The Qatari Forum for Authors continued its celebration of the Arabic language and shedding light on related issues during the activities of the 31st edition of the Doha International Book Fair, which concluded yesterday. The Forum held two symposia in its pavilion, in an effort to enhance the scientific and research status of the Arabic language in the face of current globalization and alienation trends.
The first symposium is entitled “Is Arabic a Dying Language?” while the second dealt with context theory and its various types in relation to the Arabic language at the linguistic, affective, cultural, and situational levels. The two symposia confirmed that Arabic shall prevail as a strong language with its features, distinctiveness, and uniqueness among all other languages.
Professor Fadl Humaidan, symposium moderator, asked the question “Is Arabic a dying language?” This question is one of the platitudes that had been regurgitated by the enemies of the Arabic language over the centuries; however, international linguistic studies conducted in Western universities and based on the theories of modern linguistics concur that the Arabic language, on account of its distinctive features, standard structures, and incredible phonetic capabilities qualify it to be a common universal language.
In the same context, during the second symposium, Professor Khaled Ayyad, a linguistics researcher and specialist in modern linguistics and the theory of context in the Arabic language, emphasized the importance and richness of the Arabic language, and as the source of Arab pride. He defined the concept of context as the environment surrounding the text, sentence, or speech in general, noting the importance of context in understanding the intended meaning and the social function of language, as well as introducing the most important scholars who actively researched the field of contextual linguistics studies in ancient and modern eras.