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Classical Arabic

and the

Hibernation of the Arab Mind

Walid Khalil

Introduction to the 2025 Edition

First published in 2018, this book was born out of keen and earnest reflections on the Arab world’s stagnation. Witnessing this stagnation, I began to explore its possible causes. I realized that it is intimately connected to language. Specifically, I observed a fundamental disconnect: An ancestral language—Classical Arabic—is the language of education, governance, and literature, while everyday communication relies on spoken dialects. This situation mirrors Europe’s historical stagnation under Latin when a similar linguistic divide hindered societal progress on that continent.

This realization led me to a broader insight: The issue is not unique to the Arab world but is shared by many societies around the world. I also identified a crucial distinction between two types of societies:

Script-native societies, where the daily spoken language aligns with the language of education, literature, and academia.
Limited-language societies, where such an alignment is absent. In these societies, the primary spoken language either lacks a written form or is, at best, suitable for primary or secondary education. As a result, upper-tier education is often conducted in a foreign language.

Across all indices of societal performance—whether social, economic, scientific, or political—script-native societies consistently emerge as top performers. Limited-language societies, in contrast, dominate the bottom ranks.

Building on this distinction, I developed a novel theory, one that is expressed in updated form here. The theory connects language to two factors that are critical for progress and a society’s ability to overcome challenges:

Social cohesion, which relates to the extent to which a society is interconnected through bonds that unite individuals across all social segments and communities.
Collective competence, which relates to a community’s ability to effectively work together, thereby leveraging shared knowledge and skills to address pertinent problems and achieve common goals.

All societies face social, economic, scientific, and political challenges. However, some societies succumb to these challenges, while others devise often complex and creative solutions that are implementable through broad social collaborations.

Language as the Cornerstone of Social Cohesion

Language plays a fundamental role in social cohesion. It enables individuals to connect meaningfully within a society. A script-native language—one that aligns native, daily speech with the language of academia and literature—facilitates idiosyncratic self-expression. This alignment allows people to articulate their unique thoughts, perspectives, and emotions in nuanced and distinct ways, thereby reflecting their individuality. This linguistic potential also serves as a powerful mechanism for reducing stereotypes. In societies with rich, sophisticated spoken languages, individuals tend to be viewed as distinct personalities rather than merely members of a homogenous group. The ability to communicate uniquely through precise words, nuanced vocabulary, and personal styles of expression strengthens interpersonal connections and promotes mutual understanding. These connections form the foundation of social cohesion. They create an expanded network of social ties that allows for collaboration and collective action across diverse segments in society.

Conversely, in limited-language societies, a lack of linguistic depth and flexibility constrains this potential. Without a robust, native linguistic medium, individuals struggle to distinctively articulate themselves, which makes it harder for others to perceive them as unique personas. This can reinforce group-based stereotypes, hinder interpersonal connectivity, and weaken the social fabric.

I maintain that the richness of a language—its vocabulary, literature, and academic discourse—is key to enhancing verbal idiosyncratic ability. It encourages everyday verbal diversity and enables people to communicate creatively. As a result, societies with a high verbal idiosyncratic ability enjoy stronger cohesion. They are also better equipped to collaborate effectively, even in the face of salient challenges.

Collective Competence: Language’s Role in Problem-Solving and Progress

Building on the foundation of social cohesion, collective competence refers to a society’s ability to think critically, develop sophisticated solutions, and work collaboratively to overcome complex challenges. This competence relies on two essential components: literacy and a sophisticated native linguistic medium. Literacy ensures that individuals can engage with knowledge, while a sophisticated native linguistic medium provides the tools to effectively articulate and share complex ideas while addressing challenges.

Language’s Role in Collective Competence

Solutions to society’s greatest challenges are not the product of a small group of experts working in isolation. They emerge from open debates, dialogues, and deliberations at both societal and governmental levels. Indeed, ideas are generated, refined, and transformed into actionable plans through such collective interactions.

However, this process’s efficacy depends on the language in which it takes place. When a society’s native language is sophisticated enough to be used in literature and academia, people can precisely articulate complex problems, engage in deep, nuanced discussions, and generate and refine high-quality solutions.

