12 October 2003, Issue 5

In Today's Email:

• Arnold Schwarzenegger: Terminating Multilingualism?
• Pidgin in Paradise Island: Is Arabic Under the Gun? by Rhoda Rageh
• Opinion Polls - Is the Rising Prominence of English a Threat to Arabic?
• Newswatch -
  - Al Jazeera Expanding Its Brand Into English-Language Online Journalism, Online Journalism Review, 30 September, 2003
  - The Battle for Young Minds, Egypt Today, 3 October, 2003

Arnold Schwarzenegger: Terminating Multilingualism?

It comes of course as no surprise that 'US English Incorporated' - an organisation that believes English should be the official language of the United States of America and that finds the very idea of multilingualism an anathema -  is jubilant about Arnold Schwarzenegger's recent success in the California elections. Mauro E. Mujica, chairman of the 1.7 million member organisation, personally congratulated Schwarzenegger, who incidentally has been serving as a member of the advisory panel for the organisation since 1988.

US English Inc., which has been historically linked to white supremacist groups, is at pains to point out that the organisation is not anti-immigrant although a great many in the Hispanic community are unconvinced believing that US English Inc. is a racist, anti-Latino group committed to stamping out all vestiges of the Spanish language in the United States. Aside from the smears that accompanied his electoral campaign, there have been justifiable calls for Schwarzenegger, now the Governor Elect of California, to sever his ties with the organisation.

Curiously, among other news that US English has been releasing to its members this week, is the horror at discovering that a fifth of the US population does not speak English at home. A revulsion that no doubt resonates with Britain's very own Terminator: David Blunkett!

Related Articles:

Schwarzenegger Win is a Victory for All Americans
US English, Inc.
9 October, 2003

Schwarzenegger Is No One-Dimensional Character
Washington Post
13 August 13, 2003

Schwarzenegger Criticized for Ties to U.S. English
Fox News
28 August, 2003

Schwarzenegger Rapped by Hispanics on English
Washington Times
29, August, 2003

Pidgin in Paradise Island: Is Arabic Under the Gun?

By Rhoda Rageh

In the hope of giving longevity to that which nature forbids to be immortal, I have devoted this book, the labour of years, to the honour of my country, that we may no longer yield the palm of philology, without contest …
[Samuel Johnson]

Languages are inherently unstable. Imperfect articulation of phonemes renders non-native speakers as odd and illiterate and often induces the scoff of natives. Words change form and meaning. They sometimes pick up negative connotations, sometimes positive, and occasionally disappear from practice entirely while other terms borrowed from foreign languages keep vocabulary expanding. However, the process of change in a language is intricately intertwined with the attitude and cognizance of its native speakers.

When Samuel Johnson followed his French counterparts in 1755 in compiling the first English dictionary, he hoped to protect his language from what he considered, among other things, “the rape of the French.” It took him 10 years to realise it was impossible to preserve a language. After a long endeavour, an insight that had tamed his lofty ideal was a consciousness he gained into the intricacies of language. A sobering truth that confronted him was instead of confining a language one has to keep up with its vigor.  In any event, he was admired for his effort in unifying a common national and cultural sentiment. Johnson’s objective to protect what he perceived to be a superior cultural identity, including religion, from “barbarians” is unmistakably manifest both in his plan and preface to the English dictionary. His laborious effort evident in these essays is as much of an explanation as it is an apology for his patriotism.  In the preface to his dictionary, Johnson describes many threats to language but finds these to be most dangerous:

Total and sudden transformations of a language seldom happen. Conquests and migration are now very rare: but there are other causes of change, which though slow in their operation, and invisible in their progress, are perhaps as much superiour to human resistance, as the revolutions of the sky, or intumecence of the tide. Commerce, however necessary, however lucrative, as it depraves the mangers, corrupts the language; they that have frequent intercourse with strangers, to whom they endeavour to accommodate themselves, must in time learn a mingled dialect, like the jargon which serves the traffickers on the Mediterranean and Indian coasts. This will not always be confined to the exchange, the warehouse, or the port, but will be communicated by degrees to other ranks of the people, and be at last incorporated with the current speech . . . There are likewise internal causes equally forcible. The language most likely to continue long without alteration, would be that of a nation raised a little, and but a little, above barbarity, secluded from strangers, and totally employed in procuring the conveniences of life, either without books, or like some of the Mahometan countries, with very few; men thus busied and unlearned, having only such words as common use requires would perhaps long continue to express the same notions by the same signs. But no such constancy can be expected in a people polished by arts . . .There is another cause of alteration more prevalent than any other which yet in the present state of the world cannot be obviated. A mixture of two languages will produce a third distinct from both, and they will always be mixed, where the chief part of education, and the most conspicuous accomplishment, is skill in ancient or in foreign tongues. He that has long cultivated another language, will find its words and combinations croud upon his memory; and haste and negligence, refinement and affectation, will obtrude borrowed terms and exotic expressions
[Johnson, Preface to English Dictionary]

