The National Archives Celebrates the World Arabic Language Day and tackles the Arabic language in education, media and digital content, and perceives its future. 

In celebration of the World Arabic Language Day, the National Archives organized a virtual seminar entitled: “The Arabic Language and Challenges of Language Competition in the Twenty-first Century.” aiming at highlighting the UAE’s interest in enhancing the Arabic language richness and distinct status as a key national identity component, and for its important role in promoting the values of loyalty and belonging to the homeland and its wise leadership, and in preserving the memory of the nation.

The seminar topics were presented in the form of questions posed by Dr. Seddik Gohar, the National Archives’ Translation Expert, and answered by Dr. Jamal Maqableh, Arabic Language Department at the United Arab Emirates University, and Dr. Aisha Al Shamsi, Head of Arabic Language and Emirati Studies program at the Higher Colleges of Technology in Al Ain.

The seminar interactively addressed a number of themes, most important of which are: the Arabic language limitations, and the relation between Classic, colloquial Arabic, and its various dialects. It indicated that it is a deep-rooted language that still develops and thrives, one of the six official languages of UNESCO and that there are over four hundred million Arabic speakers around the world.

The seminar revealed that Arabic language digital content is significantly limited in the era of digitization and digital content contemporary mechanisms and policies, since it is equivalent to only 3% of other digital content, even that of other least prevalent languages exceeds the Arabic digital content percentage, so to what shall we attribute this?!

The seminar attributed the limited Arabic content to the lack of support and funding for projects concerned with Arabic language and knowledge dissemination, and of Arabic online tools, and because much of the Arabic content is merely cut and paste ... etc.

The seminar stressed the UAE interest in Arabic language and in educational institutions, and praised the wise leadership's efforts to enhance the Arabic language status.

The participants noted that the academic report launched last December by the UAE Ministry of Culture and Youth upon the directives of His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum is considered an important reference for decision-makers; with its statistics and research shedding light on the importance of Arabic language and its future. The main report themes are: media and space, employing Arabic language in contemporary novels, Arabic language and technology, Arabic language and translation, using Arabic language in science and scientific research, university students attitudes and views in connection with Arabic language, Arabic language and other approaches, Arabic language and new world.

The seminar stated that 18 universities around the world, 23 Arab researchers, language institutions and academies, and many tech-companies participated in preparing this report. The seminar indicated that the Arabic language is expected to internationally rank fourth in 2025, and according to a French scolar there are currently 7000 languages in the world, only fifty of which are expected to survive and last in the third millennium, Arabic shall be one of them as an ancient widespread international heritage language. When European universities were established in 1490, there was an old historic saying that “ whoever wants to study medicine and science must master Arabic language since it is the language of science and education.

The seminar stressed the need to enhance Arabic language status in education, media, development and Education, and that can only be achieved through developing visions and policies, and supporting creativity and creative reading.