Why Limited-Language Societies Struggle

Limited-language societies face a significant disadvantage, even if their members attain high literacy rates. The core issue lies in the disconnect between the native spoken language and the academic or written language. In these societies, the native spoken language often lacks the necessary depth and structure to facilitate intellectual and technical discussions. As a result, discussions remain simplistic and fragmented, problem-solving approaches are rudimentary and lack nuance, and ideas cannot be effectively debated, refined, or implemented at a sophisticated level.

Even when individuals are literate in a modern, sophisticated language (whether ancestral or foreign) that language remains detached from daily life. The absence of a rich and expressive native linguistic medium limits the ability to generate innovative, high-quality societal solutions.

The Importance of a Sophisticated Linguistic Medium

A native language that is rich in vocabulary, grammar, and expressive structures is critical for driving innovation. It fosters critical thinking by enabling people to identify fine-grained problems, develop and communicate creative plans, and participate meaningfully in collective efforts.

When the linguistic medium aligns with daily spoken language, it allows individuals from all walks of life to effectively contribute toward societal progress. This alignment creates dynamic, innovative, and resilient societies.

The Path Forward

In my book, I argue that script-native societies possess the linguistic tools necessary to collectively confront and neutralize problems, thereby ensuring continued progress. In contrast, limited-language societies remain constrained by their linguistic systems despite high literacy rates. This hinders their ability to unlock the population’s full potential and engender progress.

For societies to thrive, they must recognize the foundational role a sophisticated native linguistic medium plays in fostering collective competence. Without a rich, expressive language, we cannot effectively debate the most pressing issues, let alone solve them.

The Hidden Factor Behind Civilizational Success and Decline

Throughout history, civilizations have thrived when their spoken and written languages are aligned. Societies advance when people can think, govern, innovate, and create in the same language that they use in daily life. In contrast, progress stalls and decline follows when the spoken language diverges from the language of knowledge, governance, and science.

This pattern is undeniable. The Roman Empire flourished when Latin was the functional language of governance and daily life. But, it fragmented when vulgar (or spoken) Latin drifted away from classical (or written) Latin. The Arab Golden Age was exemplified and fueled by the unified use of spoken Arabic for science and philosophy. But, scientific output faltered as dialects diverged from Classical Arabic. The Mayan civilization was once defined by a sophisticated writing system. But, knowledge transmission collapsed when spoken dialects no longer matched the script version. The Ottoman Empire likewise began as a script-native society. But, over time, its administrative language became detached from the spoken tongue.

Empirical Evidence: The Modern World Reflects the Same Pattern

What I have described is not just history; it is happening today.

Approximately 35–40% of the world’s population lives in limited-language societies, where the daily spoken language is unsuitable for higher education, governance, and scientific research. Despite cultural and economic differences, one fact remains: not a single one of these societies has achieved high levels of economic, social, or political advancement.

A different story emerges if we examine highly developed nations—from those leading in GDP per capita growth to those ranked highest in scientific output and the Human Development Index. A single factor unites these societies: they are all script-native. In countries like Germany, Japan, South Korea, and Norway, the language spoken daily is the same language used in science, policymaking, and education.

This is not a coincidence; it is a structural necessity for sustained progress. No civilization has thrived under a limited-language model, and no nation today is advancing without a script-native foundation.

Challenging Cultural Determinism: The Role of Language in Societal Progress

It is worth noting that my general theory stands in direct opposition to cultural determinism. Cultural determinists often attribute societal underperformance to fixed cultural traits or the inherent characteristics of certain segments in the population. In contrast, the theory I have developed points to a far more tangible and solvable issue. This is the linguistic barrier created by a disconnect between natively spoken languages and academic or written languages.

Underperformance is not the result of unchangeable cultural factors. Instead, it is largely tied to a linguistic limitation that hampers societal cohesion and collective competence. History offers numerous examples of countries that overcame this barrier. They transitioned from limited-language societies to script-native societies, thereby unlocking their potential and achieving remarkable progress. Examples include Malaysia, Indonesia, and South Korea, to name a few. These examples demonstrate that societal progress is not primarily determined by cultural factors. Rather, such progress is inextricably tied to the ability to create a shared, sophisticated linguistic medium based on a native language. By reforming their linguistic systems, these nations broke free from the limitations of their past. My claim is that any society willing to make this shift can progress and flourish.

