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hash
Joined: 17 Dec 2014
Posts: 456
Location: Wadi Jinn
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 Posted: Wed Jul 15, 2015 4:49 pm Post subject: Arabic: Language of the future for job seekers |
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A masterpiece of utter fantasy.
http://www.arabnews.com/saudi-arabia/news/776181
Arabic the second most popular language for getting employed
RIYADH: The Arabic language will be the second most important foreign language to get a job in the future after Spanish in Britain, according to the British Institute. Recently, the Riyadh-based King Abdullah International Center for Arabic Language (KAICAL) said that Arabic has been ranked fourth among the major international languages.
Quoted by the local media, London-based The Independent said that more than 300 million people speak Arabic, prompting the British Institute to urge schools to include Arabic as part of their curriculum.
According to its study, the decision was made taking into account various factors like export and import business transactions, government jobs and economic criteria, as well as security priorities.
The Independent published a story which said “Forget French and Mandarin - Arabic is the language to learn, says the British Council,” adding that some schools in Britain already teach Arabic to students like Horton Park Primary School in Bradford, which began teaching Arabic three years ago.
Research conducted by the British Council rated the language as the second most important for workers of the future, and use of Arabic is becoming more and more vital for the UK’s long-term cultural and economic prosperity.
In a previous report KAICAL said that according to a study on languages, Chinese, with all its dialects, is the most widely spoken language. However, English occupies the top slot in terms of the number of countries that speak it, followed by Arabic in second place.
Professor of languages at the University of Duesseldorf Ulrich Ammon said there are 467** million Arabic speakers.
**Actually, it's more like 242 million, according to Ethnologue and I suspect that number's largely inflated and no more than a wild estimate. See https://www.ethnologue.com/statistics/size
Another laughable example of what passes for reality in some parts of the world. |
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Gulezar
Joined: 19 Jun 2007
Posts: 483
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| Posted: Fri Jul 17, 2015 5:25 am Post subject: Arabic speakers |
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| I suppose they are considering that anyone who can recite the Qur'an can be included as an "Arabic speaker". |
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Janiny
Joined: 31 May 2008
Posts: 199
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| Posted: Fri Jul 17, 2015 7:28 am Post subject: |
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| Even if this was true, the love affair would end when the oil runs out. |
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veiledsentiments
Joined: 20 Feb 2003
Posts: 17644
Location: USA
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| Posted: Fri Jul 17, 2015 1:41 pm Post subject: |
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And it has little to do with oil because the international oil business is done in English.
This article is pretty much fantasy... (hey look... I agreed with hash!!)
VS |
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esl_prof
Joined: 30 Nov 2013
Posts: 2006
Location: peyi kote solèy frèt
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| Posted: Fri Jul 17, 2015 2:33 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: |
| The Arabic language will be the second most important foreign language to get a job in the future after Spanish in Britain, according to the British Institute. Recently, the Riyadh-based King Abdullah International Center for Arabic Language (KAICAL) said that Arabic has been ranked fourth among the major international languages. |
For foreign intelligence jobs it might actually be the first most important language. |
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nomad soul
Joined: 31 Jan 2010
Posts: 11454
Location: The real world
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| Posted: Fri Jul 17, 2015 6:28 pm Post subject: Re: Arabic: Language of the future for job seekers |
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| Quote: |
| Research conducted by the British Council rated the language as the second most important for workers of the future, and use of Arabic is becoming more and more vital for the UK’s long-term cultural and economic prosperity. |
Well, if that BC research had been conducted by the author of the following...
Why Arabic should be taught in UK schools
Should Arabic join other modern languages on the UK school curriculum? Yes, says the British Council's Tony Calderbank, whose own journey as a learner of Arabic has convinced him that knowledge of the language is essential to the UK’s long-term economic and cultural prosperity.
By Tony Calderbank, British Council | 19 March 2015
http://www.britishcouncil.org/blog/why-arabic-should-be-taught-uk-schools
Arabic is one of the world’s great languages. Spoken by more than 400 million people, it has been the vehicle of many significant contributions to the development of science and culture, from the earliest odes of the pre-Islamic poets through to the cutting-edge research of the philosophers and mathematicians of Islam’s golden age, to the novels of Nobel laureate Naguib Mahfouz.
Arabic is also one of the official languages of the United Nations and was recently identified as one of the ten most important languages for the UK's future.
My introduction to Arabic took place at secondary school, where I studied French, German and Latin. When it came to planning my university studies, I thought I’d branch out and do Italian. Then, in one of the most important pieces of advice I have ever received in my life, my A-level French teacher said: 'Why don’t you do something completely different like Arabic or Chinese?'
