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The history of Arabic Language

mitacademy — Thu, 20 Oct 2022 17:28:24 +0000

The history of Arabic Language

Arabic Language

Arabic, which is the native tongue of more than 200 million people worldwide, ranks 6th among the major languages of the world. Arabic is the official language of Algeria, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates, and Yemen as well as one of the six official languages of the United Nations. In addition, it is widely spoken in countries such as Somalia and is the language of the holy writings of Muslims throughout the world.

The Arabic Language has been around for well over 1000 years. It is believed to have originated in the Arabian Peninsula. It was first spoken by nomadic tribes in the northwestern frontier of the Peninsula. In fact, Arabic, means “nomadic.” Arabs (aka nomads), from which the word Arabic is derived, primarily occupied the area between Mesopotamia to the east to the Lebanon mountains in the west, to the Sinai in the south, and from northwestern Arabia to the Sinai in the south.

Arabic is a member of the family of Semitic languages. It is specifically a northern Semitic language. Other past Semitic languages included Akkadian also in the north, Hebrew, Aramaic and Syriac to the east and west and Abyssinia to the south. Today, Arabic is the widely spoken Semitic language. Some other native Semitic languages spoken today include: Hebrew, Aramaic, Kurdish, Amharic (spoken in Ethiopia), Tigre (spoken in Eritrea) and Berber (spoken in Morocco and Algeria). Some Semitic languages have either gone extinct or have become greatly limited because of the spread of the Arabic language. Phoenician, the ancient language of modern day Lebanon no longer exist and Coptic, which the dominant language of Egypt is now only spoken in the Coptic Church.

The spread of the Arabic language occurred as a result of various nomadic tribes traveling out of the Arabic Peninsula. The inter-marriage between Arabs and native people groups further spread the language as well as give rise to further Arabic dialects. Rapid growth of the Arabic language happened as a result of the Islamic Conquests that took place in the 7th century C.E. Through these conquests, the Arabic language made its way into Northern Africa, the Iberian Peninsula (the Middle East) and east into modern day China.

The Arabic language is unique as it technically comprises of multiple varieties, but is commonly classified as one language. As a single language, Arabic is one of the six most spoken languages in the world, comprising more than 400 million speakers. If it is considered a set of different languages, EGYPTIAN ARABIC would be the most widely spoken variety of Arabic.

Much of what is known of written, classical (or old) Arabic comes from the events recorded in the Qur’an, the holy book of the Islamic faith. These events are said to have occurred around the 7th century C.E. Prior to the Qur’an, much of the Arabic language was spoken. The Qur’an has served as the basis of the Arabic language to this day.

In recent years, the term Modern Standared Arabic (MSA) has come about. MSA is almost identical to the classical, formal Arabic of the Qur’an, with the exception of the addition of modern words and some differences in grammar constructions. MSA is the most common form of Arabic and is the variety taught in schools and colleges and is most commonly used in the workplace, in government and in the media.

Over the centuries of its existence, the Arabic language has adopted words from other languages including Hebrew, Aramaic, Persian, Greek, English and French. It has also influenced other languages as well including Turkish, Bengali, Hindi, Indonesian and Tagalog.

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Programme from UAE promoting Arabic language skills is awarded the 2022 UNESCO Literacy Prize

mitacademy — Thu, 20 Oct 2022 17:26:24 +0000

Programme from UAE promoting Arabic language skills is awarded the 2022 UNESCO Literacy Prize

Madrasa is awarded the UNESCO King Sejong Literacy Prize for its programme ‘Madrasa Arabic lessons’.

Madrasa is a leading e-learning platform launched in 2018 under the umbrella of the Mohammed Bin Rashid Global Initiatives (MBRGI). The platform aims to respond to the need to develop and enrich Arabic educational content and make it accessible to the largest segment of students. It provides exceptional Arabic language educational content for all subjects like science and mathematics for free.

The programme ‘Madrasa Arabic lessons’ provides basic literacy skills in the Arabic language along with the core subjects, and supports distance learning through innovative solutions enabling learners to access high-quality education. The lessons, in line with the Arabic language teaching curricula approved in several countries, are prepared by the Madrasa team together with a committee of experts, educators, academics and university professors specialized in developing educational content. They are built following a gamification approach, in order to enhance motivation and interactive skills, creating a healthy competitive environment for students where fun is combined with education. Students can therefore interact and engage with video-based content, where each subject is presented as a distinctive cartoon character in a story-like style.

