By Manal Abdel Fattah
The Embassy of the Sultanate of Oman in Cairo celebrated International Arabic Language Day today. The celebration, which was held at the headquarters of the Omani Embassy in Cairo, began with the holding of a caricature exhibition that included drawings by the most famous artists about the events in Gaza and the brutal aggression against it.
In his speech, Ambassador Abdullah bin Nasser Al-Rahbi, the Sultanate of Oman’s ambassador to Cairo and its permanent representative to the League of Arab States, confirmed that this year’s celebration comes in exceptional circumstances due to the brutal war that Gaza is witnessing.
He added that the Arabic language ranks fourth in the world in terms of the number of its speakers, and it is the language of more than a billion Muslims.
Ambassador Al-Rahbi continued: I quote from an article by Edward Said, the Palestinian thinker, about the Arabic language, saying that the Arabic language is amazing and is an unparalleled precise language. It is like “Venus” in a state of complete beauty and has retained its splendor despite the temptation of time.
Ambassador Al-Rahbi added that the Arabic language is older than history and enjoys perfection and makes its speakers enjoy it. It is a language that does not know childhood or old age, but rather grew up mature, which has not happened to any other language on Earth.
Ambassador Al-Rahbi explained in his speech that the Arabic language has a deep relationship with the system of life and is deeply rooted in the way people think. God has honored the Arabic language and made it the tongue of heaven in the Arabic Qur’an, and Arabic has a great ability to challenge.
Ambassador Al-Rahbi added that global statistics for Arabic content on the Internet indicate a difficult situation for the Arabic language. Neither wealth nor self-enrichment as a genius, inspiring language reflects itself in its content on the World Wide Web in terms of quantity and quality, nor do its speakers fulfill its true right of use, activation and fulfillment, because a large segment Among them are Arabs and Arabic speakers who deal most of the time with content published in a language other than Arabic, whether when adding and publishing, or when searching and consuming. To demonstrate the magnitude of the disaster, we note that the percentage of what is published in English on the Internet exceeds 64%.
The Ambassador of the Sultanate of Oman to Egypt and its permanent representative to the League of Arab States continued that the scene of the disappearance of the Arabic language can only be achieved by celebrating the great linguists, and today we honor Dr. Ahmed Mukhtar Omar, a professor at the Faculty of Dar Al-Ulum, Cairo University, who was not just a professor of linguistics, but was A continuous scientific movement, spreading its glow in every position it occupies.
The ambassador added: Ahmed Mukhtar Omar loved Arabic, and knew its secrets from an early age, and his linguistic and cultural comments while he was still young in the magazines Al-Resala by Al-Zayat, Al-Thaqafa by Ahmed Amin, Al-Risalah Al-Jadeed by Youssef Al-Sibai and others bear witness to this. He – may God have mercy on him – was closer to a thinker and a warrior who was balanced in the gaps of language and culture, who appreciated the seriousness and perseverance that the efforts of heritage scholars witnessed, and who followed modern and contemporary traditions without isolation or dissolution. He left us a great legacy that includes more than thirty books, varying between investigation, authorship, and translation. He is also credited with his leadership in writing the collections of literature by Al-Farabi and Al-Munajjid in the language.