AS one of the major and most widely-spoken languages in the world, the Arabic language is rich with history and continuous innovation. Many major languages today have incorporated a range of Arabic words that are widely used. Modern Arabic is classified as a macro language with 27 sub-languages spoken in countries ranging from the Kingdom itself to Mali, in Africa. Not one of these forms of Arabic is immune to the influence of non-Arabic words. In fact, it is no exaggeration to say that Arabic has been overwhelmingly enriched with new words derived from other languages and cultures. In particular, the advent of technological, educational and even social changes has meant that hundreds of new words have been inserted into the Arabic language of today. For instance, imperialism has provided us with alembriahlah, as ideology has given us aleidiologia. Safar Abdullah Al-Hozaimi, a Saudi student pursuing a degree in accounting in the United States claims that sometimes there isn't any alternative but to use English terms. “I use financial terms in English that are easily understood by Arabs and non-Arabs alike,” he remarked. “The reason is that we study (for our degree) in English, but also because some financial terms have no Arabic equivalent.” Reem Al-Otaibi, a Saudi student at Effat College in Jeddah takes an alternative view of the whole issue. “Switching from one language to another is a kind of ‘fashion' and a sign of bilingualism which shows that you are not only educated, but also bicultural,” she asserted. Indeed, the trend these days is for Arabic speaking people to use a combination of English and Arabic words during a conversation. “I do insert some English terms even when I'm outside the workplace, without taking much care of whether the word I have just used is English or Arabic,” said Mohammad Al-Jadaani, an engineer who works at Saudi Aramco. His colleague Mohannad Awad Al-Azmi claims that this is because of Saudi Aramco's history itself. “The American expatriates who first arrived in the Eastern Province during the 1930s worked closely with the natives and left a remarkable impact on their social and cultural lifestyle, including their dialect,” he said. “Lamba derives from lamp, bass from bus, seckroub from screwdriver and babe from pipe. Such words have been used in the daily Arabic conversations in the Aramco communities of Dhahran, Abqaiq, Ras Tanura and even in some rural communities of Hofuf and Qatif since the early 1930s.” Other languages have similarly been influenced to a great extent by the Arabic language. This influence has been most profound in those countries that boast of a dominant Muslim population. Arabic is a major source of vocabulary for languages as diverse as Berber, Kurdish, Persian, Swahili, Urdu, Hindi (particularly the spoken variety), Bengali, Turkish. Malay and Indonesian. For instance, the Arabic word for book - kit'ab - is used in all these languages apart from Malay and Indonesian where it strictly means ‘religious book'. In addition, European languages like Spanish and Portuguese also feature a number of Arabic words in their vocabulary. Many English words are likewise, derived from Arabic, often through the adaption of words from languages like Spanish and Latin. Among them, commonly used words are sugar from sukkur, cotton from qutn and magazine from majaalah. English words of more recognizable Arabic origin include algebra, alcohol, alcazar, alchemy, alkali and zenith. “Arabic is a very important language of religion for billions of Muslims, almost all of who insert non-Arabic terms related to their study,” remarked Mohammad Oraief, a professor of Arabic at King Abdul Aziz University in Jeddah. “The Arabic language is rich and has derived many terms from the Arabic language, but this kind of flexibility and ‘borrowing' of terms is not wrong; languages are fertilized,” he added. He does make some recommendations however. “To keep our language updated, we should Arabize (to give an Arabic term or form to) each new technological, economic and political term, instead of using non-Arabic terms.” His colleague, professor Wael Al-Omari looks at the issue in a more philosophical manner. “Inserting non-Arabic words into Arabic and code-switching (changing from one language to another in the midst of utterance) is noticeable and the reason is a kind of defeatism,” he said. “One looks up to other languages and cultures and forgets his own.” “The effect of that is withdrawal from our own language, our own culture and the creation of a missing generation that will not be able to sustain, or even know either their culture or history,” he added. As the largest living member of the Semitic language family in terms of speakers (approximately 350 million speakers according to official statistics), Arabic is also honored as one of the six United Nations official languages. The ongoing debate on whether to Arabize popular English terms, or continue dotting conversations with those words notwithstanding, Arabic is, and will remain one of the greatest and most popular languages in the world.