This recommendation coincided with me seeing a television programme about Arabic calligraphy that was being shown at the time. An old Turkish calligrapher was cutting the nib of his reed pen and making letters on a large blank sheet of parchment. I was smitten from that moment and, shortly after, went to read Arabic and Persian at The University of Manchester. I have never looked back.
Since then, Arabic has been a major part of my life. After graduating, I lived in Cairo for 15 years, taught at a primary school in a Cairo slum and learned to speak the language. I have spent most of the last 30 years in the Arab world. I have taught Arabic, translated its works of literature into English and I can cut the nib of my own reed pen and make beautiful letters on a sheet of parchment.
Learning Arabic is much more interesting than learning French or Spanish. Arabic has whole words made up of sounds your mouth has never made before; its grammar and morphology function in a completely different way from Indo-European languages. And, of course, it is written from right to left so that your hand (if you're right-handed) must learn to push the pen across the paper rather than pull. Imagine the buzz of deciphering the mind-boggling beauty of Arabic calligraphy or the satisfaction of articulating a newspaper headline that to others is just a series of squiggles.
It takes time to speak Arabic correctly – the dream of native-speaker competency shimmering like a mirage in a trackless desert, always just out of reach. 'The first 20 years are the hardest', James Craig, celebrated Arabist and former ambassador to Saudi Arabia, used to say.
Most important of all though is that I have met and got to know thousands of Arabs. I have laughed and cried with them, argued and joked with them, fallen out and made up with them. I have made lifelong friends and have come to understand a bit about the Arab world and its culture. At the same time, I have also learned a lot about colonialism, the media and the nature of modern, global power relations. That’s why I think more people should learn Arabic.
A study of Arabic opens up endless possibilities and opportunities for those who embark upon it. A rich and sophisticated language, spoken in many varieties throughout the Middle East and North Africa, it is both challenging and rewarding to learn. A knowledge of Arabic is instrumental to gaining a real understanding of the peoples, societies and politics of the Arab world, and accessing a range of employment opportunities in the region’s finance, media and commercial sectors. As its social, political and commercial importance increases, demand to learn Arabic is set to grow.
Knowledge of Arabic among young people in the UK also brings wider benefits, including a deeper mutual understanding between our communities and the chance to restore much of the trust that has been erased over the last decades as a result of political circumstance and military interventionism. Those who learn Arabic will move beyond the shallow media stereotypes to a fuller, more authentic awareness of the Arab world.
There are lots of good practical reasons why Arabic is a good choice for UK schools. A good understanding of Arabic can lead to a job in the diplomatic service or security forces, media and communications, finance and banking, the oil and gas sectors. It can improve the UK’s understanding of a complex and volatile region, whose stability has increasing resonance in western Europe as the repercussions of colonial adventurism in the Arab world continue to pan out. Or it could just lead to the discovery that the Arab world, despite the consonant clusters, is a great place to get to know.
In a few days’ time, members of the UK's Arabic teaching community will gather at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) to discuss the issues and challenges of teaching the language in UK schools. It is both essential and timely that the learning of Arabic in the UK should be expanded and that more children in our schools should have the opportunity to learn the language and become more familiar with the cultures and peoples of the Arab world.
Tony Calderbank is British Council Director Bahrain.
(End of article) |
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peripatetic_soul
Joined: 20 Oct 2013
Posts: 303
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| Posted: Fri Jul 17, 2015 8:51 pm Post subject: Araabic: Language of the Future |
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NS,
I finally saw your PM and replied to yours.
Cheers,
PS |
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hash
Joined: 17 Dec 2014
Posts: 456
Location: Wadi Jinn
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| Posted: Fri Jul 17, 2015 9:12 pm Post subject: Re: Arabic: Language of the future for job seekers |
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[quote="nomad soul"]
| Quote: |
Why Arabic should be taught in UK schools
Should Arabic join other modern languages on the UK school curriculum? Yes, says the British Council's Tony Calderbank, whose own journey as a learner of Arabic has convinced him that knowledge of the language is essential to the UK’s long-term economic and cultural prosperity.ETC ETC
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ZOWIE !.....talk about swallowing something hook, line and sinker.......this is one of the best. (There's that fictitious number again......400 million people....). (In fact, Arabic is daily becoming less important in the modern world). |
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hash
Joined: 17 Dec 2014
Posts: 456
Location: Wadi Jinn
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| Posted: Sat Jul 18, 2015 6:09 pm Post subject: |
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ADDENDUM:
I've done a little research on Mr. Calderbank and have learned that he is a respected translator of Arabic/English, has taught Arabic in England, speaks the language fluently (Egyptian, I imagine) and is therefore an Arabist of some note. He's no lightweight. He even has a whole wiki page to himself ! - See : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Calderbank
In light of these revelations, I would like to say that I respect his achievements and that my comments were not meant to disparage his accomplishments in this field. However, I still disagree with the main idea and some of the details of his essay provided above by Nomad Soul. |
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veiledsentiments
Joined: 20 Feb 2003
Posts: 17644
Location: USA
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| Posted: Sat Jul 18, 2015 7:23 pm Post subject: |
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I would expect that he speaks both Classical and Egyptian dialect what with his education and background. (we were in Cairo at the same time, but I didn't spend any time hanging out in Shubra...)
