– Arab countries’ output of books represents just 1.1 percent of the world total, although Arabs constitute 5% of the world’s population. This is less than what a country such as Turkey produces, with a population about one-quarter that of the Arab countries.
– The Arab world translates about 330 books annually, one fifth of the number that Greece translates.
– Print runs of Arab books are very low, ranging for the average novel between 1,000 and 3,000 copies only. A book that sells just 5,000 copies is considered a bestseller.
– Arab book publishing has been threatened by three factors: censorship and the practice of banning books among the 22 Arab states; low readership, blamed on economic stagnation and competition from the mass media; and the lack of adequate distribution of books across the Arab world.
– Arab websites amount to 14,000 websites, representing only 0.01% of world content.
Something has to be done about this!
It’s a shame to see numbers like this coming out of the Arab world.
More importance should be given to book writing, publishing and reading. Children should be brought up to read more, writers should be given more freedom and more encouraging circumstances to write, more effort should be put into translating important works of art, literature and science.
The responsibility falls on the Arab governments, universities, cultural and scientific institutions, publishers, writers, translators, bloggers, readers and families who have to all work together to change this shameful reality to a brighter one.
[Sources: Arab books and human development, Guardian Unlimited]
I totally agree with you.
These are very good stats, where did you get them from. This is a very sad reality, we have to do what we can to change it.. any ideas?
The first Arab country to develop a genuinely free press and a sufficient number of Anglophones to do the work can export translated books and other knowledge to the other 21 Arab countries. The Arab world needs a country to become a factory for knowledge. Will Iraq become that country?
TigerHawk, I sort of disagree.
The effort should come from within every Arab country, not just one.
As for developing a sufficient number of people who read and speak western languages, that’s not the problem as we have a lot of people who are majored in all the languages you could ever imagine. The problem is that these people don’t find the encouraging circumstances to translate or write themselves. Plus the way it is now, it’s just not financially viable for them.
Anyway, it would be great if what you thought of were to come true and Iraq were to lead the knowledge revival in the Arab world.
Omar, my sources for the numbers are stated at the end of the entry 🙂
As for the solution to this sad reality. I think the best way is to have a combined effort between governments, universities and writers to create a good environment for writers (judicially, financially and freedom of expression wise) to publish their books.
And our role as bloggers is to encourage and promote this effort and these books, and as readers to buy and read Arab books.
Hey MMM, nice yet depressing post.
I totally agree with your suggestions, and the ones of those who responded.
I would like to share this nice experience which took place last night..
For around 6 hours or so, me and my cousin, along with a friend of ours, wanted to experiment something. We decided not to use any single foreign word or expression in our conversation all through that night, and the result was really interesting!
It was REALLY tough, but we enjoyed every minute of it! The fun part was when one of us used a certain word, and none of the other two had noticed a foreign word just slipped till after a few seconds!
I am not against learning languages, and I do believe that languages are “living creatures” some grow old, some develop, some evolve and survive, and others would perish!
I like learning languages, but I hope that we can help keep our language as polished as possible, most importantly our spoken language, because the Arabic language will always be there because of the Holy Quran, but we as Arabs, don’t want to use it ONLY during our prayers! Like Latin, which is being only used in chants.
I hope one day I will be able to express everything in one single solid language at a time, whatever that language is, but you and Eman should give it a try, it is a nice challenge! 🙂
One of the fun words was “battery”, we found that the Arabic equivalent was “al 7ashidah”! 🙂
Of course we were being extremists for the sake of the challenge, but the big problem that pushed me to do this, was that in several occasions, me and a friend of mine would be discussing a topic about the “Arabic identity” and how we are losing it, and all that kind of talk, and the irony was that both of us talked in a mixed way during that discussion, expressing some key words in English! 3ala ra2i hal shakh that we both know .. “Ma2sah! Ma2sah! Ma2sah!” 🙂
-sorry for the long “comment”-
It really is a shame. Disgraceful!
How about figures for TV viewership, especially for reality TV shows like Star Academy, etc?
Saqf, that’s a really good idea/experience 🙂
I’ve tried this before, but we always ended up laughing at ourselves.
Anyway, I think that it’s the only test that will show us how much we suck at our own language and how urgent it is for us to do something about it.
And I agree, “Ma2sah! Ma2sah! Ma2sah!”, looool…
I am not against learning languages, and I do believe that languages are “living creatures” some grow old, some develop, some evolve and survive, and others would perish!
I like learning languages, but I hope that we can help keep our language as polished as possible, most importantly our spoken language, because the Arabic language will always be there because of the Holy Quran, but we as Arabs, don’t want to use it ONLY during our prayers! Like Latin, which is being only used in chants.