Preserving Arabic language comes at core of Egypt's foreign policy: FM Spox

CAIRO – 23 December 2022: “Preserving the Arabic language and backing its spread come at the core of Egypt's foreign policy […] There is a close link between "the Arabic language, culture and Arab national security,” the state-owned news agency MENA quoted Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Ahmed Abu Zeid on Friday.

Abu Zeid’s comments were given during a symposium organized by Ain Shams University on Thursday, MENA added.

The Arabic language is one of the pillars of the cultural diversity of humanity. It is one of the most widespread and used languages, as it is spoken daily by more than 400 million people worldwide.

Arabic speakers are distributed on the Arab region and other neighboring countries, such as Turkey, Chad, Mali, Senegal, and Eritrea, as Arabic is of paramount importance to Muslims as a sacred language (the language of the Qur’an). Prayers (and other acts of worship) in Islam are not complete unless some of the Arabic words are mastered.

Arabic is also a major liturgical language for a number of Christian churches in the Arab region, and many of the most important Jewish religious and intellectual works of the Middle Ages were written in Arabic.

The Arabic language allows entry to a world full of diversity in all its forms and manifestations, including the diversity of origins, stripes and beliefs.

Arabic prevailed for centuries of its history as the language of politics, science and literature, and it influenced directly and indirectly many other languages in the Islamic world, such as Turkish, Persian, Kurdish, Urdu, Malay, Indonesian, Albanian and some other African languages such as Hausa and Swahili and some European languages, especially in the Mediterranean, such as Spanish, Portuguese, Maltese and Sicilian.

Additional reporting by Mustafa Marie