How Does the Media Influence the Spread of English Language in Qatar?

Qatar is an Arabic-speaking country, with a booming economy, due to the oil and gas industry and not only. The official language, just like in any other country, is Standard Arabic. It is the language used in official documents, in formal education, and, of course, in religious contexts, being the language of the Quran.

Local oral culture and communication is based on Qatari Arabic, a variety of Khaliji (Gulf) Arabic. The “third” language of this state is English. It has no official status, although the government supports English learning in public educational institutions. It has become a lingua franca in various economic fields, just as in the communication between the Qatari residents with different ethnic backgrounds.

English Spreading in Qatar: an Overview

There are several main ways through which English began and continues to spread in the Gulf nation. First of all, there is the large number of foreign residents (mainly South Asian). But, even the large community of non-Qatari Arabs is a factor, since the various Arabic dialects are not entirely intelligible. Of the entire population (1.7 million, according to official 2011 statistics, around 40% of which are Arab), just 11-15% are Qatari nationals (Asmi 63).

The second factor is education, namely the implementation of the so-called “knowledge economy”, a major project of the Qatari government, supported by foreign (mainly US-based) consulting firms. Growing local financial markets and foreign investments, as well as the increasing exposure of the Qatari companies on the global market, they all need a more educated workforce, with proper knowledge of the World’s main commercial language (Asmi 18).

Public instruction in English (mainly concerning scientific and technological education) became widespread at all levels. The closing of many schools run by the government and the mass privatization in the educational sector further increased this trend (Asmi 83).

Obviously, the young generation is the most affected by this trend, with many young Qataris seeing Standard Arabic as a rigid language, unable to adapt to the modern, technological age (Asmi 211). The final factor is media. This includes both traditional mass-media, but also the increasingly popular social media.

Traditional Media

With an already growing basis, due to education and economy, the spread of the English language is further favored by print media, radio, television and online news platforms. This is logical, since modern Qatari citizens need to have access to a broader array on information, coming from both linguistic areas.

Many Qatari newspapers have sister papers written in English (Gulf Times, The Peninsula, Qatar Tribune). The Qatar Broadcasting Service, as well as Qatar TV and the worldwide-known Al-Jazeera have English language programs or channels (BBC News: “Qatar Profile”).

While it might seem that they have a significant contribution to the spread of English within the state, the truth is that they do so almost exclusively for non-Arab Qataris. This is because the tendency with these media is to focus primarily on subjects concerning the expatriate communities, which means they are watched mostly by people who already have an educational background based mostly or entirely on English.

On the contrary, state and political issues and public events of national interest are mostly reflected in the Arabic language media, thus, Arabic speakers have little interest in the alternative.

Simply speaking, Arab Qataris tend to read Arabic newspapers and watch Arabic television programs, while their English counterparts are mostly for non-Arabs. Thus, print and audiovisual media work as a favoring factor for the spread of the English language only within the expatriate community (Asmi 239-240).

The situation changes when it comes to Internet-based mass media. This is because the major news agencies in Qatar (Qatar News Agency, Doha News) use almost exclusively English. Thus, for any active Qatari resident, no matter if Arab or non-Arab, who uses the Web as a main source of information, there is little alternative to English (BBC News: “Qatar Profile”).

Social Media

Social media has a growing impact on all Middle Eastern nations, from a social, political (considering the recent, social network-powered Arab Spring uprisings) and also linguistic point of view.

According to the 4^th Arab Social Media Report (2012, Salem and Mourtada), over 244,000 Qataris became Facebook users only in the first half of the year 2012. The overall penetration of Facebook in Qatar is a moderate one (around 30%, in 2012). The large majority of Facebook users in Qatar are young, male residents.

According to the same statistics, the vast majority of Facebook users have English as their first language of online communication (over 80%; Lebanon and the United Arab Emirates are the only Arab Countries with a higher percentage).

While part of the explanation resides in the large expatriate community having English as the primary communication language, this is not all, since the percentage significantly surpasses that of the non-Arabic speakers.

This means that the phenomenon is also due to a preference of young, educated Qatari nationals towards using this language. Twitter penetration was only about 3% (however, over 5 million monthly tweets are prodced) while LinkedIn reached around 9.8%, with no available linguistic data (Salem and Mourtada).

One of the consequences on increasing usage of English, mainly online, is the emergence of “Arabizi”, a mix of Arabic and English, with words or expressions approximately translated or transliterated from one into the other.

While predictions of this slang replacing both Standard and Qatari Arabic as the main conversation language are certainly exaggerated, Arabizi is enormously popular among Arabic-speaking Qatari youth, to the point where some even find it difficult to return to the normal, written language (Asmi 181-183).

On the other hand, the extent of English and “Arabizi” usage, plus the existing differences between the local Khaliji dialect and Standard Arabic have led to a (at least perceived) decline of the last, prompting a negative reaction.

While there is some nationalism involved, there is also a real basis for these concerns. For instance, the Northwestern University in Qatar has found itself in the middle of a serious problem: few students were speaking Literary Arabic well enough to be hired by the major employer in the area, Al Jazeera.

While the neighboring Saudi Arabia has taken radical measures, including prohibition of English in all government offices and private companies, bilingualism is still encouraged in Qatari education and media (Guttenplan).