Editorial

En 3 langues. Pourquoi?

Ahmed Mestiri

Published in

Le Journal

6 min readApr 19, 2015

Ahmed Mestiri

قد تكون أيّها القارئ من هواة العربيّة، فكلّنا نشأنا في أرضٍ يحمِل نسيمها عبَق ثقافةٍ عربيّة إسلاميّة ثريّة، و من منّا لا يعشَق لغتها فيطرب لأنغام حروفها و يفْخَر بثراء معانيها، و من منّا لا يشتاق لما كانت عليه و يحْزَن لما صارت إليه. في أيّامنا هذه و نظرًا لطبيعة دراستنا بالخصوص، من الصعب أن نجد وقتا لقراءة القليل الجيّد الذي يجود به عصرنا من صفحاتٍ عربية، و الأكثر صعوبة أن نجد من الوقت الكافي لنجود بأنفسنا لتلك الصفحاتْ. في مجلّتنا، نحن على آقتناع بمركزيّة اللغة في كلّ تطوّر، بل نحن على إقتناع أيضا بمركزيّة التطوّر في كلّ لغة. ومن الخطأ أن يتعسّف كلّ منهما على الآخر، فليس بالصواب أن تكون اللغات إعاقة للتقدّم و لا هو من الصواب أن يكون التحضّر حجّة للتخلي عن تلك اللغات. فمن المهمّ إذًا أن يصاحب كلّ منهما خطوات الآخر، حتى لا يكون أحدهما لعنة الآخر. فإن كان نسيان أو بالأحرى تناسي لغة ما مؤشرا على شيئ فهو مؤشرا على ضعف الأمم الناطقة بها و هوانها. فهي من منظورنا مرآة الحضارات، فإذا ما أشعّت حضارة ما، صاحبها إشعاع اللغة التي تنطق بها. لذلك السبب نحاول أن تكون هذه مساهمة و لو متواضعة للحفاظ على الشغف الذي يحمله بعضنا للعربيّة و لكي تكون صفحاتنا صوتا للمبدعين منكم، منبرا لآراكم و مرآة لإشعاع أفكاركم

Certains lui attribuent la gloire des révolutions démocratiques à travers les siècles, d’autres ne la considèrent qu’une langue de colons.

Sinon, êtes-vous peut-être de ceux qui sont passionnés par la langue française ? Ce n’est sans doute pas étonnant, la Tunisie est un état membre de l’Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie (OIF), mais contrairement au Qatar qui l’est lui aussi, notre pays compte un nombre considérable de 6 millions de personnes déclarant savoir lire et écrire en Français. Etant une langue qui, bon gré mal gré, a marqué notre histoire, certains lui attribuent la gloire des révolutions démocratiques à travers les siècles, d’autres ne la considèrent qu’une langue de colons. Pourtant, le Français s’impose dans notre nation comme une deuxième langue, adoptée par des administrations, des compagnies, des écoles et des universités régnant ainsi sur le monde de l’enseignement, des affaires, des communications officielles et régnant même parfois sur la communication au sein du foyer tunisien.

L’influence de cette langue et son importance émanent peut-être de la volonté de notre peuple à la choyer, ou encore de la volonté de la France à perpétuer sa tutelle politique et économique sur le pays. Quelle que soit la thèse à laquelle vous adhérez vous trouverez entre les pages de notre magazine l’espace pour exprimer vos convictions !

Now, if you are someone who watches English movies without subtitles then this long paragraph is certainly for you. But English isn’t just the language of movies, traveling and entertainment, it’s undeniably the language of science and knowledge. You may speak and study in Arabic, French or German but when it concerns a new discovery or a report in some field or another, it must come out of your pen in a universal language, that’s if you want to be heard and understood all over the globe. There is no doubt that learning a new language is never futile but whether it is mandatory or not can be discussed.

For a nation, it’s necessary to teach the mother tongue in order to make communication between individuals from different generations and communities possible and make it prevail through centuries and millennia, for the greatness of a civilization is largely dependent on its capacity to withstand time. Fair enough, it’s more than necessary to learn The Language (capital T, capital L) of the era to be an active and productive society especially in a world where intercommunication is crucial.

If we take a closer look to History, we should be fairly able to conclude that the impact of the golden Islamic age would’ve never been so important if it didn’t mature in 3 phases: Retrieving the knowledge of the preceding great civilizations trough the medium of translation, reinforcing it using modern scientific methods, then recording it in Arabic, The Language of the time.

To its desolation and despite an unprecedented glory, the corruption of the final rulers had put to a halt the once seemingly endless development of the nation, thus the torch fatefully passed on to the emerging powers and finally landed in the hands of the West who went through the same evolving phases.

It’s not surprising that recording all the ancient sciences of Greek, Roman and Persian in Arabic did a great favor to the following heir and till the seventeenth century and longer still, the Muslim avant-garde textbooks, such as the book of Ibn Sina “Al Canun fi al Tibb”, were the major reference at prosperous Western universities.

This is not a classic essay meant to cry over spilled milk

It’s important to note that this is not a classic essay meant to cry over spilled milk, rather it is aimed to encourage the learning of this process from our own history and the other’s for the sake of trying to reproduce it.

If you must, read the above again replacing “Arabic” by “English” because that’s exactly what happened. It is now playing the exact role our first language played a few centuries ago.

A nation that is now thrusting to blossom, technically needs two key languages: its native tongue and English.

Taking in consideration all of what was mentioned, a nation that is now looking to blossom, technically needs two key languages: its native tongue and English. Of course, other languages are of great help too but not at the same level of importance.

Let’s be more specific, in Tunisia and most of North Africa, French is monopolizing education, culture and economic fields. Farther east, it’s also a way of favoring France’s allies, as you may have read in the previous paragraphs, Qatar who has a minority of French-speaking population (1, 25%) is a member of OIF (Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie). It seems like our friend on the other side of the Mediterranean is possibly using its language as a political bargain in order to keep a hold on the recently independent Maghreb countries and further extending its political influence. Away from the political headache, French is more beautiful, poetic or romantic than English as some may think, yet, as you can find out through Googling medical terms and subjects, the results in the latter language are more fruitful (45% of web content is in English, the first on the podium while French comes third with a modest 5%).

We must be certain that a shift in the language of our studies is inescapable

We must be certain that a shift in the language of our studies is inescapable in more than one discipline including medicine, it’s only healthier to study it in English. We ought to prompt a question, do we really need to tie ourselves to the French language? The answer is simply no, we need to undo the knot and break free. It will be most practical and of great use especially to the education of the next generations for whom, an Arabic-English alliance would be far more beneficial than the current French-Arabic one.

Ultimately, the languages controversy would sooner than later come to the front of our social dialogue and we will need to seriously think about it. Until then, I hope that this piece would leave you to contemplate this subject by yourselves. Till you make up your mind, we want you to think of our magazine as a printed heaven for different languages and subjects.