Arabic Language Academy in Cairo (social networking sites)
Before “International Mother Language Day,” which falls on February 21 of each year, we must open a serious dialogue about the state of the Arabic language, especially since it is an occasion during which speakers of various tongues in various parts of the world look with care and concern at what happened to their language, including The "Arabic language" enjoys many strengths, but it has not been sufficient for it, or has not been exploited properly.
In this context, we cannot deny that the Arabic language suffers from complex problems, some of which are chronic, and which were presented and known but did not find a solution over the years, and some of which are new, and have become exposed to the minds, and do not require strenuous effort for us to stand on them, diagnose them, and think of solutions to them. .
Grammar development
Some of these problems are related to developing grammar, so that it becomes easier, and it is a matter of improving the voice of Taha Hussein and others, in order to avoid them. Some of them relate to finding appropriate words that keep pace with scientific and cultural development, and the vocabulary, concepts, and terminology that globalization throws into the river of languages almost every day. Some of them are related to finding a new eloquence in simile, metaphor, exaggeration, image making, and imagination.
There is a problem related to drifting behind linguistic derivation to create perceptions and methodological paths. This matter has become one of the characteristics of research in the humanities in Arab universities and institutes. The researcher always begins by running after the meanings of the linguistic derivations of his terms or concepts, and in this he resorts to ancient dictionaries, forgetting that language is a living organism that sometimes changes with the change in the social context.
The matter becomes worse when the ancient linguistic text becomes a determinant of modern thinking, attracted to it, revolves around it, and produces guiding models and patterns of thinking with it.
But the problem is not limited to this, of course. There is a more difficult and difficult aspect related to the existence of the Arabic language itself. Colloquial dialects have cruelly encroached upon it, and it has not stopped at the point of being circulated orally, as it was previously. Then most of the new generation began to rely on it to express their opinions, positions, thoughts, and feelings.
Rather, the matter has reached some writers or writers, and here we are following what they write in crude colloquial language on social networking sites and we are amazed, especially since what they write is not in the form of dialogue that can impose local colloquial dialects, but rather in description, photography, analysis, imagination, expressing an opinion, and declaring a position. .
Some colloquial spoken dialects have a tremendous ability to express and overcome many of the problems of the classical language, especially the Egyptian dialect, but in Egypt there is no single colloquial dialect, let alone all Arab countries, which means that the spread of colloquial dialects and their excessive adoption will lead to confusion, and perhaps interruption. Communication between Arabs from the ocean to the Gulf.
Generations cannot read
I remember in this regard that a Sudanese writer, whose birthplace is Karmkul, the town of Tayeb Salih, distributed to us at a literary conference a short story that she wrote in the local dialect of the region to which she belongs. I looked at the lines, but I only understood a little of them, and I was unable to know what the story was telling at all. Or I looked at the aesthetic images scattered within it, so I turned to a Sudanese writer from the north of the country and asked him what it meant, and I found that he, too, was having apparent difficulty in understanding the story.
Naguib Mahfouz was aware of this issue, so he wrote in classical language, and he criticized those who wrote in colloquial language, even when it was necessary to conduct the dialogue on the tongues of the characters and heroes of the narrative, because this would obscure their works over time from many people, especially those readers who are not familiar with the Egyptian colloquial language. Arabs.
A similar matter may be found in Youssef Idris’s stories, despite their splendor, as he included a colloquial dialect dating back to his birthplace, which is the village of Al-Bayroum in the Egyptian Sharkia Governorate. Some of these words have now left their local environment, let alone other local Egyptian environments, and even more so about distant Arab environments.
Taha Hussein was aware of this, and therefore he criticized Idris for using colloquial language in his stories, and he did the same with others, especially the playwright Noman Ashour.
Also, colloquial dialects are no longer pure, as they were a quarter of a century ago, for example. Rather, a mixture of languages has entered them, some of which young people call “Franco-Arab,” in which Arabic letters are replaced by foreign ones or numbers. While it is difficult for people of my generation to understand what this writing means, we find Young people know it with ease and simplicity, it arouses wonder, and it tells us of the ruins that have hidden from us “our beautiful language,” in the words of the Egyptian poet Farouk Shousha, who used to present a popular radio program with that title.
