As Kurdish former rebel leaders test the limits of their hard-won influence in the new Iraq, some say that even traditional Muslim prayers must be said in Kurdish, and that speaking Arabic is out-dated and out of touch.

"Certain extremists would like to say prayers in Kurdish," said Salam Khoshnaw, a professor at Salaheddin University who speaks perfect Arabic.

"Others, even more radical, dare to say that Arabs sent their language to us on the humps of camels, and we must return it to them in a Mercedes."

It's not necessarily the students' fault that they don't learn Arabic well -- following the 1991 Gulf war when Western intervention established a Kurdish safe haven in Iraq's three far-northern provinces, many schools and universities switched their teaching to Kurdish.

Salaheddin University students learn in Kurdish, Arabic or English as do teenagers at Arbil high school.

"Our 1,442 students study in their own language and don't know Arabic these days," said Hany Kader Khoder, 42, the high school director.

No longer bound by the rules of Saddam Hussein's ousted Arab nationalist regime, high school teachers now hold lessons for four or five hours per week in Kurdish and Arabic, one hour less in English, Khoder said.

"Arabic became a third language for us," the principal told AFP. "The pupils prefer English, because, to them, Arabic is the language of oppression and the atrocities of the former regime.

For adults, however, the language issue is a paradox.

Teachers complain that even though students are learning the language of Mohammed, their speaking ability is often poor.

"No high school student can claim to express himself correctly at baccalaureate time," said Abdullah Yassin, an Arabic professor at Salaheddin University for 11 years.

"They have 73 students per class and the textbooks stress grammar to the detriment of conversation," said the 35-year-old teacher.

The switch to Kurdish as a teaching medium has gone hand in hand with a radical rewriting of history and geography books from Saddam's time, said Sabah Aram, 55, an education official in the Kurdish regional administration.

"Before, the books did not mention Kurdistan. Students knew the history and the geography of all other Arab countries but not their own," Aram said.

"From now on, students first study their native area, then Iraq, and finally, the rest of the world."

Authorities in Baghdad still recognize a high-school baccalaureate from northern Iraq, teachers said.

"We were in conflict with the Arabs for 1,400 years. Their language was the language of torture," said Ali Mahmoud Jukil, a senior faculty member in languages at Salaheddin University.

"English, on the other hand, is the universal language of modernity."

Of the students enrolled at Salaheddin, 999 study in English, 555 study in Kurdish and only 359 study in Arabic.

"Those who study in Arabic do so because they did not have good enough grades in the baccalaureate to study in English, or for religious reasons," said Taher Mustafa, 42, who is one of only four Arabic language lecturers at the university.

"They might want to understand the Koran, or to work as intermediaries between Kurdish northern Iraq and the rest of the country," said Mustafa.

Khoshnaw said intellectuals must push to keep the Arabic language alive.