The World in Words 104: Ajami, Liberian proverbs and learning to interrupt at the UN
Every year, 4,000 staffers at the United Nations in New York sign up for language classes. There they learn not just languages but how to use them diplomatically. Also, reporter Jason Margolis visits Liberia and ends up judging a competition to determine the country’s most inventive proverb. And, is it a language? No! Is it a dialect? No! It’s Ajami: Arabic script used as a writing system for many African languages.
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