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Contacts: Amy Patterson Neubert, 765-494-9723, apatterson@purdue.edu; Ahmed Idrissi Alami, 765-496-6046, aidrissi@purdue.edu; Keith Dickson, 765-496-3253, kdickson@purdue.edu
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind., Sept. 18 /Standard Newswire/ -- The number of college students interested in studying the Arabic language is increasing, and Purdue University has responded by adding more classes and a professor in the area.
"People assume this growth is from 9/11, but it's not," said Keith Dickson, chair of the Arabic, classics, Hebrew and Italian section in the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures. "There was a big bump in our enrollment before 9/11 because the interest in learning Arabic is inevitable. The West is encountering the Middle East, and people want to know more about the Arabic world for political, economic, social and religious reasons."
In 1991, 21 students were enrolled in two sections of Arabic language. From fall 2000 to fall 2001 the number of students jumped from 30 to 70. This fall 124 students in nine sections are enrolled, said Dickson, who also is associate professor of classics.
Arabic culture, which pertains to the history and societies of most of the Middle East and North Africa, is often confused with Islam, which is a religion, said Ahmed Idrissi Alami, an assistant professor and director of the Arabic program.
"People are sometimes surprised to learn that many Arabs are Christians," said Idrissi Alami. "There are many Muslims, actually the majority worldwide, who are not Arab, such as people from Indonesia, Nigeria, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India. The Arabic language helps people communicate across borders of ethnicity."
Idrissi Alami is teaching a course on Arabic culture that covers the pre-Islamic period to the present, as well as an Arabic language course.
"Some of my students are from other language programs, but many want to work with the government; the government is interested in people who are knowledgeable about both the Arabic language and Arab cultures," he said. "Others are seeking careers in international business, and still others enroll for religious reasons because classical Arabic is the language of the Koran."
There are plans for a minor and later a major to be offered in the Arabic program, Dickson said. The Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures also is home to programs in Chinese, classics, French, German, Hebrew, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish.