This framework provides an optimistic and actionable alternative to cultural determinism (and similarly narrow frameworks). The book reframes underperformance as a challenge with a clear solution. This solution is rooted in linguistic reform and emphasizes the transformative power of aligning language with the needs of 21st-century education and discourse.

In the 2024 edition, I have expanded the focus beyond the Arab world by leveraging AI’s capability to aid in research and fact-finding. This has enabled me to connect the relevant issues to a global context and incorporate examples from various countries around the world. While the original edition focused solely on the Arab world, this new edition broadened the scope. It demonstrates the relevance and applicability of my core thesis on a cross-cultural scale.

Beirut, January 10, 2025

Contents

Introduction to the 2024 Edition 2

Language and the Arab World 32

Particularistic versus Universalistic Speech 32

Language and Societal Evolution 38

Language and Social Interactions 39

Networks and Society 43

Progression versus Stagnation 44

Discretionary Time 84

Diversity 89

The Case of Lebanon 96

Breaking Free from the Victimhood Narrative: The Real Challenge is Ours 100

Epilogue: Beyond the End of History 102

Appendix A: Countries Facing Challenges with Multiple Dialects 104

Appendix B: Advanced Economies Speaking Non-Script Dialects 107

Appendix C: Transitions from Limited-Language to Script-Native Societies 110

Prologue

In the late 14th century, the great scholar Ibn Khaldun stood at the crossroads of history—a witness to the Arab civilization’s fading glory. He looked at a world where the East—once a beacon of knowledge and cultural flourishing—was declining. In his monumental work—Al-Muqaddimah—Ibn Khaldun did not just chronicle the events of his time. He depicted the very soul of a crumbling civilization. With poignant clarity, Ibn Khaldun saw the erosion of what once made the Arabs great—their native mastery of the Arabic language. He spoke of “al-Malaka”—that instinctive, natural command of Arabic, which had been the bedrock of Arab identity and intellectual achievements.

According to Ibn Khaldun, this linguistic purity began to weaken as the Arab world became more urbanized and mixed with other cultures and tongues. The Arabs once shaped the world with their words. But, they were now losing their grip on the very language that had carried their civilization to its zenith. In this loss of linguistic mastery, Ibn Khaldun identified a deeper, more troubling decline. The soul of the Arab civilization was decaying; its days of leadership in global intellectual and cultural affairs were slipping away.

Although he could only glimpse its early beginnings, Ibn Khaldun sensed the rising tide of the West on the horizon. In Al-Muqaddimah, he alludes to mysterious developments in Western Europe with a mixture of curiosity and resignation. He may have suspected that the torch of innovation and progress is passing from East to West.

As Ibn Khaldun observed the early signs of decline, he could not have foreseen how deeply the erosion of linguistic unity would impact the Arab world centuries later. The Arab world today faces undeniable challenges: economic lag, lack of innovation, and restrictive political systems. As “Arab peoples”, our collective psyche has suffered, leading to diminished confidence in our ability to contribute new ideas on the global stage.

Writing this book has been a deeply reflective journey. The central idea is that stagnation in the Arab world can be traced to the imposition of Classical Arabic as the exclusive written language while spoken languages have no written equivalent. This might be challenging for some to accept. Nonetheless, my intentions are rooted in a genuine desire to see progress and transformation in our Arab culture. This book is, then, not an attempt to disparage. It is, instead, a bold and necessary analysis of what seems to be a major obstacle to progress. By examining the impact of the spoken languages that we use in daily encounters—languages that are currently ill-suited to address complex subjects or foster genuine self-expression—I aim to spark a conversation that can lead to meaningful change.

In the 10th century, the Arab civilization reached a peak in intellectual achievement. This era of enlightenment is epitomized by Ibn al-Nadim’s Al-Fihrist—a comprehensive catalog listing around 1,000 titles. It is a testament to the Arab civilization’s contributions across diverse scholarly fields, including philosophy, literature, science, and religious studies. During this golden age, the written language—Classical Arabic—was remarkably close to the spoken language of daily life. This linguistic harmony allowed for a seamless flow of ideas. The population had native command of the language in both spoken and written forms, which facilitated widespread access to knowledge and intellectual engagement.

