W ould you believe India has more than 50,000 people whose mother tongue is Arabic? According to 2001 Census data on linguistic groups, India had 51,728 people whose mother tongue is Arabic.
The United Nations General Assembly in 1974 declared December 18 as World Arabic Language Day to mark the importance of the language that Arabs use as a means of communication. In 1974, the UN adopted it as one of its six official languages. Arabic is the mother tongue in some 20 nations stretching from the Atlantic coast of North Africa in the west to the Sultanate of Oman in the East, and from Syria in the north to Sudan in the south.
Arabic plays a vital role in the commercial and cultural fields in the era of globalisation. It is a language of rich culture and civilisation dating back centuries; it is the language of the Koran and of the Prophet Mohammed.
The orientalist Philip K. Hitti wrote: “For many centuries in the Middle Ages it [Arabic] was the language of learning and culture and progressive thought, throughout the civilised world. Between the ninth and twelfth centuries more works, philosophical, medical, historical, religious, astronomical and geographical were produced through the medium of Arabic than through any other tongue.”
The non-Arab community began to depend on import of petrol from the Arab world. This dependence increased greatly during the first half of the twentieth century. This concern created strong connections between non–Arabs and Arabs. One of the results of these connections was the interest of non-Arabs in Arabic.
Post-Independence, Arabic has received renewed attention from the Indian government. Departments of Arabic were established in many Central and State universities and colleges. At present, there are more than 40 universities in India where Arabic is being taught, in addition to colleges.
Arabic is no longer confined to the madrasas or Islamic seminaries, and is no longer considered the language of a religion. With the globalisation of businesses, the need for transactional knowledge of languages has become important in both private and government sectors.
In the present globalised world, Arabic no longer appears to be confined to the Muslim community. Non-Muslims are getting attracted to the language, and it nowadays opens options to work in oil-rich Arab countries, multinational companies, and in the sectors of tourism, hospitality and defence.
Today many non-Muslims learn Arabic in universities and colleges. At Jawaharlal Nehru University a considerable number of non-Muslims graduate in Arabic every year.
(Dr . Zubair is with the Department of Arabic, The New College, Chennai. arabic.zubair@gmail.com )
