This question is raised from time to time in our age whenever discussions arise about backwardness and progress, development and modernity. It is raised by the educated elite, whose concern is to investigate the reasons that hinder the progress of the Arab and Islamic nation. It is also raised by writers, particularly those who write for children, because direct communication with children takes place through language. Is it permissible to connect this issue with what was narrated in the past or with what is being written today? Parents also raise this question, as they wish their children to master the Arabic language; indeed, they aspire for their children to master other languages as well.
This question does not seem likely to disappear, primarily because of its connection to Arab identity on the one hand. Arabs find in the idea of language a source of cohesion among Arab peoples. On the other hand, it is connected to one of the ways of preserving the strength of religion. Language has therefore become a civilizational issue. Does progress begin with language, or does it emerge from other sources?
Accordingly, we find ourselves compelled to address another issue related to identity and religion. If we, as writers, wish to tell stories or compose poetry, what language can we use to communicate with children who all belong to the Arab environment? As we know, this environment is internally cohesive, yet externally diverse. By “external” here, I mean the forms of linguistic communication used in these environments through different dialects.
If I write a story in the Moroccan dialect, for example, will its semantic message be understood in the Egyptian environment? The same can be said of other dialects, which may be clear and accessible at times but obscure on many occasions. If we write children’s literature in the Egyptian or Moroccan dialect, does this affect identity and religion?
Whether we like it or not, the answer is that the widespread circulation of literature written in one dialect or another among children—who represent the rising generation, the generation expected to assume responsibility for managing society for decades to come—at a time of competition among languages for prevalence and global reach, will in one way or another contribute to weakening the cohesion and solidarity among the peoples of the Arab nation.
The Arabic language is therefore a fundamental element in achieving cohesion among Arab peoples. The strength that emerges from this cohesion gives our language a global legitimacy and grants it the right to compete with other languages.
Some may argue that ours is an age of rapid development, an age in which everything human beings use is becoming easier and more accessible. Yet development does not, under any circumstances, mean severing our connection with the language inherited from our ancestors—the language of identity and religion—on the pretext that communication cannot be achieved through unfamiliar or difficult words.
There is no doubt about the importance of accessibility. However, moving from obscurity to simplicity does not mean reducing language to a naïve or superficial form, to the point of legitimizing the teaching of sciences and literary forms to students in dialects on the grounds that they find it difficult to absorb knowledge through Modern Standard Arabic.
If such an approach were to spread into specialized fields—in schools and universities, where the use of formal Arabic is required—why not apply the same principle to the languages we seek to learn in order to use them in professions and occupations?
Advocates of this approach seem to take an extreme position, because replacing the official language—the language of heritage, identity, and religion—with a dialect inevitably raises a profound human question: the Arab individual's connection to existence as a struggle to affirm distinction through language. Any separation from the language is a separation from participation in this global linguistic struggle.
This struggle should not, however, take place between Modern Standard Arabic and dialects, because it may generate problems that we do not want to release from the confines in which they are contained. Such problems could enter another arena: the political sphere. There, they could become a vehicle exploited by those who are neither specialists nor knowledgeable about language, turning language into a means of achieving a utilitarian objective.
This is what happens in several Arab countries. One example is the adoption of Arabization for scientific subjects, followed later by their Francization. If we examine the efforts made by each side to defend its position, we find that the intellectual effort devoted to this conflict has produced no outcome that benefits the Arab nation. Even more troubling is that one may find someone who previously defended Arabization later becoming an advocate of Francization or Anglicization.
We may conclude from this that political conflict cannot resolve linguistic dilemmas because it pursues a utilitarian purpose that serves self-interest rather than the interests of the language itself.
This problem—which appears to be an artificial one, as we seek to demonstrate—leads us to understand what is meant by facilitating and simplifying the language through which we communicate in formal contexts, since outside such contexts we use the dialect to which we belong.
Facilitation and simplification, as explained by modern Arab linguists such as Al-Maraghi, Khalifa Al-Tunisi, Taha Hussein, and Al-Aqqad, involve reconsidering the rules upon which the language is founded.
We should not expect a child to grasp the complexities arising from a particular linguistic phenomenon simply because different grammatical theories, debates, and opinions have developed around it. These emerged from the linguistic disputes among the grammatical schools—the Basran and Kufan schools, and even the Maghrebi-Andalusian school, represented by Ibn Mada’ al-Qurtubi. Such disputes produced differences concerning a single grammatical issue, such as whether ma functions grammatically or not, whether all grammatical case endings may be permitted in a particular construction—sometimes based on linguistic usage and at other times on analogy—and the relationship between governing elements and the words they govern.
Limiting instruction to the grammatical rules that are most commonly used among people, while reinforcing them through the literature and educational materials directed at younger generations, is sufficient to cultivate a generation that loves its language, its grammar, its poetry, its stories, its inherited sayings, and its proverbs.
This is similar to what we do when establishing the basic rules of other languages and familiarizing ourselves with their cultures. How can we expect younger generations to master their language if they are not connected to the Arab culture in whose cradle that language developed?
How can they understand the subtleties of Arabic without reading historical works, books of tales, legends and myths, poetic compositions, and accounts of kings, caliphs, writers, and poets?
If, for example, we read the biography of Imru’ al-Qays, or explore the life and works of Abu Hayyan al-Tawhidi or Al-Jahiz, would we not thereby enter the world of the Arabic language through the widest possible gateway?
If we take into account that mastery of language ultimately leads to mastery of grammar—a subject from which our younger generations tend to shy away—we may conclude that learning linguistic rules begins with reading literary works.
Within this context, which is witnessing international struggles over languages, this does not in any way imply a desire to destroy any language, because a language dies only when its speakers die. On this basis, the Arabic language will neither disappear nor cease to be used, even in informal contexts, because of the need for simplicity, nor because our age may compel languages to abandon many of their essential features, nor because of excessive reliance on forms of communication through social media.
These developments have produced a new form of writing that has spread across these platforms, relying on Latin letters, numbers, and symbols to convey meaning. The matter has even gone further, with people economizing on language by using certain letters instead of constructing complete sentences.
Should we therefore say that this constitutes a threat to the Arabic language?
Such concern is understandable. Yet alongside these forms of superficial simplification, we find an opposing approach: expression through eloquent sentences and texts that are free from unnecessary verbal and conceptual complexity.
Languages face challenges every day, but the fate of any language necessarily involves this tension between failure and success, and between destruction and construction.
But what does all this have to do with children’s literature and storybooks?
The connection is indeed necessary, given that publishing houses in the Arab world vary in their approaches. Some specialize in publishing traditional heritage stories; others publish translations, thereby opening the door to world literature; some publish in local dialects; while others publish in Modern Standard Arabic.
There is therefore a difference in the ways literature is delivered to Arab children at the linguistic level. But can this difference provide us with a smooth entry into the world of progress and modernity at the cultural level?
The answer is that publishing literature for children in the Arab world in local dialects, on the pretext of presenting meaning “on a silver platter,” as the saying goes, or adopting an approach of simplification, is in reality an accumulation of yet another crisis on top of the many crises facing the Arab world.
Where, then, does the solution to this crisis lie?
Change does not usually take place within language itself, as though language were merely a dictionary from which we select whatever words we wish in order to express our ideas, with each idea having its own particular language. Rather, change takes place at the level of style—in the ways we use the language while maintaining its formal structure, constructing meanings that can be understood by both specialists and the general public.
The language in which we write is no different from music to which we listen attentively for its melodies.
What do we understand from this?
We understand that constructing sentences in Modern Standard Arabic can achieve the very purpose that we seek to achieve through dialects.