The current situation is starkly different. Unfortunately, the Arab world did not experience a linguistic shift like the one that took place in Europe during the Renaissance. In the mid-15th century, Europe began to close the intellectual gap with the invention of the printing press and a shift from Latin to the vernacular languages spoken by the population. This shift in language was pivotal, allowing new ideas to permeate European society.

Classical Arabic is a rich, beautiful, and expressive language, one that is known for its depth and elegance. Its intricate structure and expansive lexicon have made it a cornerstone of cultural and intellectual expression across centuries. That said, the Arab world’s continued reliance on Classical Arabic—a language increasingly distant from the people’s spoken languages—mirrors Europe’s earlier period of stagnation under Latin. This linguistic divide has created a barrier to the dissemination of new ideas and hampered the development of a modern intellectual renaissance in the Arab world. The rich heritage of Arab scholarship from past centuries highlights what is possible when a culture’s spoken and written languages are in harmony.

I am not a scholar on the subject I am writing about, but I have invested years in research to reach the conclusions contained in this book. The scientific and historical literature supports my arguments. I am, nonetheless, inviting responses to, and debates about, the important issues I will discuss.

I understand that my analysis might be difficult for some to accept. It challenges deeply held beliefs about Arab identity. Nonetheless, I have firsthand experience of the challenges I will describe. This is because I am a native speaker of Lebanese Arabic—a language without a writing system or formal grammar. My critique is not born of superiority but from a perceived shared struggle and a desire for our culture and societies to thrive. Indeed, this book is not an outsider’s critique. It is, instead, a call to action from someone deeply invested in our future.

Some might also consider the argument that language is the primary obstacle to our socio-economic progress to be reductive or overly simplistic. Nonetheless, I believe that our efforts to progress will remain ineffective until we address this fundamental issue. Language shapes our thoughts, culture, and societies. As such, it plays a crucial role in human development. By reforming our language, we can also create the essential conditions for meaningful change in other areas.

Note that I am not advocating for a complete abandonment of Classical Arabic in favor of spoken dialects. This would be impractical and unwise. I am, instead, proposing that we develop standard grammars for writing in our spoken dialects and encourage the creation of associated bodies of literature. The rest will unfold in time.

I contend that freedom begins with the freedom of language. This involves the ability to fully express ourselves and communicate our thoughts without restraint. I consider native command of a sophisticated language to be the cornerstone of individual autonomy. A frustration related to the inability to articulate our ideas in our own language resides at the heart of our struggle. We take the first step toward true freedom by addressing the limitations of our language. We can then liberate our minds and empower our societies to reach their full potential.

I should also point out that this is not a final statement on the matter or a definitive and conversation-ending conclusion. It is, rather, a first step toward a much-needed dialogue about the future of our language and how it impacts our societies.

I do not claim to have all the answers. My work was drawn from observations, research, and personal experiences as someone who has lived in many parts of the world. I hope this book serves as a catalyst for discussion, reflection, and ultimately progress. This is just the beginning of what I hope will be a vibrant and ongoing dialogue, one that will ultimately bear fruit.

With conviction and determination,

Walid Khalil.

Definitions

A native language is the first language a person learns during early childhood. It is the language that becomes deeply ingrained in daily life, serving as the primary means of communication in everyday encounters, family interactions, and social environments.

A native language is not only the language one naturally speaks; it is also the language in which one typically thinks. A key characteristic of a native language is that it is acquired naturally and unconsciously during the formative years of life. This leads to what we can call infallible command.

One’s native language also plays a crucial role in shaping cognitive development. It is a cornerstone of both personal identity and social connection, one that deeply influences one’s sense of self and the ability to communicate effectively with others.

Importantly, past a certain age (roughly 12), it becomes nearly impossible to achieve native-like command of a new language.

A second language is a language that is learned rather than acquired naturally during early childhood. A native language is absorbed through constant exposure and immersion from infancy. A second language, in contrast, is typically acquired later in life, often through formal education or structured learning.

When learning a second language (especially after the age of 12), the brain processes and internalizes language differently when compared to a native language. Over time, it becomes increasingly difficult to attain native-like fluency and command of a new language.

