Zawaya

Maghreb countries continue to preserve their culture despite being open to foreign languages

By: Jemal Mohamed Oumar

There is no doubt that learning foreign languages, especially the languages that are known as the “living languages”, has become more than necessary for the peoples of the developing world, or, according to the commonly recognized economic classification today, the peoples of the southern countries. The “living languages” are the languages that are considered more widespread nowadays, especially English. This is due to the fact that the countries that control the world economy now, such as the United States and Britain, speak English. In second place there are other European languages, such as French, Spanish, German and Italian.

The importance and spread of the latter category of languages depend on several factors, such as the size of the population in the countries that speak these languages, as well as the size of the population colonized by those countries. Most Arab Maghreb countries use French as a second language due to existing relations with their former colonizer, i.e. France. The same thing applies to the African countries that were colonized by Britain, such as Ghana and Nigeria, and those which were colonized by Spain.

On the other hand, learning foreign languages has become extremely important for the peoples of developing countries, including the Great Arab Maghreb countries, which are still taking their first steps in embracing the ways of modern science, in which foreign countries (US and Europe) have taken big strides.

Hence comes the need to learn the languages of these countries in order to benefit from the modern sciences in which they excel. In the minds of the Arab Maghreb people, and the peoples of developing countries in general, all developments in applied sciences and related innovations and developed industries have become associated with learning these foreign languages. Therefore, the ministries of education in Maghreb countries started to adopt the teaching of foreign languages in their educational syllabi in the early stages of school. They even opened university departments for teaching those languages on the academic level. In addition, commercial institutes that are specialized in teaching those languages spread everywhere.

In spite of paying attention to teaching foreign languages, Maghreb countries have managed to preserve their local culture, which they have included in many aspects of pre-school learning, commonly known as “kuttab or mahzra”, and even in some institutes that are parallel to modern education, such as religious institutes focusing on Sharia sciences, Arabic and related sciences. Yet, some of those religious institutes have adopted syllabi that integrate the teaching of foreign languages for their students in order to guarantee them access to the job market after graduation.

In addition, the governments of Maghreb countries and officials in charge of education there know quite well that these foreign languages don’t contradict the local cultural dimension, especially since the aim of learning foreign languages is to make them a vehicle for communication and the transfer of knowledge before being are a mold for thinking.