Written by Mohamed Abdel Rahman
Thursday, May 18, 2023 02:30 PM
The Academy of the Arabic Language in Cairo, headed by Dr. Abdel Wahhab Abdel Hafez, “President of the Academy,” continued its annual international conference in its eighty-ninth session. The Academy’s conference held a panel discussion on “The Arabic Language between National Identity and Globalization”; Where Prof. Dr. Yusuf Khalaf al-Issawi, a member of the Corresponding Assembly from Iraq, states that linguistic development is the basis for comprehensive human development. Political, economic and social advancement is linked to linguistic advancement, and the converted nation does not change its people’s culture and way of thinking to adapt to the language of foreign culture. Rather, it tames all of this to suit its language and cultural characteristics, and that the countries of the earth take care of their identity is not surprising, and the follower of what is published in this title “Identity” finds it easy to reach the care of every nation for its identity, and the foundations of its components.
d asked. Al-Issawi: Have we, the children of today, been active in linguistic security, linguistic planning, linguistic awareness, and linguistic engineering? The place of language in identity is not a formal image; Language has a number of functions on the psychological level, foremost of which are: thinking, expression, and the consequent communication between individuals, taste and sympathy, and participation in actions. The relationship is steady between mental development and linguistic development.
Dr. Al-Issawi demanded several demands based on several axes:
That the planning of the nation on which its development and desired progress is based must include the linguistic issue; Because it is very accurate, because languages are the basis of the civilizational departure of every nation.
– That linguistic legislation is necessary to preserve the integrity of Arabic, to be a support for workers in its field, and support for scientific academies and institutions; Because securing the Arabic is an obligation on the groom, as has been said.
Arabic must be approved as a language for education at all levels and disciplines, and as a language for scientific research in its most accurate and most recent branches. This does not contradict learning the languages of scientifically and technically advanced nations without exception. Because it will contribute to the correct scientific borrowing.
Teaching in Arabic pushes progress and serves science, and creates generations capable of accurate understanding and rapid development. Because the national language is a weapon that, if used intelligently, achieves scientific victory. Successful education is education that is able to harmonize between scientific progress and its requirements, and this can only be done in the national language. Because language for a person is the spiritual food that develops the individual’s personality within the scope of the nation, and keeps the nation alive in the individual’s being.
– The necessity of teaching in Arabic, and abandoning the generalization of teaching foreign languages in the homeland of the Arabic language; Because of its benefits, including: economy in educational finances, directing the highest percentage of cultural practice to the minds of the learners to names instead of names, and the gradual entry of Arabic into all fields of science and fields of work, and singling out Arabic in the function of communication in its homeland, so it strengthens through use, and emerges from the arena of internal conflict. Which threatens to disappear, and the compaction of individuals in society.
For his part, Prof. Dr. Saleh Belaid (President of the Supreme Council of the Arabic Language in Algeria) warned that the thing we want when dealing with the issue of identity is that we must know that identity is represented in history and is represented in language, and we also know that identity is variable; Because we are now living in another time. So how do we present a plan that is in line with globalization and in line with artificial intelligence and modern software? We cannot play strings about the beauty of the Arabic language, and we have not presented anything to it.
Dr. Belaid appealed to congregations and decision makers to take care of the precise scientific status of the Arabic language, similar to everything that other countries do. There are countries whose population does not exceed four million, but they honor and sanctify their language. Praise be to God, the Arabic language is a beautiful language, but we did not provide it with anything that would make it the language of science. We must take care of the individual and education, and make Arabic ready to receive artificial intelligence.
Dr. Mahmoud Al-Sayed (President of the Syrian Arabic Language Academy) confirmed that we are faithful, honest and loyal guards of this honorable and sacred language. Our problem with the Arabic language and identity is that we say one thing and do another; We need someone to provide us with a development plan for teaching the Arabic language. We need to teach the language at the level of science, we now need a plan that restores our awareness of the use of the Arabic language. We are now resorting to foreign languages, we are now dying and dissolving in globalization. Where is the position of the Arabic language – which is the fifth language in the United Nations – when we allow our representatives in the United Nations to use the French language or the English language?
Dr. Al-Sayyid called on the congregations to present us with a phased practical plan that would spark the follow-up. The Arabic language does not need a conditional, but it needs a use. We want to raise an appeal to the League of Arab States, through the Union of Arab Language Academies, to collectively address the issue of the Arabic language at one of the Arab summits, and for there to be continuous follow-up to the decisions of the Arab summit in this regard.
It should be noted that the conference of the Academy discussed in its closed morning session the scientific works presented by the committees: Lexicon of the Language of Arabic Poetry, Medicine, Education and Psychology, and Words and Methods.
It is worth noting that the conference of the Arabic Language Academy in Cairo will be held this year via (zoom) technology for the participants from outside Egypt, and the heads of the Arabic language academies and the higher bodies of the Arabic language in the Arab world, members of the conference of the academy and its Arab and Arab correspondents will participate in it.
