Ammon News -
AMMAN (Petra) State Minister for Media Affairs and Communications and Minister of Culture Samih Maytah said Arabic is a key part of "our nation's and society's identity" as it expresses a centuries-old civilization and culture, including the Arab-Islamic civilization's era during which it was "divinely revered" by becoming the language of the Holy Quran.

"The duty towards Arabic language compels us to move from praise to adoption of policies and programmes to expand its prevalence in all walks of life and counter all attempts to replace it with other dialects or languages in all our interactions", the minister told Petra in remarks to mark World Arabic Language Day today.

He stressed that learning other languages does not mean abandoning our mother tongue, urging official institutions and voluntary organisations to pool resources and "offer the best to Arabic to expand its commonness in our lives". Maytah said the Ministry of Culture would coordinate with all stakeholders to serve "this national, pan-Arab and religious effort".

UN Arabic Language Day is observed annually on December 18. The event was established by the U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization UNESCO in 2010 seeking "to celebrate multilingualism and cultural diversity as well as to promote equal use of all six of its official working languages throughout the organization".

December 18 was chosen as the date for the Arabic language as it is the day in 1973 when the General Assembly approved Arabic as an official U.N. language.