World Arabic Language Day December 18, 2024
World Arabic Language Day
December 18, 2024
Arabic is a global language of great cultural importance, with more than 450 million speakers and an official language in about 25 countries.
Arabic is a cornerstone of humanity's cultural diversity. It is one of the most widely spoken and widely used languages in the world, spoken daily by more than 400 million people on Earth.
Arabic speakers are distributed between the Arab region and many other neighboring regions such as Turkey, Chad, Mali, Senegal and Eritrea, as Arabic is of utmost importance to Muslims, as it is a sacred language (the language of the Qur’an), and prayer (and other acts of worship) in Islam are not performed without mastering some of its words. Arabic is also a major liturgical language for a number of Christian churches in the Arab region, where many of the most important religious and intellectual works of the Middle Ages were written in it.
The Arabic language allows entry into a world rich in diversity in all its forms and images, including the diversity of origins, tastes and beliefs. It has also created, in its various forms and styles, oral and written, classical and colloquial, and its various prose and poetic scripts and arts, wonderful aesthetic verses that captivate hearts and minds in various fields, including, but not limited to, engineering, poetry, philosophy and singing. For centuries of its history, Arabic has prevailed as the language of politics, science and literature, and has directly or indirectly influenced many other languages, such as: Turkish, Persian, Kurdish, Urdu, Malaysian, Indonesian and Albanian, and some African languages such as Hausa and Swahili, and some European languages, especially the Mediterranean ones such as Spanish, Portuguese, Maltese and Sicilian. In addition, the Arabic language has also been a catalyst for the production and dissemination of knowledge, and has helped to transmit Greek and Roman scientific and philosophical knowledge to Europe during the Renaissance, and has enabled intercultural dialogue along the land and sea routes of the Silk Road from the coasts of India to the Horn of Africa.
In support of and promotion of multilingualism and multiculturalism in the United Nations, the United Nations Department of Global Communications - formerly known as the Department of Public Information - adopted a resolution on the eve of the celebration of International Mother Language Day to celebrate each of the six official languages of the United Nations. Accordingly, it was decided to celebrate the Arabic language on 18 December, as it is the day on which General Assembly resolution 3190 (XXVIII) of 18 December 1973 was adopted to include Arabic among the official and working languages of the United Nations.
The purpose of this day is to raise awareness of the history, cultures and development of the Arabic language.