WEBVTT

00:00:12.558 --> 00:00:14.098
ALRAFEE (an Arabic author) says:

00:00:14.098 --> 00:00:17.187
"The degradation of nations
is in the degradation of their tongue,

00:00:17.187 --> 00:00:20.421
and the downfall of their language
will always become their own.

00:00:20.685 --> 00:00:24.416
That's when the foreigner colonizer
imposes his tongue

00:00:24.416 --> 00:00:26.097
on the colonized nation,

00:00:26.692 --> 00:00:28.932
shows off his majesty

00:00:28.932 --> 00:00:31.431
and chases them with it.

00:00:31.431 --> 00:00:35.291
He then sentences three judges
with one action:

00:00:35.291 --> 00:00:36.411
The first one is:

00:00:36.411 --> 00:00:39.874
imprisoning their language into his,
indicted to a lifetime behind bars.

00:00:39.874 --> 00:00:44.417
The second: convicting their past
to be killed by oblivion.

00:00:44.595 --> 00:00:49.772
And the third: chaining their future
to the cuffs he makes,

00:00:49.772 --> 00:00:53.140
and his authority to be the leash
by which they’re bound."

00:00:54.041 --> 00:00:58.048
(Applause)

00:01:00.026 --> 00:01:03.033
The story started 8 years ago,

00:01:03.263 --> 00:01:05.338
I was at my third year in college,

00:01:05.521 --> 00:01:08.606
and I was asked to make a research
about a certain disease.

00:01:09.101 --> 00:01:11.717
I asked for help from my elder friend
in the university.

00:01:11.717 --> 00:01:13.742
He gave me books and articles and told me:

00:01:13.742 --> 00:01:16.707
"If you want further information
go and search on the Internet,

00:01:16.707 --> 00:01:20.478
but I don't recommend you search in Arabic
because you won’t find anything,

00:01:20.478 --> 00:01:22.245
search only in English."

00:01:23.835 --> 00:01:25.107
Why only in English?!

00:01:25.686 --> 00:01:27.414
couldn't I find anything in Arabic?!

00:01:27.414 --> 00:01:30.276
it's an old disease,
and it must have some articles in Arabic

00:01:30.276 --> 00:01:31.907
just as in English!

00:01:33.377 --> 00:01:35.186
I came back home and started searching

00:01:35.186 --> 00:01:38.736
I truly didn't find anything more
than a few Arabic scripts in forums.

00:01:39.057 --> 00:01:42.916
so I had to search in English, translate
and then present the essay I wrote.

00:01:43.078 --> 00:01:45.676
next day, I kept thinking about that

00:01:48.900 --> 00:01:53.199
maybe this particular disease doesn't have
much information about it in Arabic

00:01:53.199 --> 00:01:55.888
thus I should search all over again

00:01:56.304 --> 00:01:57.407
I searched with Google

00:01:57.407 --> 00:02:00.989
and found that the first results you get
when you do a scientific research

00:02:00.989 --> 00:02:02.321
is Wikipedia

00:02:02.441 --> 00:02:06.438
when I entered it, I felt like
I've found what I was looking for

00:02:07.679 --> 00:02:10.769
Wikipedia is a website
that contains 295 languages

00:02:11.039 --> 00:02:16.039
the main page has 10 principal languages
including Arabic

00:02:16.579 --> 00:02:20.901
which means they acknowledge Arabic
as a powerful and universal language

00:02:22.922 --> 00:02:28.621
I looked at the written details
under each language,

00:02:28.872 --> 00:02:32.137
and found that there are about
500,000 articles written in Arabic

00:02:32.258 --> 00:02:36.812
In English, there is 5437962 articles.

00:02:36.812 --> 00:02:40.083
- Don't check the number on the screen
as I can't memorize it -

00:02:41.352 --> 00:02:44.633
(Applause)

00:02:45.054 --> 00:02:47.852
I told myself:"It's not about the quantity

00:02:48.023 --> 00:02:49.723
the quality is much important"

00:02:50.104 --> 00:02:52.694
when you check any of these articles,

00:02:52.694 --> 00:02:56.024
you'll find that there are articles
in English equal nearly to 40 pages

00:02:56.024 --> 00:02:58.934
while they don't exceed
3 to 4 lines in Arabic.

00:03:00.434 --> 00:03:02.041
It’s okay

00:03:02.706 --> 00:03:07.832
why wouldn't I start to
do something about it?

00:03:10.235 --> 00:03:13.976
So I really took the calculator

00:03:13.976 --> 00:03:16.976
to calculate the time
I need to translate them

00:03:16.976 --> 00:03:20.907
because I love typing on the computer
to compensate for my illegible font

00:03:20.907 --> 00:03:26.224
and I love Arabic and have
a good knowledge of English

00:03:26.938 --> 00:03:30.425
so I started using my calculator,

00:03:30.474 --> 00:03:33.216
I found that if I want
to translate all these articles

00:03:33.216 --> 00:03:36.148
then I wouldn't need more than 900 years.

00:03:36.926 --> 00:03:38.008
900 years!

00:03:39.347 --> 00:03:42.308
regardless of which grandchildren level
I would have by then,

00:03:42.308 --> 00:03:45.814
those 5 million wouldn't stay the same,
they may become 200 million

00:03:46.022 --> 00:03:48.739
and eventually,
we'll have 5 million articles in Arabic

00:03:49.699 --> 00:03:51.649
So I asked myself: "Why bother myself?"

00:03:51.649 --> 00:03:55.608
I don't even understand economics,
engineering, maths, etc.!

00:03:55.970 --> 00:03:59.009
I would work on
what's related to my specialty

00:03:59.149 --> 00:04:02.260
I would translate what involves
medicine and pharmacy.

00:04:02.769 --> 00:04:07.031
So I recalculated and found out
that I need about 80 years.

00:04:07.229 --> 00:04:10.959
80 years in front of a computer all day
with the possibility of having backache

00:04:10.969 --> 00:04:13.669
or having to wear glasses like I do now

00:04:15.350 --> 00:04:18.949
I tried to rethink about it, why's that?

00:04:19.439 --> 00:04:22.112
why isn't there any consideration
given to Arabic?

00:04:22.112 --> 00:04:27.962
Why do we believe that English is
the essential language for all sciences?

00:04:28.951 --> 00:04:31.360
when I went back in time a little bit,

00:04:31.360 --> 00:04:34.731
I found that in the Abbasid Era,

00:04:34.731 --> 00:04:37.682
translation process was so active

00:04:37.723 --> 00:04:40.993
During that time, Arabs translated
every book that got to their hands

00:04:41.013 --> 00:04:44.483
articles, researches, myths, novels... etc

00:04:44.962 --> 00:04:47.782
regardless of the content
whether it's right or wrong,

00:04:47.782 --> 00:04:49.461
they translated them anyway.

00:04:49.461 --> 00:04:52.654
They translated them
so they can discuss them, build on them

00:04:52.834 --> 00:04:54.893
or criticize them.

00:04:56.602 --> 00:05:00.363
This might be a part of our problem.

00:05:00.924 --> 00:05:05.562
Today, any undergraduate student
who wants to do some research

00:05:05.974 --> 00:05:10.975
then he needs to look
for information resources.

00:05:11.212 --> 00:05:14.564
Unfortunately,
they are available only in English

00:05:14.565 --> 00:05:16.966
thus he needs to learn another language

00:05:16.966 --> 00:05:19.955
and it takes a lot of time

00:05:20.264 --> 00:05:25.855
regardless of that, the human being
can't understand

00:05:25.855 --> 00:05:31.203
what's written in a foreign language
as his native language.

00:05:36.134 --> 00:05:39.012
Even if anyone works in this field

00:05:39.012 --> 00:05:41.208
eventually, articles and researches

00:05:42.127 --> 00:05:47.479
are published originally in English
and are maintained in that language

00:05:47.587 --> 00:05:50.286
and we can't find them in Arabic.

00:05:53.120 --> 00:05:58.829
Honestly, we need to work on turning
this international scientific content

00:05:58.829 --> 00:06:01.428
from English to other languages

00:06:01.428 --> 00:06:06.968
just like Germans turning it into German,
Japanese turning it to their language,

00:06:06.968 --> 00:06:09.012
and like -

00:06:09.398 --> 00:06:12.050
Can anyone read
what's written on the screen?

00:06:14.206 --> 00:06:15.206
Alright.

00:06:15.206 --> 00:06:17.310
Does anyone understand this language?

00:06:17.310 --> 00:06:18.880
Did it run across anyone of you?

00:06:19.261 --> 00:06:21.509
This is called the "Cebuano".

00:06:21.870 --> 00:06:26.690
It’s a language spoken
by a group of about 20 million people

00:06:26.921 --> 00:06:30.371
who live in the far east in Philippines.

00:06:30.981 --> 00:06:34.823
Still, on Wikipedia
there are, in this language,

00:06:34.823 --> 00:06:40.382
4 million articles, and it's the second
language in publishing after English.

00:06:41.163 --> 00:06:44.512
So is it possible that we don't have
the qualifications and ability

00:06:44.823 --> 00:06:48.513
to support publishing Arabic content?!

00:06:50.684 --> 00:06:55.154
I told myself: "I have to
start within myself

00:06:55.154 --> 00:06:58.166
and do something to support this idea".

00:06:58.166 --> 00:07:01.166
Why don't we launch a scheme?

00:07:01.166 --> 00:07:05.607
And I started contacting my friends
in college and Facebook groups

00:07:06.034 --> 00:07:11.194
and we started to work on translating.

