I find it extremely provocative when a telephone operator at a hotel or company answers my call in English instead of Arabic although I always address operators in Arabic. My blood boils when I discover that the person who answered the call in English hails from an Arab country and whose mother tongue is Arabic.
Usually, when a non-Saudi answers my call I talk to them in Arabic and request them to connect me to someone in the establishment who speaks Arabic.
If the operator is an Arab, I give him a gentle reproof and urge him to speak to me in Arabic if he is really proud of his Arab identity. I also remind him not to forget the fact that he is living in an Arab country.
Through my repeated calls a telephone operator at a major hotel now fully recognizes my voice. Each time I call the hotel to ask for someone, the man panics.
Although I consider myself fluent in English, I am proud of my native tongue. All Arabs should take pride in speaking the language. When in our country, we Arabs should address each other in Arabic just like what all other people in the world do.
People of other nations address each other in their native language because they take pride in doing so. You seldom hear them speaking a foreign language when talking to each other.
Our brothers, the Arab khawajas, insist on twisting their tongues with foreign words when speaking to their own countrymen. This is something that needs to be addressed and remedied. I think these individuals suffer from an inferiority complex.
Writers have been stressing the need for Arabs to protect their language, take pride in it and ensure they use only Arabic when addressing each other.
Our Arabic language is being attacked on its own ground and in its own home. Something has to be done to address this situation.
If mixing foreign words and expressions when addressing others is considered a sign of progress and modernity and using pure Arabic a sign of backwardness, I would rather be backward. Arabic must prevail in the land of the Arabs.
