Nawar Fakhry Ezzi
Many researchers have found that our native language connects us to our culture, heritage and sometimes even to our religion, as is the case with Muslims and Jews all over the world who usually teach their children Arabic and Hebrew, respectively, in order to be able to perform their religious rituals. Accordingly, language contributes to defining our identity. This is why it is puzzling when a group of people choose willingly to abandon their native language while they live in the safety of their own countries, which is the case with so many Arabs nowadays. This phenomenon has made many scholars wonder if we as Arabs suffer from an identity crisis or if we are trying desperately to escape from who we are and from what we might perceive as our gloomy reality by taking over another identity through speaking English.
Although Arabic is spoken by more than 280 million people as a first language and by another 250 million as a second language, the numerous dialects of spoken Arabic are considered colloquial, which is in some instances influenced by other languages, especially in former occupied countries. These dialects are very different from Classical Arabic, which is used in the Holy Qur'an, or even Modern Standard Arabic, which is taught in schools and universities and is used in formal government documents in addition to several outlets in the media, especially the news. However, incompetence in Modern Standard Arabic is widespread and even colloquial Arabic is in decline nowadays losing to either English or a hybrid language between Arabic and English. Accordingly, some people fear that Modern Standard Arabic could become the language of the educated Arab elite like Latin used to be in Europe in the Middle Ages until it deteriorated and died.
Throughout the past century, this issue was considered seriously by the educated Arab elite starting as part of an "Arab nationalism" movement at the beginning of the 19th century to restore the Arab identity under the Ottoman Empire until it evolved into a widespread ideology by the 1950s as a reaction to imperial colonialism and the founding of Israel. Although the concern for the Arabic language still survives, the idea of "Arab nationalism" was crushed after the dismal defeat (Al-Naksa) of the 1967 Arab-Israeli war leaving many of those in later generations apathetic to their language and identity, while some even suffered from self-hatred, confusion and loss.
Calls for the "revival of Arabic" have been made by those who hope for an Islamic renaissance and presume that reviving the Arabic language would be one way to make that happen. However, as important as language is to one’s identity and heritage, its dominance and mastery is the manifestation of people’s advancement and development rather than being the cause of it. Arabs have spoken Arabic for thousands of years and they were no more than nomads and traders, but they flourished after the birth of Islam when they embraced education, renovation, development and diversity. During the Islamic Golden Age, Arabic was an esteemed and dominant language because it was used to document scientific discoveries. Valuable scholarly works from old civilizations, such as Greece, Rome, India and Persia, were translated into Arabic.
In order to revive Arabic, we need to rise as a nation and make grassroots changes in our attitudes toward change and renovation and develop better curriculum material and teaching pedagogies and nurture a general hunger for acquiring knowledge. In the meantime, even those of us who do not suffer from an identity crisis are faced with few options for enforcing the Arabic language when international schools have curriculum materials far superior to those of their local counterparts not to mention the wide variety of books in English whether for adults or children in comparison to censored Arabic books.
December 18 is the day dedicated by the United Nations to the Arabic language, with each of the UN's other five official languages having different days dedicated to them. The purpose is to celebrate multilingualism and cultural diversity and to promote respect for the history, culture and achievements of these languages. The Arabic language can be considered the umbilical cord that links us to our religion, history, culture and heritage. However, if we are confused about our identity or our place in the world, reviving it will not return our past glory. We can honor this day by continuing to read Arabic books and teaching our children the love and value of the Arabic language, but it shall not truly rise until we rise as a nation.
The writer can be reached at nawar81@hotmail.com