That said, I don't see enough demand for Arabic speakers in the government agencies and ministries of the UK to suggest anything like it being taught in schools along with French and German. (or even Chinese)
Most of those positions would be better filled with a skilled bi-lingual whose first language is Arabic. JMHO
VS |
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hash
Joined: 17 Dec 2014
Posts: 456
Location: Wadi Jinn
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| Posted: Sat Jul 18, 2015 8:24 pm Post subject: Re: Arabic speakers |
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Cultural Sidebar:
| Gulezar wrote: |
| I suppose they are considering that anyone who can recite the Qur'an can be included as an "Arabic speaker". |
Indeed, but even that's a misinterpretation of what's really going on.
What's really going on is that the overwhelming majority (like 99.9%) of "Koranic reciters" who (attempt) to recite the Koran in Arabic have no idea at all what they're saying. That's why there are translations of the Koran into Persian, Urdu, Bengali, Chinese, Pashto, Malay and countless other languages.
In the same way that most people in the 3d world continue to believe that the Earth is flat, so do most Americans believe that anyone who is Moslem "automatically" speaks Arabic. Of course, we enlightened ones know that to an Afghani or Pakistani or Iranian or etc., Arabic is as foreign to them as it is to a resident of Winnemucca, Nevada, USA. |
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Dedicated
Joined: 18 May 2007
Posts: 972
Location: UK
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| Posted: Sat Jul 18, 2015 9:50 pm Post subject: |
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Hash wrote
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| Of course we enlightened ones know that to an Afghani or Pakistani or Iranian or etc, Arabic is as foreign to them as it is to a resident of Winnemucca, Nevada, USA. |
I beg to differ. In Pakistan, much of Urdu comes from Arabic and it is written in Perso-Arabic script, Nastaliq style. In Iran also it is written in Arabic Nastaliq script with many words from Arabic. As for Afghanistan, where I was brought up, both Dari and Pashto languages are written in Arabic script with Pashto alphabet. We would have no great difficulty in reading or conversing in Arabic. |
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hash
Joined: 17 Dec 2014
Posts: 456
Location: Wadi Jinn
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| Posted: Sat Jul 18, 2015 11:33 pm Post subject: |
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| Dedicated wrote: |
Hash wrote
| Quote: |
| Of course we enlightened ones know that to an Afghani or Pakistani or Iranian or etc, Arabic is as foreign to them as it is to a resident of Winnemucca, Nevada, USA. |
I beg to differ. In Pakistan, much of Urdu comes from Arabic and it is written in Perso-Arabic script, Nastaliq style. In Iran also it is written in Arabic Nastaliq script with many words from Arabic. As for Afghanistan, where I was brought up, both Dari and Pashto languages are written in Arabic script with Pashto alphabet. We would have no great difficulty in reading or conversing in Arabic. |
Sigh: Here we go again;
1. "Much of Urdu comes from Arabic" ? Well, yes that's true. But that's like saying "Much of English comes from Latin" which is also true. That doesn't mean that an English speaker "would have no great difficulty in reading or conversing in Latin". The idea that an Urdu, Persian, Dari or Pashto speaker could understand an Arabic conversation on the basis that these languages contain Arabic words is absolutely preposterous.
2. It is true that all the languages you mentioned are written in variations of the Arabic script. But that doesn't mean a Persian speaker, for example, can read an Arabic text without sounding ridiculous. Same for speakers of Urdu, Dari or Pashto. Just ask your Pakistani secretary to read some Arabic text and watch me fall on the floor laughing my guts out. (Ask an English speaker to read Latin, and I'll have the same reaction).
3. In fact, in modern colloquial Urdu, there are more English words that are current than there are Arabic words. Just watch any popular Urdu show or listen to a radio broadcast for teens, for example.
Sorry. Your statement simply has no basis in fact. It is totally delusional. |
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