An axe to grind against Arabic
My attention is drawn to an article in asmarino.com 2009.11.17 under the heading ” The language question revised”. The writer gives at the beginning the percentage share of the native languages of Eritrea to show that only 2% of the population speak Arabic, Tigrinya and Tigre covering 81%. He says he has reconsidered his original position of sticking to English as the working language of Eritrea and recommends now English to be one of the working languages of the country. Now I do really hail the writer for reconsidering his position. Most countries of the world use their own languages as main working languages while including at the same time English in their curricula effectively.
Nobody doubts the importance of English today. But all native languages can be vehicles for science and advanced culture in the long run. No language should have monopoly in these matters.
The problem with the article in asmarino.com is that the writer seems to have an axe to grind against Arabic. He compares it with Geez, an extinct and dead language used only in the Abyssinian Orthodox Church. Even here it is vanishing as Amharic and Tígrinya gain ascendancy. Arabic is a living language used by almost three hundred Million people in the world not only as a languge of Prayer but also of trade , commerce and science. It is very difficult even for refined Abyssinian intellectuals to discard their old bias in this regard. It is not difficult to see how harmful this is. I hope the writer will reconsider his postition here as well.
