are out of the area, you gotta do what you gotta do. If someone does something wrong, you gotta hit them back. "All Muslims, we are like brothers here, so we've got to have each other's back." Academics worry that the Lebanese-Australian argot is becoming a language of separation and mistrust in an age of intolerance towards Muslims. "I think it is going to take a long time to fix this," Ms Suliman warned. "Unfortunately the situation at the moment is the worst it has ever been. "When I came to Australia in the '70s there was a fear of the other, but in the '80s there was a very good, healthy mixing between everybody. Now we are in the stage of isolation." pmercer@thenational.ae