Note that Classical Arabic can only be acquired as a second language, never as a native language. This is because no one today naturally speaks it in daily life. We are never fully immersed in Classical Arabic in the way that we are with our native spoken languages. Consequently, even those who are highly proficient in Classical Arabic will almost certainly experience it as a learned, rather than native, language.

A modern language is a language that meets the following criteria:

Naturally spoken: The language is spoken natively by a community of people in their daily lives. This language serves as the primary means of communication.
Written and scripted: The language has an established script and is regularly used in written form. There will be a substantial body of literature, media, and other forms of authorship.
Sophisticated and academic: The language is sufficiently sophisticated to support complex academic discourse. This includes the ability to convey nuanced and intricate ideas in fields like science, philosophy, and literature. Examples are French, English, and Turkish.

An oral language is a language that lacks standardized writing rules and conventions, making it generally unsuitable for written communication. Arabic dialects are an example. An oral language is primarily used for spoken interactions and does not have an established written form. This limits its use to informal and everyday contexts rather than formal or academic settings.

A limited language is written but lacks the sophistication and complexity needed for use in upper-tier education. While it can be effective for everyday communication and support secondary education, it does not possess the advanced vocabulary, grammar, or structure required for academic discourse and higher learning. Examples are Swahili and Haitian Creole (suitable for secondary education).

A synthetic language is intentionally created or heavily modified through deliberate planning, often by combining features from existing languages or constructing an entirely new grammar and vocabulary. Synthetic languages are designed with specific purposes in mind, such as standardizing communication across diverse dialects or linguistically unifying a nation. This contrasts with naturally evolving languages, which develop organically over time through cultural and societal changes. Examples of synthetic languages include Modern Hebrew, standard Finnish, and Nynorsk and Bokmål (in Norway).

Script-native societies are societies where the language spoken in daily life is also the language used for reading, writing, and higher education. In these societies, people have native command of a language that is fully developed and utilized across all forms of communication (both spoken and written). In script-native societies, the native language is used naturally and effortlessly in various aspects of life, including academic, professional, and social contexts. Examples are France, the US, and Turkey.

Limited-language societies are societies where a speaker’s native language either lacks a written form or has a written form that is suitable only for secondary education at best. These speakers might have access to a more developed language—they might, for example, be educated in a developed foreign language or an ancestral language like Classical Arabic. However, this access is non-native.

Universalistic speech is a mode of communication characterized by explicit, detailed, and structured expression. It is also designed to be understood by a wide audience regardless of their background or prior knowledge. Universalistic speech assumes no shared context between the speaker and listener, often resembling a written composition, where ideas are fully elaborated and logically organized to ensure clarity and comprehensive understanding. This makes it suitable for formal settings, public speaking, and educational discourse.

Particularistic speech relies on shared experiences, implicit meanings, and informal expressions that are only easily understood within a specific group or community. It often includes colloquial language, repetitions, and shorthand phrases—phrases that assume a common background or familiarity. This makes it more suitable for informal settings and conversations among people who share a close relationship or similar experiences.

Clarifications

Since the 1950s, scholars like Jack Goody have categorized societies into oral societies and literate societies—a distinction that was once clear-cut and widely applicable.

Oral societies had no form of writing and relied entirely on spoken language for communication and knowledge preservation. These societies orally passed down their history, culture, and traditions through storytelling, rituals, and communal memory.
Literate societies, in contrast, depended on written language, where the act of writing became central to the transmission of information and cultural practices. Literacy in these societies was not just a skill but a cornerstone of their very identity. It enabled the recording and dissemination of knowledge across generations and distances.

This binary classification has become increasingly outdated due to literacy’s spread across the globe. The world has undergone a monumental shift, with nearly every country achieving widespread literacy or, at least, moving towards it. The distinction between oral societies and literate societies has blurred as much of the world’s population now engages with written language in some or other form.

In this transformed landscape, the old categorization no longer captures the complexities of today’s societies. In the Arab world, for example, daily interactions occur in a variety of spoken dialects that have no direct written form. Yet, these societies are also often highly literate. They might use a second language (like Classical Arabic) or foreign languages (like French or English) for written communication.

