During a dialogue symposium titled “The Academy of Languages…Roles and Challenges” organized on the sidelines of the Riyadh International Book Fair 2024, the President of the Union of Arab Linguistic Scientific Academies, Dr. Hassan Al-Shafi’i The history of some Arabic language academies, and he said that the Union of Academies was created in order to supervise them, unify their efforts and coordinate among them.
Al-Shafi’i stressed that the main link between the Union’s activity and these Arab academies lies in the projects and actions that can only be established on a national basis and at a unified Arab level.
The President of the King Salman International Academy for the Arabic Language, Dr. Abdullah Al-Washmi, the Media Advisor for the Sheikh Hamad Prize for Translation and International Understanding in the State of Qatar, Dr. Hanan Al-Fayad, and Arabic language State of Qatar expert Ahmed Al-Mulla also participated in the symposium, which was held on the second day of the book fair and was moderated by Dr. Mona.
For his part, the President of the King Salman International Academy for the Arabic Language, Dr. Abdullah Al-Washmi, highlighted that the most important current challenges facing the Arabic language academies, the most important being the technical challenge , indicating that the languages that have survived to the present day are the languages that turned to writing, and the languages that will remain in the centuries to come. These are the languages which have entered or will enter the domain of the artificial. intelligence, technology and IT, so the only option for the King Salman complex was to consider IT, technology and its algorithms as the main line of action at present.
Meet the challenges
Al-Washmi indicated that the King Salman Complex is adopting the technical route with a number of programs and activities in which it is participating in order to meet this challenge, including that the complex is preparing to participate in the GITEX exhibition which will be held in Dubai. , in addition to its fair participation in the World Summit on Artificial Intelligence. The complex was also launched in partnership with “Sadaya” is the Balsam index, which measures large linguistic models and their accuracy, as well as the “Falak platform” which the complex made available to researchers, in addition to the group of laboratories that the complex contains and which deal with the automatic processing of the Arabic language.
As for the speech of the media advisor of the Sheikh Hamad Prize for Translation and International Understanding in the State of Qatar, Dr. Hanan Al-Fayad, he spoke in optimistic language about the bright future of the Arabic language, attesting to the number of programs dedicated to the Arabic language, which are hosted by an elite group of ambitious young people on social media platforms, indicating that the number of views is one million. Some of these programs reflect great optimism and measure the extent of maturity and maturity of this generation. awareness and its transformation from the traditional and defeatist stage fond of the Western model to that of rejection and criticism of it, in exchange for pride in its language and its authentic Arab identity.
As for the existence of innovative programs and methods in teaching the Arabic language undertaken by Arab academies, the Arabic language expert from the State of Qatar, Ahmed Al-Mulla, confirmed that “this area involves multiple tracks in the English language”, and highlighted that there is a rich diversity in the field of teaching the Arabic language to adults. As for teaching… For young people, its methods are still rare and some traditional efforts need to be developed and revised, emphasizing that the Arabic language is rich and needs an illustrated dictionary for its vocabulary aimed at non- Arabs.
The participation of the King Salman International Academy for the Arabic Language in the Riyadh International Book Fair 2024 strengthens the status of the Arabic language and its culture, supports the cultural content system and highlights the efforts of the Academy in the fields of science. publishing, in addition to celebrating the Arabic language and disseminating it to the wide public wishing to participate in book fairs, and promoting the presence of the Arabic language, as well as the dissemination and enrichment of Arabic content.
Activities of the Riyadh International Book Fair 2024 kicked off last Thursday under the slogan “Riyadh Reads” at the campus of King Saud University in the capital. It is organized by the Saudi Authority for Literature, Publishing and Translation, and the State of Qatar is the guest of honor at this year’s exhibition.
The exhibition will continue until October 5, with the participation of more than two thousand publishing houses, from more than 30 countries, distributed in more than 800 pavilions, with the participation of Saudi cultural organizations and institutions , Arab and international.