In addition to this, there are generations of graduates of foreign schools in Arab countries who have become unable to read Arabic properly, nor to write in it. These people even communicate in daily life in English or French, or at least mix their Arabic speaking with foreign words, and some of them may stop you after they... He pronounces the English word, for example, to clarify its meaning in Arabic.
I also remember in this regard that a colleague of ours at the Faculty of Economics and Political Science, in the 1980s, who was a graduate of foreign schools, told us that he could not express his feelings for the girl he loved in Arabic, and that English was what helped him in performing this task, despite The curriculum at that time was in Arabic, as the English and French departments had not yet been established.
Limited efforts
Moreover, foreign languages have become widespread in the markets and streets, and have begun to displace the Arabic language, or obscure it, in many countries. The signs of shops and shops, and the names of hotels and stadiums, are in many cases written in English, French, or other languages. And if some merchants and stakeholders are humble, they may write Foreign pronunciation in Arabic letters.
This provokes many people who are jealous of the Arabic language, among them was once the late thinker Dr. Abdel Wahab Al-Mesiri, who filed a lawsuit demanding that all advertising signs in Egypt be written in Arabic, but this lawsuit was neglected and forgotten.
On the other hand, religious education, and at its head or at its heart, is Al-Azhari education in Egypt, pays great attention to the Arabic language, especially since those enrolled in this educational path must memorize the Holy Qur’an and at least a thousand hadiths of the Prophet, in addition to the famous Alfiyya Ibn Malik Grammar.
While some are calling for the abolition of this education, to prevent duplication between civil and religious education, while ensuring that there is a dose of religious or moral lessons in civil schools, there are those who fear that such behavior will lead to a negative impact on the Arabic language.
There are also those who want religious education itself to develop their Arabic language, moving away from abandoned words or vocabulary that has been outdone by the social environment and resides in the heart of ancient dictionaries and dictionaries.
Writers and journalists tried to develop a simple language capable of understanding the largest possible number of readers. Naguib Mahfouz spoke about the third language, or clear Arabic, which he resorted to, especially in the dialogue that takes place on the tongues of the heroes and characters of his novels and stories, especially if these are simple people. . Tawfiq al-Hakim did the same thing in his plays and stories.
There are those who used to pick up words that we thought were colloquial and throw them into the lines of his texts as being indisputably eloquent, and at the head of these was the writer Yahya Haqqi, who was remarkably careful in choosing the words of his narrative works, his critical writings, and his journalistic articles.
But those concerned with developing the Arabic language to keep pace with the relentless renewal and urbanization did not make sufficient and sufficient effort to prepare Arabic to assist its educated and educated speakers in expressing their opinions. Rather, the common people have exceeded what the institutions based on it guide them to the language, especially language academies. Arabic in several Arab countries.
Severe distress
What is worse and worse than all of this is that people produce their own renewed oral rhetoric, while most writers insist on using old metaphors, such as someone saying “the straw that broke the camel’s back,” while the camel is no longer the primary means of transportation in the age of cars, trains, and planes, or someone describes The face of the gentleman with the moon, and the brave with the lion, or another says, “the sword preceded the defenseless” in an era of weapons, some of which became faster than sound.
This happens to classical Arabic while colloquial dialects try to meet people’s needs through reduction and abandonment of adherence to grammatical rules that may make rapid pronunciation difficult. Likewise, colloquial dialects have the ability to express the popular imagination through colloquial and Nabati poetry, for example, as well as through proverbs, proverbs, stories, biographies, epics, songs, poems, and others.
The Arabic language is experiencing a severe ordeal. Here are writers who are not good at writing it, judges who are not good at pronouncing it, stagnation in grammar and morphology, colloquial dialects creeping in, and it excels in making innovative metaphors, while it is neglected by foreign education which contributed to its alienation and led to the mixing of its writing and pronunciation. With words from other languages, the language of Dhad faces severe challenges. Year after year passes, we open it like any new wound that never wants to heal.
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of Al Jazeera.