Speaking in Formal Arabic in the Company of the Common People
Machine translationRead the Arabic original
The questioner:
Honorable Shaykh, may Allah grant you success, if a person is in the company of common people and begins to speak in formal Arabic, is this considered affectation, or should he speak in the colloquial dialect?
The Shaykh:
Yes, this is the precedent. Address the common people in the Arabic they understand; address them in their language, unless you are teaching them, such as teaching them Arabic or grammar, at the very least. But if you address them in formal Arabic and they do not understand it, that is not acceptable, so that they may understand. Yes.
The questioner:
The questions of the Shaykh, may Allah guide her.
The Shaykh:
You will find in some of the Shaykh’s (may Allah have mercy on him) letters colloquial terms, because he sends them to common people. He reads to common people, so he addresses them in a way that they do not do. Yes.
Honorable Shaykh, may Allah grant you success, if a person is in the company of common people and begins to speak in formal Arabic, is this considered affectation, or should he speak in the colloquial dialect?
The Shaykh:
Yes, this is the precedent. Address the common people in the Arabic they understand; address them in their language, unless you are teaching them, such as teaching them Arabic or grammar, at the very least. But if you address them in formal Arabic and they do not understand it, that is not acceptable, so that they may understand. Yes.
The questioner:
The questions of the Shaykh, may Allah guide her.
The Shaykh:
You will find in some of the Shaykh’s (may Allah have mercy on him) letters colloquial terms, because he sends them to common people. He reads to common people, so he addresses them in a way that they do not do. Yes.
Source
قناة «العلامة الدكتور صالح الفوزان»، 23 من 60 / شرح كتاب قرة عيون الموحدين / صالح الفوزان / العقيدة / كبار العلماء — youtube.com (1:04:29)
The Arabic text is a machine transcription of the audio recording.