Abstract
In this article an attempt is made to shed light on the unique status of the Arabic
language, both spoken and written, in Israel. Arabic is de jure the second official language in the State of Israel, but de facto it is marginal. By 1948 Hebrew had become in fact the only official and dominant language in Israel. In the 1950s all the Jewish attempts to persuade the Arabs in Israel to write their literature in Hebrew, to learn only Hebrew or to write Arabic in Hebrew characters failed. In the summer of 2008 right-wing Jewish members of the Knesset also failed to strip Arabic of its status as an official language.
Almost every aspect of life in Israel contributes to the Hebraisation and Israelisation of the Arabs in Israel. By law, learning Hebrew is compulsory in Arab Israeli public schools starting in the third grade and is obligatory on matriculation exams. The Arabic language has low prestige even among many Arabs by comparison to Hebrew and English. Arab youth in Israel view Hebrew as a symbol of high status and the key to modernisation and progress.
Subsequently, it is little wonder that the Arabic language is being invaded by Hebrew. In the State of Israel this Arabic has been called >ar>ibiyya / >arbåniyya / >irbiyya or >arvrit, me˓__________urvetet, meaning Arabic mixed with Hebrew. The Hebrew language has infused Arabs’ minds and hearts, not merely as a language, but also as a concept and an attitude.
This state of affairs could indicate the first steps to the extinction of spoken Arabic in Israel. The status of Arabic in Israel reflects the unique socio-political situation of the Palestinian Arabs in Israel and the lengthy Arab-Israeli conflict. If Israel desires to join the new Middle Eastern context, then it must first respect the Arabic language and its native speakers within its borders and treat them as equal citizens.
Arabic is a Semitic language spoken in a profusion of dialects by approximately 400 million speakers. Furthermore, the language has further been arabicised across a vast area extending from the Arabian Gulf in the east to the Atlantic Ocean in the west in addition to being spoken by millions of people living in the diaspora. Arabic is one of the six official languages of the United Nations. It is the official language in all Arab countries and a co-official language in Chad, Comoros, Djibouti, Eritrea, Israel, Mali, Senegal, and Somalia as well as in the Organisation of the Islamic Conference and the African Union (Pool, 1991; عبد الحي، ٢٠٠٥، ص. ٤٣) ). From the second half of the eighth century until the end of the eleventh century, Arabic was the scientific language of mankind. Along with a great body of the world’s science, literature and history are also preserved in this language. Arabic script is the fourth most widely used after the Latin alphabet, Chinese characters, and Devanagari. Arabic letters are used in many other languages, such as Kurdish (Sorani & Luri), Malay, Pashto, Persian, Punjabi, Sindhi, and Urdu.
language, both spoken and written, in Israel. Arabic is de jure the second official language in the State of Israel, but de facto it is marginal. By 1948 Hebrew had become in fact the only official and dominant language in Israel. In the 1950s all the Jewish attempts to persuade the Arabs in Israel to write their literature in Hebrew, to learn only Hebrew or to write Arabic in Hebrew characters failed. In the summer of 2008 right-wing Jewish members of the Knesset also failed to strip Arabic of its status as an official language.
Almost every aspect of life in Israel contributes to the Hebraisation and Israelisation of the Arabs in Israel. By law, learning Hebrew is compulsory in Arab Israeli public schools starting in the third grade and is obligatory on matriculation exams. The Arabic language has low prestige even among many Arabs by comparison to Hebrew and English. Arab youth in Israel view Hebrew as a symbol of high status and the key to modernisation and progress.
Subsequently, it is little wonder that the Arabic language is being invaded by Hebrew. In the State of Israel this Arabic has been called >ar>ibiyya / >arbåniyya / >irbiyya or >arvrit, me˓__________urvetet, meaning Arabic mixed with Hebrew. The Hebrew language has infused Arabs’ minds and hearts, not merely as a language, but also as a concept and an attitude.
This state of affairs could indicate the first steps to the extinction of spoken Arabic in Israel. The status of Arabic in Israel reflects the unique socio-political situation of the Palestinian Arabs in Israel and the lengthy Arab-Israeli conflict. If Israel desires to join the new Middle Eastern context, then it must first respect the Arabic language and its native speakers within its borders and treat them as equal citizens.
Arabic is a Semitic language spoken in a profusion of dialects by approximately 400 million speakers. Furthermore, the language has further been arabicised across a vast area extending from the Arabian Gulf in the east to the Atlantic Ocean in the west in addition to being spoken by millions of people living in the diaspora. Arabic is one of the six official languages of the United Nations. It is the official language in all Arab countries and a co-official language in Chad, Comoros, Djibouti, Eritrea, Israel, Mali, Senegal, and Somalia as well as in the Organisation of the Islamic Conference and the African Union (Pool, 1991; عبد الحي، ٢٠٠٥، ص. ٤٣) ). From the second half of the eighth century until the end of the eleventh century, Arabic was the scientific language of mankind. Along with a great body of the world’s science, literature and history are also preserved in this language. Arabic script is the fourth most widely used after the Latin alphabet, Chinese characters, and Devanagari. Arabic letters are used in many other languages, such as Kurdish (Sorani & Luri), Malay, Pashto, Persian, Punjabi, Sindhi, and Urdu.