Ayoon Wa Azan (Where Do We Stand Now)
Jihad el-Khazen Al-Hayat - 23/12/07//
There are seven thousand languages in the world half of which are threatened with extinction, but even if three thousand languages became extinct and there remained in the world only a couple of languages, Arabic would be one of them.
As long as there are Islam, Muslims, and the Koran the Arabic language is not put at risk. The problem does not lie here; it rather lies in its declining role after it had been the bridge over which international civilization crossed from the ancient world to the Renaissance.
Last week I attended a celebration of the contribution made by Saudi Crown Prince Sultan Bin Abdel Aziz to improve the presence of the Arabic language in UNESCO through interpretation, the organization publications, its printed media materials and the ones posted on the web. I had earlier attended in Bahrain the annual conference of The Arab Thought Foundation which is very active in the fields of translation, education, and the dissemination of the Arabic language. Other conferences will be held in a few weeks and I may refer to them in due time.
In Paris I heard the historian and researcher George Afrah say that the Enlightenment Age started in Europe when Arab knowledge and sciences became a source of culture, which paved the way for the dawn of European civilization. He referred to the engagement of Muslim and non-Muslim scholars in the use of Arabic in their work.
Even the Jewish Andalusian scholar Mimonides, Moussa Bin Maymun, used the Arabic language in the texts he wrote in the fields of medicine, astrology, sports, logic, and philosophy though he commanded the Jewish language. Even his book Dalalat Al-Ha'ireen was originally written in Arabic. So did the Jewish scholar and philosopher Abou Al-Hassan Al-Liwi who was the best Hebrew poet in the Middle Ages; however, his mastery of the Arabic language made him use it to interpret the Jewish language. The Mongols and then the Turks used Arabic as the official language instead of their mother tongues when they were at the head of the Islamic empire.
What was the status of our civilization and where do we stand now? At least our language is not threatened with extinction as is the case with 3500 languages. Yet, it is facing the risk of marginalization according to Dr. Ziad Bin Abdallah Al-Drees, the permanent representative of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to UNESCO.
Some determined, well-planned, and considerable efforts are made to catch up with modernity through translation into Arabic and from Arabic into other languages. Another objective is to provide education for all and it is a great shame when the illiteracy rate among Arab women is the highest in the world. It is even higher than the illiteracy rate among Black women in the south of the African desert where severe poverty is an accepted excuse, which is not the case with us.
I hope that my opinion is tolerated by the readers. My excuse is that I majored in literature, not in journalism, which means I am talking about my major. I remember the complaints of some of my professors that the problem with Arabic is the abundance of vocabulary and the difficulty in making derivatives.
The explanation of a single word in Lisaan Al-Arab by Ibn Manzour may take entire pages, but in spite of this we can not merge two words in one whereas the same meaning is conveyed by one word in English, French, and other languages.
I believe that the Arabic language lags behind the international standard and the sciences that were translated by the Arabs in the past or were pioneered by them did not undergo significant changes for centuries. But today modern technology is in a state of constant change and at the end of each year it is much more modern that it was at the beginning of the same year. This means that if we decide to translate everything in order to study it in Arabic, we will learn outdated sciences, even if they were released a year earlier, not a century.
I have chosen medicine as an example. In the United States it is more advanced than in Europe. If we insist on learning medicine in Arabic we will learn outdated medicine in a modern language, because the time required for translation, printing, publication, and adoption at universities will witness a huge progress in medical information that itself needs translation.
Thus, I suggest that we learn all the sciences in their modern languages, and that we intensify our efforts devoted to the translation of Arabic books into the living languages and to the translation of all the classics into Arabic.
Of course, it will be absurd to translate the cream of international literature to a nation where the majority of its population or more is illiterate. Therefore, the efforts will not produce the desired results unless education is made accessible to all and its present standard is significantly raised. Public education in some Arab countries produces generations of half-educated who are more dangerous than the ignorant. The latter are aware of their ignorance but the half-educated think they have reached the required standard.
Frankly speaking, I find the efforts expended to catch up with modernity in the fields of sciences, translation and education as hard as the liberation of Palestine or even harder. I believe that success can be achieved because the decision is ours, but I can not be absolutely certain of our success as our projects usually end up in failure.
Arabic is the finest and most noble language in the world. This represents my opinion as a writer who only speaks Arabic, English, and a little French. Although I have spent my life learning Arabic, I still have much to learn. In spite of this, the happiest hours of the day are spent with a good companion, i.e. a book. My favorite book is usually an old Arabic book. Nevertheless, I find myself compelled to read political books, which I see as an onerous task, and I ask God not to forgive those who are behind it. To be continued.
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