Arabize, Arabization, and Arabic Language

This study tries to highlight the historical development of Arabic throughout the centuries. It also presents some linguistic characteristics of Arabic with a slight comparison to Sana’ani Yemen Dialect. In addition, the study presents the diglossic situation of Arabic through discussing the social role played by both Modern Standard Arabic (henceforth MSA) and the different Arabic dialects in the Arab societies as well as the relationship between diglossia and education. Historically, the study shows that Arabic has been undergone different stages of development and progress over the centuries and the advent of Islam marks the real occurrence of Arabic as a standard language through the revelation of the Holy Quran which was revealed in Arabic. Such a remarkable turning point immensely contributed to transmitting Arabic from the unknown side of the history to be a world language. On the other hand, Arabic has unique linguistic characteristics which make it a distinctive language. Moreover, Arabic shares with other Semitic languages the root of pattern morphology which functions as a generator of Arabic words.

The Companion to Language AssessmentEdition: 1stPublisher: John Wiley & SonsEditors: Antony John Kunnan, 2014

Arabic is spoken as a native language by over 300 million people on two different continents: Africa and Asia. In addition, Arabic is the official language in 26 countries around the world. Given the enormous number of native speakers and the large number of countries where it is spoken as a native language, Arabic was selected as one of the six official languages in the United Nations. Another point of pride for the Arabic language is its historical connection to Islam, since is it the language of the Qur’an. This makes it the religious language of over a billion Muslims around the world. In Muslim countries, learners of Arabic are revered and enjoy several privileges because of this prestigious status of Arabic in Islam (Suleiman, 2003). Recently, there has been a substantial increase in the number of Arabic learners in Western countries. For example, in the USA, numbers of Arabic learners increased from 5,505 in 1998 to 35,083 students in 2009, according to a survey conducted by the Modern Language Association (Furman, Goldberg, & Lusin, 2010). Because of this growing interest, Arabic has become the eighth most studied language in US universities. The renewed interest could be interpreted within a wider context of Westerners attempting to better understand Islam and Muslims. Also, it is clear that there is a growing political and economic interest in the Middle East. More importantly, many Western governments now have a firm belief that learning strategic languages, such as Arabic, is part of their national security strategy, particularly after the events of 9/11 (National Research Council, 2007). After reclaiming their independence in the second half of the 20th century, the Arab countries espoused educational policies that promoted the teaching and learning of Arabic in schools and the use of the language in the wider society. Arabic was also stated in all Arab constitutions as the national and official language of these countries. One of the main goals of any educational system in the Arab world has apparently become the training of citizens who can use Standard Arabic accurately and fluently. The purpose of this policy was to revitalize the status of Arabic which was negatively affected by colonial policies that promoted native languages of the imperial powers (see Daoud, 1991, for a comprehensive discussion of the Arabization policies). Modern Standard Arabic, which is a simplified version of Arabic, replaced Classical Arabic in schools and media. Also, Arab governments have provided substantial funding for developing new Arabic curricula and also establishing teacher-training programs. Arabic is currently taught in schools as a core subject from kindergarten to secondary level for around six to eight hours per week. In addition, university students are required to take Arabic as part of their academic programs.

Zuhgrian Attarik, 2023

Through history we can see the development of an event whether it is something formal, universal, or individual. The development of language is a witness that language is always evolving from year to year. Language is a communication tool used by humans to interact with each other which on both sides knows or understands each other. In linguistics language is defined as an arbitrary sound system, which is used by members of a society to cooperate, interact, and identify (KBBI). Arabic is a language that exists in the arabian peninsula. This language is a language found in the holy book of Muslims, namely the Qur'an. The Arabic language itself has a very significant development. The Arabic language has a very complex development. Generally, people who lived in Arabia at the time of the Prophet shalallahu 'alaihi wa sallam were Arabic linguists they were people who would understand Arabic very well. The history of Arabic has made Arabic a language with a huge number of meanings.

Altre Modernità, 2018

It is interesting for our discourse to focus on Israel, and observe in the same country three realities usually found in two or more different countries. In Israel, the Arabic language is legally admitted as an official language, ; is the target language for the Arab schools; it is spoken by Arabic speakers; in theory, we expect to find it as a foreign language in the curricula of Jewish schools. Effectively the Arabic language in Israel is: -legally admitted as an official language; -the target language of Arab schools; -widely and informally spoken by Arabic native speakers; -in theory, offered by the curricula of Jewish schools. Israel, where Arabic is both mother tongue and foreign language, has not yet decided how to spread and master the competence of this key-language, nor has set clear criteria for the crucial choice between standard or spoken Arabic. A research carried out by Ibrahim and Peretz (Ibrahim, Peretz 2005) was based on the triangulation standard Arabic- spoken Ar...

This paper has four objectives. First, it explores the effect of globalization on the Arabic language and shows its influence on various domains such as culture and values. Second, the paper examines the importance of languages in sustaining the cultural identity of peoples, and shows how globalization can be a threat to a particular society. Third, the paper discusses the concept of globalization as a new form of colonization, and examines the rise of the English language as lingua franca. Fourth, the paper explores the impact of globalization and English on world languages in general and the Arabic language in particular with specific observations from the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The paper concludes by proposing some recommendations to improve the current status of classical Arabic in the UAE. The UAE government's efforts to promote the Arabic Language will also be highlighted.

Journal of Nationalism, Memory & Language Politics, 2017

Standard Arabic is directly derived from the language of the Quran. The Arabic language of the holy book of Islam is seen as the prescriptive benchmark of correctness for the use and standardization of Arabic. As such, this standard language is removed from the vernaculars over a millennium years, which Arabic-speakers employ nowadays in everyday life. Furthermore, standard Arabic is used for written purposes but very rarely spoken, which implies that there are no native speakers of this language. As a result, no speech community of standard Arabic exists. Depending on the region or state, Arabs (understood here as Arabic speakers) belong to over 20 different vernacular speech communities centered around Arabic dialects. This feature is unique among the so-called “large languages” of the modern world. However, from a historical perspective, it can be likened to the functioning of Latin as the sole (written) language in Western Europe until the Reformation and in Central Europe until...

2009

We begin with two questions about the relative status of Arabic and English in the Arab World: Is there an Arab English? And should Arab science be reported in English or Arabic? To investigate the first question, we collected a WWW corpus of English from Arab countries, and used this as a basis for comparison with UK and US English WWWcorpora. We present the differences found, and possible explanations for the differences. This leads us to some conclusions and ideas for further investigation.