JEDDAH, 16 February 2006 — Objections to English being used as the main language at the Jeddah Economic Forum, which ended on Monday, was raised by some of the attendees. Simultaneous translation was provided, but for some visitors this was not enough.
“It is about being proud of our identity,” said Huda Al-Amer. “When you go to Germany or France, everything is in their language. You would be lucky to find an English translator.”
She asked why, with an event as big as JEF being held in Saudi Arabia, English was used as the main language.
“Why aren’t we pushing our language into the forefront? How can we ever be proud of our Qur’an’s language if we do this?” said Huda.
She said that international forums held here in the Kingdom should promote the Arabic identity and language. “They should stick to the Arabic language and we should be proud to use it during such seminars, meetings and forums,” she said.
Her friend, Nahid Al-Abdullah, a customer service manager in a private communication company, agreed that the Arabic language should be the forum’s language.
“There should be no problem with English language being used in the forum since most of the participants speak English,” said Nahid. “Translation for others who are not conversant should be at the touch of a button.”
Nahid realizes that language is not the most pertinent issue for the organizing committee of the JEF but they should consider Arabic as the main language.
Hanan Adam agreed with her friends.
“I am very proud of my country and also my language. If we Arabs cannot give prominence to our own language, who can or will?” she said. “We are very disappointed when we came to attend some sessions of this year’s JEF and noticed that everything was in English. We thought that the Jeddah Economic Forum was another foreign forum held here in Jeddah, which is not really helping our cause or ideas.”