Johnson is not alone in his single toil to preserve a language. Whether it is a group of academics from several Spanish speaking countries in Latin America who puzzle over English words seeping into their Spanish language, or famous African authors writing in their native languages, thinkers and linguists view undetected foreign words as a threat to cultural identity. They take conscious steps to preserve the uniqueness of a culture by preserving its language. A culture seems threatened if its language is threatened. Although “English around the world” in the light of neo-colonialism, as conspiracy theorists perceive, maybe viewed as sceptical and paranoid; to negotiate the supremacy of a language over another usher the danger of reverting to the 19th century belief that colonies were necessary impositions over colonised. It is once more accepting the justification of a cultural domination over another.

Johnson’s perception of English and Christianity as superior to all other cultures, especially Islam (referred here as Mahometan) has since his writing, remained unchanged. The guardians of Queen’s English express total aversion to the “decayed” American English as they curl up their noses against the rape of an English language similar to that decried by Johnson centuries ago. Therefore western cultures especially Britain and France view their languages as superior cultural identities to be protected from misuse.

In spite of all these, language is dynamic and highly energetic. No one knows this better than Johnson himself as he admits in the same preface:

I will confess that I flattered myself for a while; but now begin to fear that I have indulged expectation which neither reason nor experience can justify. When we see men grow old and die at a certain time one after another, from century to century, we laugh at the elixir that promises to prolong life to a thousand year. And with equal justice may the lexicographer be derided, who being able to produce no example of a nation that has preserved their words and phrases from mutability, shall imagine that his dictionary can embalm his language, and secure it from corruption and decay. That it is in his power to change sublunary nature, and clear the world at once from folly, vanity, and affectation. (ibid)

A language mutates into distinction, or falls into extinction by the interest of its inherited society. Its survival or demise depends on the self-esteem of its speakers. And unless its speakers diminish entirely, or make an unconscious decision to discard it, a language as a complex set of values keeps a culture alive. As commerce and industry prosper in the Gulf, and as people from all over the world converge to enjoy the economic boom of the Gulf, two threats of similar nature hover over the Arabic language.  Language transmits cultural continuity through generations. Western slave traders knew this well to use it to their advantage. In their pursuit to enslave the African Americans they obliterated the languages of these Africans even before they brought them to America. Malcolm X’s bitter reminder that “Plymouth Rock landed on African Americans was a lament over his lost roots. African Americans are constantly searching for identity. Their apathy and sometimes disconnection from the American mainstream are attributed to their inability to define their roots in the midst of a multi-cultural society, simmering in a melting pot but one who is always looking back to its roots elsewhere. They, dispirited and uprooted, are looking for a place to rest a futile search for an identity that was lost forever.

Language and faith are, before anything else, cultural identities essential to the vitality of a people. Language is the centre that weaves together the different aspects of a culture and articulates a central coherence of a society. Its absence is detrimental to the unity and emotions of a people. Once they share as little as a language, cultural and religious disintegration ensues.  Pidgin, though it serves some purposes similar to those mentioned by Johnson, also limits people’s ability to harness a coherent society. Once a language is lost, there is very little else to share. Therefore, while English language is essential for globalisation and trade,  and the enthusiasm to teach English is welcome, it should not be presented as a cultural imperative over others. Arabic is, and should remain, the language of intellectual scholarship in the Arab countries. It is the language of the Qur’an; thus the language of true intellectual inquiry for Muslims and Arabs. English should be mastered fluently in Arab countries, as a complement to Arabic.

For most Muslims, Arabic is the language of Faith. Once the Qur’an was imparted in Arabic, Muslims rightfully accepted that the language had become stable. That Allah swt, Who sent the Qur’an, is preserving it has evidently withstood the test of time. Verily We, It is We Who have sent down the Thikr and surely, We will guard it from corruption. (Surat Al Hijr. Verse 8). However, the responsibility to know and understand it as a guide to mankind is in the freewill of those who inherited the Qur’an and its language.  Unless one keeps up with constant reading of the Qur’an and strives to maintain a high level of Arabic diction and an awareness of its classical lexicon, a person is likely to accept pidgin now spoken in many Arab countries as true Arabic. How can one maintain this intense individual self-discipline depends on the vigilance of certain individuals? Basis of human knowledge, which Muslims believe derives from the Qur’an has to be deciphered through potent Arabic scholarship and if one loses the ability to read or understand the complex syntax of Arabic, how is he likely to gain or understand that knowledge? To maintain Arabic language as central to intellectual growth does not mean intellectual curiosity in foreign languages should be abandoned but the archives of rich Arabic scholarship should be preserved for posterity. If Muslims were the guardians of Aristotle and other ancient works under their leadership for the benefit of mankind why can’t modern Arabs do the same now for the benefits of their own people and propagation of Islamic knowledge?

