* Guest Post By Nadine Chahine: Why Arabic Matters

In honor of the “Blog in Arabic” day, I invited an old friend and one of the world’s foremost experts on Arabic Typography to guest post here, in Arabic, on why the Arabic language matters.

She has gracefully accepted and sent me the text below. She even used one of her own fonts for that purpose, and for that I’m very grateful. (For non Arabic speakers, translation is underneath)

Translation

Do you speak Arabic?

Where to begin? We are living today in a world that is fast moving. And it might be easy for us to say: This is it… All is gone. Let’s throw away all that we have, and try to follow others to see what they have achieved. And often we think that our language is no longer able to serve our needs today. That it is no longer able to move, or better run, forward…

But if we do say that, then we forget that our language lives inside of us, no matter where we go or what we do. It is our mother, our father, and the house we grew up in. Did we learn to speak English? Of course. French? Even better. But when we are angry and upset, we want to swear in Arabic. When we are in pain, we also cry out in Arabic. And football? We definitely cheer in Arabic! And when we love, and we love with all of our being, then we still love in Arabic.

A couple of tongue-in-cheek questions to those of you who speak both languages:

1-Do you thing the meaning of Nadine’s sentiments was lost in translation?

2- Why do you think Nadine, with all her love for her mother tongue, blogs in English, not in Arabic?

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