emirates7 - Academics and thought leaders have spoken high of the efforts made by H.H. Dr. Sheikh Sultan bin Muhammad Al Qasimi, Supreme Council Member and Ruler of Sharjah, in supporting the promotion of the Arabic Language, including the recent production of the Historical Dictionary of the Arabic Language.

This came in a seminar, organised by the Arabic Language Centre in Mauritania here, in which the Mauritanian Minister of Culture, Youth, Sports and Relations, Khattari Ould Cheibani, and Dr. Mohammed Safi Al Mosteghanemi, Secretary-General of the Arabic Language Academy (ALA) in Sharjah, participated, along with a number of the heads and representatives of Arab academies and men of letters.

The seminar highlighted the achievements stemming from the completion of the Historical Dictionary of the Arabic Language and the tireless efforts made by the ALA in association with its peers in other Arab countries to issue 17 volumes of the historical dictionary.

The Mauritanian minister expressed his country's appreciation for the efforts of Sharjah under the leadership of Sheikh Dr. Sultan in promoting the Arabic language and supporting writers, scholars and poets.

The dictionary is the biggest Arabic linguistic knowledge and information project that documents the history of the Arabic language lexicons and their usage transformations over the last 17 centuries. It not only provides history, origins, meanings, and explanations of words, but also documents the history of the Arab nation, preserves its civilisation, and celebrates the achievements of Arabs. It describes the words, the definition of the semantics of words according to their historical contexts and their etymology.