Mind your language, Jordan daily tells advertisers

said Hajjaj, adding jokingly that he would rather resign than force Abu Mahjub, a typical Jordanian working class man, to give up his rich slang vocabulary.

"We all love the Arabic language but unfortunately it did not develop with the time. It is the language of poetry, humanities, but not the language of technology," Hajjaj added.

So far, the cartoonist Jordanians love to wake up to has been spared the wrath of Al Rai. But management has given instructions to all staff and columnists to choose their words carefully. "Ours is a national campaign against the invasion (of colloquialisms) in the Arabic language but of course we cannot succeed overnight," Al Rai editor-in-chief Abdel Wahab Zugheilat said.

The newspaper launched its crusade "after receiving many calls from readers complaining of too much colloquialism in the ads we carry", he said. The decision was taken at the top, at a meeting chaired by Al Rai board chairman Khaled al-Karaki, a scholar, former minister of information and former chief of the royal cabinet.

Since Monday a red-banner notice has appeared daily in the paper informing advertisers that Al Rai "will soon regretfully stop accepting any advertisement using colloquial Arabic as part of the newspaper’s journalistic mission and nationalist identity and in defence of the interests of the nation, its language and its culture."

Al Rai also plans "to correct linguistic, grammar or spelling mistakes" contained in any copy it receives from advertisers. Zugheilat said implementation could start next week but did not give a specific date. "We want to give clients the opportunity to adjust," he said.

Amjad Tadros of the public relations firm `Action’ said the decision was "idealistic" and bound to run into trouble. "Who will judge what is Arabic and what isn’t? And how will they deal with foreign words linked to information technology which is part and parcel of our everyday life?" he said.

An advertisement expert said the decision was a blow to advertisers and their creative directors "who know how to juggle with words to get to the hearts and minds" of clients. "Arabic language has been protected against any adversity from the time of the Koran (Islam’s holy book). The Koran and Arabic literature is stronger than any colloquialism and there is no fear that classical Arabic will ever suffer," he said.

Zugheilat is confident, however, that advertisers will continue to run ads in his newspaper, pointing out that Al Rai is Jordan’s top daily and earned 12 million dinars (17 million dollars) in revenues from ads in 1999. Classical Arabic, which can be likened to Shakespeare’s English and the old French classics, is different from spoken Arabic and used in the school curriculum across the Arab world. Modern standard Arabic is normally used by newspapers.