​The Community College of Qatar (CCQ) recently marked International Mother Language Day with an array of activities that celebrated the richness and aesthetics of the Arabic language.

The event, held at CCQ’s Lusail Female Campus and themed ‘Our Language..Our Refuge’, featured a cultural session on Qatar’s role in preserving the Arabic language, led by Dr. Jathnan Al-Hajri, Professor of Law and board member of the Qatar Lawyers Association, and Professor Mohamad Saleh, presenter at Al Jazeera TV. In addition, CCQ students displayed their projects related to the Arabic language, alongside an Arabic calligraphy exhibition. The event also included a poem recitation, both written and recited by a CCQ student and theatrical performances by students from the College’s Theatre Arts Program, following which the College honored participating students and the winners of its Arabic literature writing competition.

Commenting on the event, Dr. Mohamed Al-Naemi, President, CCQ, said: “As the language of the Holy Quran, one of the United Nations’ 6 official languages and a language spoken by over 400 million people, Arabic is held in high esteem around the world. Part of CCQ’s mission is to provide quality student-centered education in response to the needs of the Qatari community and a great part of this is reinforcing Qatar’s rich linguistic and cultural heritage, while at the same time providing students with a global outlook, as well as the opportunity to strengthen their English skills and study other languages, such as French, Spanish or Turkish. Today’s event celebrates the beauty of the Arabic language and the contribution that it has made to science, medicine, mathematics and literature, as well as other languages.”

First announced by UNESCO in 1999, International Mother Language Day is a worldwide annual observance held on February 21 to celebrate linguistic and cultural diversity and promote multilingualism. Earlier last year, in a bid to highlight the importance of preserving the Arabic language, Qatar introduced the Law for the Protection of the Arabic Language, requiring all ministries, government agencies, public entities and institutions to use Arabic as the primary language in its day-to-day meetings, documents and correspondences; and companies and foundations to be given Arabic names, while those with foreign names to bear the Arabic transliteration as well.