Today many Muslims who are unaware of the miracles in the Qur’an, accept that Science is inherently a European field without any critical analysis. If this trend of trivialising Arabic which is trivialising the Qur’an continues, and if Arabic is lost as a language, Muslims will have to either rely on a foreign translation based on one’s best interpretations, or lose their Deen altogether. Either way, their ability to find true knowledge by themselves is also lost. Should Arabic become a language that only holy people research and learn? Muslims and Arabs should be vigilant against retreating into the direction of 15th century Europe when the Bible was only accessible to few people upon whom the majority relied? Arabic students who are second language learners should also understand a linguistic fact that unless one learns one’s basic language fluently, it is very difficult to master the intricacies of a second language. In other words one needs to become fully competent in a first language before a second language acquisition is attempted.

If Arabs and Muslims adopt uncritically that English language not just as universally important but as the language of science, math and computers, Arabic in all its richness over English, will be viewed as archaic - a language unfit for modern usage and useful only in religious circles.  The threat of locking Arabic in the same closet as Latin or restricting it to mosques is likely and grave. While the spread of Islam in the west seems to reverse this possibility because of Arabic schools sprouting every where in the west, the intellectual centres of Arabic language are in the Arab countries and should remain so. Muslims and Arabs should research the intellectuals from their own cultures to gain access into their background and to give their populations the ability to be proud of their rich heritage.

Whereas the word universal thrusts English culture into a spectacular spotlight as a modern and highly relevant language in our daily lives, Arabic language with all its culture seems to abate into the shadows especially in Arab countries. The necessity for natives to learn English as a tool for employment should never be mistaken for knowledge itself and English should be learned but not at the expense of Arabic. In learning English, students actively learn an English culture highly glamorised through textbooks printed in England. The process passively dispels the necessity for the Arabic speakers to retain their native language or admire their own cultures. In their attempt to wipe out any foreign accent and assume an air of Englishness, erroneous ideas such as only natives can teach or speak English well are introduced and continue to pervade Arab and Muslim societies eager to learn English nuances. In this naïve and innocent quest, a language and a long history of its people are threatened.

Foreign words and foreign ideas equal to those that worried Johnson in 1755 are here pervasive in Arabic. In this process of learning English, anglicised words written in transliteration permeate the Arabic language. Transliteration is different from borrowing. It means discarding the equivalent Arabic word and re-writing the English phonetic sounds in Arabic alphabet. For every English word, one equivalent word, if not more, is available in Arabic and should be used accordingly. In this information age new terminology poses a challenge for Arabic as for other languages. Computer jargon and truncated words are not unique to Arabic. They are problems facing other languages including English. Therefore, new terms should be created from the Arabic language for new words to accommodate Arabic speakers. Arabic should expand in the same process as other languages. It should keep up with its modern age but the character of the language should remain strong and unyielding.

Another less-conspicuous threat, but one equally lamented by Johnson has to do with commerce and migration. These clusters of gorgeous islands in the gulf attract people form different parts of the world. Ambitious and hard working people come to provide goods and services and manage to deliver them without a word of Arabic. These economic transactions occur when neither the Arab, nor the foreigner, is willing to attempt to speak proper Arabic. They accommodate each other in pidgin. Foreigners are not required to learn nor have they leisure time to learning Arabic. Therefore, a hodgepodge of sounds and signals convey what intellectual communication between peoples fails to achieve.

Arabic is the language of faith for Muslims and should be preserved and taught for proper intellectual inquiry. It is also an ancient language that has few equals in the world of linguistics. The lack of interest in Arabic has already resulted in serious consequences for Muslims and Arabs. Islamic contribution to western thought was never credited. Arab and Muslim children learn their own roots from a western perspective and yet are expected to have pride in their diminishing cultures. History does not only belong to who writes it. It belongs truly to who takes the time to find it.

Rhoda A. Rageh is an American Muslim with an MA in English Literature. She teaches at the ELTC for ADNOC in Abu Dhabi.

Current Poll:

Newswatch:

Al Jazeera Expanding Its Brand Into English-Language Online Journalism (Online Journalism Review, 30 September, 2003)
Mark Glaser recently interviewed Ahmed al-Sheikh, new managing editor of the English language website of Al Jazeera: