مصطلح الأمية العربية وأثره في التكوين اللغوي والحضاري للعرب

Abstract

This study aims to discuss the term “Arabic illiteracy” term on two levels the terminology and the communicative and clarify its significance and the impact on the cognitive formation on the Arabs.

 Accordingly, this study has disclosed the origin of the term and the beginning of its appearance, the manifestations of the description attributed to the Arabs and the meanings and connotations. It has also verified the claim in its positive sense as the description of the Umma (‘nation in a broad sense’’) on whom the revelator had descended and had received the message of the Quran as the wonderful and miraculous book. Moreover, it has not overlooked the role of Jews in the formation of  this term and the evolution of its negative connotations, which started as a distortion or misrepresentation of the term Algoyem (‘gentiles’) or Alagyar  (‘the others’) who were perceived by the Jews  as a different and inferior race culturally, racially, and morally.

Therefore, the research considers this term as an evidence for the advantage of the Arabs and their pioneering role in the domain of explication and clarification in both prose and poetry. It also interprets this term as a strong aspect of the miraculous status of both the Quran and the Prophet, whose effect was reflected clearly on their language, their understanding and culture; therefore, their language had the tendency to musicality, singing and delicate expression, and their memories to a vigilant and high capacity for the conservation and recovery. Furthermore, their language had paved the way to the hegemony of the acoustic education and the power of inference and evidence based mainly on dictation, attendance and communication