The Arabic language has a long, rich history. Here is why I’m interested in learning a language spoken by over 300 million people.
أهلاًأ and welcome to my second post! In this post, I’ll be exploring why I’m learning Arabic!
As a busy, full-time student, you may be thinking that I’m crazy for attempting to learn not one but two languages, Arabic being one of them. And yes, even my family and friends think that as well. But there is something about Arabic that has drawn me to the language for many years and in this blog I will explain my reasons why.
1. Arabic is the language of the Qu’ran
The first reason is possibly my biggest motivation! If you didn’t know, I am Muslim. Arabic is the language of the Holy Qu’ran, the book of verses sacred to Muslims, revealed over 1,400 years ago. However, with English being my first language, I need to rely on an English translation of the Qu’ran to understand what I am reading. And its not just the Qu’ran, prayers are in Arabic as well. I would love to be able to read the eloquent words of the Qu’ran and just be able to understand it for myself. Although I am currently learning Modern Standard Arabic, I have noticed a lot of overlap between words in the Qu’ran and the grammar structure. Once I have finished my textbooks on MSA, I plan to work on learning Qu’ranic Arabic.
2. Learning Arabic is challenging
Arabic, for native English speakers, is considered to be one of the hardest languages to learn. And having spent a few weeks trying to immerse myself in it – I can totally see why! Even though I have a bit of previous exposure (I already knew the alphabet in order to read the Qu’ran) it took some time getting used trying to gauge the meaning of words without any of the harakahs (diacrits), not to mention the fact that the grammar is super intimidating to begin with! However, Arabic is challenging but logical. I’m already in love with the root system of verbs and although there are a lot of different verb forms to wrap my head around, I’m looking forward to tackling it! Arabic might be hard but once it clicks it just makes sense. For those of you who may be struggling with it, I get you! One thing that has been keeping me motivated is by doing one concept at a time, a little bit each day and not stressing if it doesn’t ‘click’ at first – I promise you it soon will.
3. Arabic is a widely spoken language – and a very important one too!
Arabic is spoken by a whopping 300 million people globally. While this isn’t as much as say Spanish (which I studied at school) or Mandarin, the importance of Arabic, the language of the Middle East, in the wider world is not to be dismissed. The current atrocities in Gaza, the wider conflict in Israel, Syria, Yemen and Lebanon are a key reminder of this. Right now, my worldview and sources of information is dominated by English media, as it is the only language which I fully understand. This limits my perception of the world and the ability to access information beyond a particular media narrative. It is this reason that makes it imperative for me to study Arabic, so I can widen my world view and look at news more authentically and critically.
4. I’m also learning Somali
Somali is a Cushtic language whereas Arabic is a Semitic language. Despite being a different branch of the Afroasiatic languages, Somali has a lot of loanwords from Arabic. Even words that I thought were distinctly of Somali origin at first, has their roots in Arabic! Many other languages also have Arabic loanwards including Farsi, Turkish, Urdu, Hindi and Bengali just to name a few. Whenever I learn a new Arabic word, the chances are that I already know it through Somali, which makes it memorable. Be careful though as some Arabic loanwords in Somali are very similiar but with a slight difference (eg. caasimad v. عاصمة, which means capital) or they are used to convey slightly different meanings. I’m guessing that it might be the case in other languages as well. But on the whole, this has been very useful for me!
This is just a snapshot of the plethora of reasons of why I wanted to learn Arabic. How many of these resonated with you? Hope this post inspires to keep on going with your language learning or even take up Arabic! مع السلامة
Iftiin Learns 
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