Arab World Institute Hosts 3-Day Celebration for World Arabic Language Day

During this day, celebrated every December 18, "participants will be able to discover the 5th most widely spoken language in the world. They will also be able to hear it, practice it, and thus open up to the immensely rich culture it gives access to," the IMA said in a press release.

For this edition, the IMA has concocted a program aimed at discovering the richness of this language, namely initiation to the Arabic language, a giant dictation, poetic and literary readings, film screenings, music, calligraphy workshops...

During this celebration, under the theme of multilingualism in France, the President of the IMA, Jack Lang, will have to recall "how much Arabic is, today, fully a language of France. As such, it is daily practiced orally as well as in writing in the hexagon," the same source points out.

"Unfortunately, Arabic still suffers from an ambivalent image and does not benefit from the education it deserves in school," regrets the IMA. The Institute therefore proposes throughout the year, with its Language Center, "a modern and secular education, far from any religious or ethnic consideration, open to all ages and all levels." Last April, the IMA had launched an internationally recognized Arabic proficiency certificate, modeled on the TOEFL in English, to certify the level of proficiency in this language, it recalls.