Passionate about the Arabic language

During its 190th session the UNESCO Executive Board adopted a decision to celebrate Dec. 18 of every year as World Arabic Language Day. The new initiative, proposed by Morocco and Saudi Arabia, seeks to promote multilingualism and cultural diversity, as well as celebrate Arabic language’s role in and contribution to the safeguarding and dissemination of human civilization and culture.
The decision recognizes the need to implement more wide-ranging cooperation between peoples through multilingualism, cultural rapprochement and dialogue among civilizations.
I have been following with great interest discussions on Arabic language in the local newspapers. Let me first express my solidarity with the brothers who have been defending the language of the Holy Qur’an.
I am aware of its importance, since I had the privilege to learn the language at Al-Azhar University — Cairo, from where I completed my Arabic course with a major in mass communications back in 1992. Hence, I believe I have something to share with the participants in this debate.
As a non-Arab expatriate, I thought of contributing to this debate in the hope that it would have a positive impact on the readers of different nationalities holding responsible positions in the Kingdom. At the outset, I wish to emphasize that I shall back up my views with facts that should be of great interest to all of you.
Also, I am passionate about Arabic language, which I defend strongly whenever some Arab expatriates speak to me in colloquial Arabic assuming that I don’t know their language.
As soon as he comes across a non-Arab, he will use terrible broken language used by laborers when they talk to each other. In fact, such a dialect has no basis whatsoever and not linked to Arabic language, nor is it slang. It is a merely an improvised language of those laborers who may know nothing about Arabic and speak only in their local language.
I confront them directly by switching over to classical Arabic and phrases explaining to them that I studied Arabic language from A to Z, including its grammar and have memorized some poems too. I told them that I like Arabic and I am proud of it as my mother tongue, because it is the mother of all great languages. So why do you not use it as a wonderful lingo?
I also sometimes receive a caller who changes the words as soon he sensed my foreign intonation. And if he had studied abroad, he will ask me instead “do you speak English?” I reply to him with due respect that I am in an Arab country and I do respect the language of its people. I told him as example any American citizen will never use another language rather than English anywhere in the world, so why not use the Arabic language since we are in an Arab country!
I would also like to point out here the reluctance of foreigners and their children to learn Arabic, whether they are Muslims or followers of other religions unlike what is happening in the United States, for example, or in Europe.
A foreigner in the first place will try to learn English immediately upon his arrival or the place where he or she has been living. All family members were not only keen to use English, but also feel that they themselves are more educated than others, especially when they speak English.
For instance, you may find a colleague who lived with you at work more than 25 years and yet he has never tried all these years to speak a single or two correct Arabic sentences. This is aside from the fact that their children also study at foreign schools. Nobody cares to encourage them, neither their parents nor their school, about learning Arabic.
Perhaps this is what has prompted one of the fellow citizens of the Qassim region, who prepares his doctorate theses to choose this subject for consideration. He came to know me through my children government school here in Riyadh.
He made a lengthy interview with me in the presence of my children as part of his mission to gather information and responses from the few residents who send their children to Saudi government schools.

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