The National Archives educates its employees on “Multilingualism and human languages mapping”
The National Archives educates its employees on "Multilingualism and human languages mapping"
The National Archives organized a virtual educational lecture entitled "Multilingualism and Human Languages Mapping ", in strict adherence to adopted precautionary measures to counter and contain Corona-virus. The virtual lecture was delivered by Dr. Saddik Gouhar, Translation expert at the National Archives, and it depicted the prominent role of the UAE in preserving the Arabic language as a national language and an identity symbol. Dr. Saddik praised the UAE's keen interest to promote, and preserve the Arabic language, and enhance its global position, while concurrently using diverse other languages since multilingualism has a clear and significant impact on tolerance promotion among individuals and society.
The lecturer stressed the importance of multilingualism as an essential element of civilized communication, coexistence and tolerance between the various people of the world indicating that all this has been successfully achieved in the UAE which hosts communities of more than two hundred various world nationalities, each of which use their mother tongue to communicate. The UAE usefully employs the different cultures in the field of sustainable development for people's welfare, development and peace. The lecturer reviewed the various languages map at present, indicating that thousands of languages are physically in circulation but cannot be specifically calculated. He then elaborated on the various human languages mapping and political hegemony, and discussed at length the conflict and clash between the different languages in Africa. Dr. Gouhar said that the place most renowned for its language linguistic diversity in the world is the southern African Sahara, where thousands of oral and written languages are in use, a factor which colonial powers utilized to increase differences and gaps in order to divide and control. The African people most likely depended on their memory for recording and registering events, accordingly, oral languages spread, but the colonial languages remained dominant since they allowed local elites to protect their interests and maintain their gains.
The lecturer gave a comprehensive presentation on local languages and multilingualism in the Republic of South Africa, highlighting the conflict and clash there between the Afrikaans and English languages, and the attempts to marginalize the Afrikaans language. Dr. Gouhar also shed light on the linguistic scene in the post-racial era.
The lecture also depicted “the dominance of the colonial language on the African scene in the post-colonial era”, the primary and secondary local languages, and stressed that the more indigenous languages and local dialects, the more powerful, widespread and dominant the colonial language became, and continued as such until it became deep-rooted in the African land after most African countries became independent in the 1960s and managed to coexist with the main primary or central native languages until colonial languages gradually became a first or second language, and naturally, seekers of distinguished jobs or a prominent positions were keen to learn the dominant language, which proved detrimental to the public interest at the expense of personal interests and gains. In conclusion, the lecture pointed out that some emerging countries tried to issue linguistic practices legislations, and struggled to adopt and use a single official language, as did the countries that obtained their independence, based on the fact that language is an expression of the general spirit and common identity, and is an embodiment of nationalism, and a communication tool that serves the state and its economy.