00:07:13.395 --> 00:07:16.984
When we started, we actually faced
a fundamental challenge -

00:07:17.067 --> 00:07:21.595
in a group of Syrians, Egyptians
and Moroccans

00:07:22.016 --> 00:07:24.766
there was a disagreement
about translating some terms.

00:07:25.597 --> 00:07:27.346
What should we translate "bacteria"?

00:07:27.366 --> 00:07:30.037
should we keep it "bacteria"
or translate it to "germs"?

00:07:30.037 --> 00:07:31.797
Or to "living organisms"?

00:07:32.025 --> 00:07:34.570
And what should we translate
for example "metabolism"?

00:07:34.570 --> 00:07:36.698
There are two synonyms in Arabic.

00:07:38.307 --> 00:07:45.397
Is it possible that Arabic language
couldn't help us create new terms?

00:07:47.157 --> 00:07:50.007
When the English needed new terms,

00:07:50.108 --> 00:07:51.964
their language did not help them.

00:07:52.174 --> 00:07:54.363
So they came up with two things:

00:07:54.643 --> 00:07:56.814
Firstly, they used Latin

00:07:56.814 --> 00:08:01.311
because derivation is easier in Latin
than English.

00:08:02.274 --> 00:08:05.840
Secondly, they relied on abbreviations

00:08:06.150 --> 00:08:11.673
to create new soft words.

00:08:14.473 --> 00:08:18.142
What do you feel if I told you there is
a disease spreading around the world

00:08:18.142 --> 00:08:19.772
infecting 35 million people

00:08:20.152 --> 00:08:22.897
and causing death to about
2 million every year.

00:08:23.097 --> 00:08:26.926
And that I liked to name this disease
"helps disease"?

00:08:27.775 --> 00:08:31.811
Or to name the causing virus "FNMB"?

00:08:32.565 --> 00:08:33.430
As an example,

00:08:33.982 --> 00:08:35.997
it may seem a little weird.

00:08:36.347 --> 00:08:39.084
Maybe some of us laughed.

00:08:40.033 --> 00:08:42.861
I don’t know whether English people
are laughing now or not,

00:08:42.861 --> 00:08:44.856
but until today they use the word "AIDS"

00:08:44.856 --> 00:08:49.096
which is the acronym for
"Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome"

00:08:49.236 --> 00:08:52.396
and "AIDS" in English
means "material assistance".

00:08:52.692 --> 00:08:55.076
They didn't find any problem
using that word

00:08:55.076 --> 00:09:01.419
in another field than it supposed to be
to refer to something else

00:09:02.317 --> 00:09:05.836
while we find that shaky

00:09:06.026 --> 00:09:07.294
and we don't like it,

00:09:07.294 --> 00:09:11.701
maybe we should strongly believe

00:09:11.921 --> 00:09:14.577
that the qualifications our language has

00:09:14.707 --> 00:09:17.538
make it one of the most powerful
languages in the world.

00:09:18.008 --> 00:09:21.547
So we actually need
a certified reference -

00:09:22.887 --> 00:09:28.148
By the way,
in France "AIDS" is called "SIDA"

00:09:28.148 --> 00:09:31.840
because words' order changes there.

00:09:32.667 --> 00:09:35.188
We need a certified reference

00:09:37.138 --> 00:09:42.469
so translators or researchers can refer to
when using terms in Arabic.

00:09:42.549 --> 00:09:45.451
In fact, a book was made
called the Unified Medical Dictionary

00:09:45.461 --> 00:09:49.102
and I don’t know if there are any other
similar thesauruses in other fields,

00:09:49.102 --> 00:09:50.660
like economics and other fields

00:09:50.660 --> 00:09:52.268
but they didn't spread that much,

00:09:52.268 --> 00:09:56.080
Maybe because we don't believe
that we can use these Arabic words.

00:09:56.497 --> 00:10:00.817
We need support to publish
these information and researches

00:10:00.817 --> 00:10:06.211
whether they're new researches
or translated from other languages.

00:10:06.351 --> 00:10:10.652
And we shouldn't underestimate the need
to have this content in Arabic

00:10:10.652 --> 00:10:15.621
because it will save time and effort
for many researchers.

00:10:16.306 --> 00:10:22.336
We need efforts which may be provided
by associations or organizations

00:10:22.606 --> 00:10:26.219
but it has to start
from ourselves initially

00:10:26.479 --> 00:10:27.459
because ...

00:10:28.609 --> 00:10:34.514
efforts we make
will do a lot to reduce that gap.

00:10:35.284 --> 00:10:37.162
Eventually, I'd like to remind you

00:10:37.162 --> 00:10:40.561
that if anyone wants to translate
these articles all by himself

00:10:40.971 --> 00:10:44.517
then he will need - as long as he's
on his own - at least 80 years

00:10:44.517 --> 00:10:47.319
and he lost 15 minutes
while attending this talk.

00:10:47.519 --> 00:10:48.789
(Applause)