Page 77 - Education World November 2022

The World University Rankings 2023: Top 10 universities change, infectious disease, etc. We need to collaborate.”
Rank Rank InstituTion Country /
2022 2023 region MIDDLE EAST
Arabic decline anguish
1 1 University of Oxford United Kingdom
= 2 2 Harvard University United States T MIGHT HAVE BEEN A PARTY FOR WESTERNERS.
= 5 = 3 University of Cambridge United Kingdom Young men snogged in the corridor. Girls downed tum-
4 = 3 Stanford University United States Iblers of wine. The real shock, though, was the hubbub
= 5 5 Massachusetts Institute of of voices. Though this was a gathering of young Emiratis,
Technology United States almost everyone was chatting in English, nowadays the
= 2 6 California Institute of Technology United States dominant tongue of Gulf countries.
7 7 Princeton University United States On paper, Arabic is one of the world’s most successful
8 8 University of California, Berkeley United States languages. Over 400 million people speak it. But Arabs
9 9 Yale University United States speak a plethora of dialects. Poor education in Arabic is
eroding its purity, as English spreads. Many primary-school
1 2 1 0 Imperial College London United Kingdom
children chatter in a hybrid of English and Arabic. “Within
NB = denotes tied rank a century, it may be a dead language,” rues a British former
welcoming to outsiders from at least those countries. That diplomat and Arabic expert.
is the logic of international relations.” The language’s decline reflects recent history. Civil wars
Stephen Toope, who stepped down in October as vice have forced millions out of education. Baghdad and Da-
chancellor of the University of Cambridge, said China’s mascus, once citadels of Arab nationalism and culture, have
emerging role as a science power means Western univer- been ravaged by violence. “Language reflects how powerful
sities should collaborate with their Chinese counterparts. you are,” says Ebtesam al-Ketbi, an Emirati scholar. “The
“It’s a huge problem if we can’t collaborate, especially with Chinese, Japanese and Koreans have all kept their languag-
China,” he says. “No single institution, no single country, es, we haven’t.” “People running our countries often don’t
even the biggest, has the capacity to do all of the work that’s speak good Arabic anymore,” rues a Bahraini.
necessary to advance really complicated issues like climate English is the gravest threat. In 2017, the Arab Youth

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