The idea of developing the programme was driven by the lack of high quality and publicly available Arabic digital educational content worldwide. Dr. Waleed Al Ali, Advisor to Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Global Initiatives (MBRGI) and Secretary General of Madrasa shared that, “although Arabic is one of the six official languages of the United Nations, surprisingly, only 3% of digital content worldwide is in Arabic. Therefore, as the Arabic language is the United Arab Emirates’ (UAE) mother tongue, Madrasa took it upon itself to contribute to the library of Arabic content available online”.

Being a student-centric fully virtual platform, Madrasa allows children, parents and teachers to access quality learning resources anytime, anywhere, “transforming any space into a learning space” to respond to the evolving needs of all learners, through an efficient and innovative use of digital technology.

“Having accumulated more than 3 million users across 50 countries, Madrasa is a testament to the UAE’s efforts to support people regardless of where they may be,” explained Dr. Waleed Al Ali. Since its inception in October 2018, more than 75 million lessons have been provided to Arabic learners from around the world and Madrasa Arabic 688 videos received 38 million views to date.

With the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, Madrasa was able to broaden its scope of action and launched the “‘Madrasa in a Bag”, a classroom in a bag, containing Madrasa’s whole library of content and material, ready to be deployed anywhere without the need to connect to the internet. In this way, Madrasa was able to support students and education authorities around the world, reaching the leaners most at risk of being left behind and marginalized. For this reason, Madrasa was also one of the recommended online learning resources by UNESCO, ISESCO, and many education ministries in the Arab world.

In the future, Madrasa is committed to improve and broaden its learning content, in response to the ever-evolving educational landscape worldwide. As Dr. Waleed Al Ali expressed, “there is always room to grow and develop further, and we warmly welcome collaborations that enrich our platform’s educational content”.

For the International Literacy Day, Dr. Waleed Al Ali shared an encouraging message, “I would address all stakeholders in the educational ecosystem worldwide, from teachers to students, and institutions to governments, to reiterate the significance of unifying efforts and collaborating in the global battle against illiteracy. We must also recognize the potential in utilizing innovative technology to broaden the reach of education. These two factors, together, will contribute to achieving Sustainable Development Goal 4, aiming to ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all.”

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KSAA launches project to train Arabic language teachers for non-native speakers in Africa

mitacademy — Thu, 20 Oct 2022 17:24:00 +0000

September 25, 2022

RIYADH — King Salman Global Academy for Arabic Language (KSAA) has launched a project to train Arabic language teachers for non-native speakers in Africa.

The project will help develop the skills of Arabic language teachers, spread the culture of Arabic language service globally, and enable them to teach the language per scientific principles, provided by a group of distinguished Saudi experts in teaching Arabic to non-native speakers.

The first training courses will start Monday in Uganda at the Islamic University supervised by the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), and will be held later in succession in Senegal, Ivory Coast, Niger, Kenya, Nigeria, Mali, Chad, Ghana, and Comoros.

The ten courses will target broad segments of Arabic language teachers, and will be implemented in cooperation with universities and regional institutions.

The project targets teachers of Arabic for non-native speakers working in public and private universities, institutes, and centers for teaching Arabic to non-native speakers.

It also aims to develop the skills of teachers of the African continent through various training methods, and best practices in language education, by a group of Saudi education experts.

Among the training paths that the project will produce are methods of teaching a second language, the difference between language acquisition and learning, teaching language skills, appropriate techniques for teaching languages, language tests, preparing language materials and activities, and language games.

The training project aims to support the society’s vision of achieving leadership and global reference in the service of the Arabic language, and developing the knowledge and skills of Arabic language teachers to non-native speakers around the world.

It will be done through training on the basic principles of effective teaching, per the best practices in language education, as well as developing applied skills of Arabic language teachers as a second language in using appropriate tools and techniques.

It will also highlight investing opportunities to serve the Arabic language, activate its activities globally, and expand the circle of workers in Arabic language service.

The courses are scheduled to include training sessions, group discussions and brainstorming questions, open dialogues to enrich training activities, and micro-teaching (practical application). — SPA

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