Problems of the Arabic Language

“What is the obstacle that stands in the way of the language’s development? And how can this obstacle be removed? The greatest thing that hinders the language is, as they say, that it is a language of writing and not a language of speech. Had it been a language of speech it would have lived in the marketplace and the home, grown of its own accord, and derived its words from its own nature without resorting to artificial means. Such is the case with the colloquial dialects of the countries of the East: they are more fluent because they are the interpreter of everyday life. But that colloquial has no rules and no system; it is barbarous and unrefined, with no settled foundations whatsoever, and it has no capacity for refined expression of weighty matters in the fields of society. As for the language of writing, I mean Fusha, it has been polished over the succession of days and its rules in words and styles have been firmly set, because it has been used for expression for a long time. Can this Fusha become a language of speech so that its perfection may be complete in the broadest sense? The fact is that when we consider all the major living languages that serve as languages of both speech and writing, we do not lack differences between writing and speech in them. These differences may be slight compared with the gap between Arabic and its colloquial, but the gap in a language like German is evident. It is possible that the distance between Arabic and the colloquial will shrink over the years, especially if the advance of education and the spread of culture continue. The day may be near when Arabic and the colloquial draw closer, each drawing from the other.”