Given the above, I propose a new categorization, one that reflects the current reality: Literacy is nearly universal, yet significant differences remain in how societies use language. This new classification is contained in a distinction between what I will call script-native societies and limited-language societies. This distinction will allow us to better understand the diverse ways in which language continues to shape culture, identity, and societal development.

Script-native societies have a single language that is spoken in daily life and used for reading, writing, and higher education. In these societies, people have native command of a language that is fully developed and utilized across all forms of communication (both spoken and written).
Limited-language societies do not fit the definition of a purely oral society or script-native society. They generally speak a non-written language in everyday life and use a non-native modern language for upper-tier education. Included in this category are societies that have native command of a limited language suitable for primary or secondary education but not upper-tier education. Examples are Tanzania, Kenya, Haiti, Fiji, and Sierra Leone, which use a limited language that is only suitable for primary or secondary education.

Unlike script-native societies, in limited-language societies, the language in upper-tier education (and sometimes even in primary and secondary education) is not spoken natively; it is learned as a second language. Here, there is a significant gap between the spoken and written forms of the language.

By distinguishing between limited-language societies and script-native societies, we can better understand the complex interplay between spoken and written language. This nuanced understanding is crucial when exploring the cultural and linguistic dynamics that shape the relevant societies.

The Arab world is mainly made up of limited-language societies, which are distinct from oral societies in important ways. Oral societies primarily rely on spoken language but do not have a strong writing tradition. Limited-language societies, in contrast, are marked by a kind of ambiguity: The daily use of spoken dialects or languages are oral or fit into the limited language category.

In many ways, limited-language societies are much closer to script-native societies than to oral societies. The former are script societies, but they are not script-native. The key distinction here lies in the fact that, despite being literate, limited-language societies lack native command of the language used in upper-tier education (and sometimes the language used in primary or secondary education). Limited-language societies’ unique situation highlights the complexity of their linguistic and cultural dynamics.

In this book, I will often use the term ‘modern language.’ This is a language that a population both natively speaks and uses in writing. A modern language has evolved from simple beginnings to become suitably rich for academic discourse and higher education. It is characterized by a robust tradition of authorship. Writers and scholars contribute new words, terms, concepts, and expressions, thereby rendering the language suitably sophisticated and capable of expressing complex and abstract ideas.

It is important to note that Classical Arabic does not fall under the definition of a modern language because it is not natively spoken by any population. Classical Arabic is, no doubt, suitable for use in higher education and academic discourse. It also holds significant historical and religious importance. Nonetheless, it lacks the natural, native fluency required to be considered a modern language (as I have defined it).

The Arab oral dialects spoken in daily interactions are also not modern languages in this sense. These dialects lack a tradition of written authorship. They remain limited in their capacity for self-expression and are not equipped to handle complex and/or abstract subjects. This significantly limits Arabs’ intellectual and social advancement. Indeed, I will argue that progress becomes difficult, if not impossible, without native access to a modern language.

As we will see, the distinction between modern languages, Classical Arabic, and Arab oral dialects is crucial to understanding both the barriers to development and the potential for growth in societies that mostly rely on these dialects for daily communication.

Six Principles

The following six principles illustrate the profound impact that a language’s expressive power has on various aspects of human interaction, scientific advancement, and social progress:

Language as a primary force: I take the fairly radical stance that language stands as the most fundamental force in a nation’s development and progress. Countries can face an array of complex challenges—be they social, economic, or political. On my account, these problems can only be effectively addressed if the language in use is sufficiently sophisticated and nuanced. A language must be capable of conveying the complexity of ideas and solutions necessary to tackle the relevant challenges. People are empowered to engage with and resolve the challenges they face when their society achieves high literacy rates in a language that is both sophisticated and ingrained in the national consciousness. Thus, language is not just a medium of expression but a kind of ‘primal force’ underpinning a society’s ability to progress and thrive.
The power of self-expression: In script-native societies, where the language is highly developed for academic discourse, people can precisely articulate complex thoughts, emotions, and ideas. This expressive power is crucial for conveying nuanced and sophisticated concepts, which fosters a deeper understanding and connection with others. The fact that the same language is used both in upper-tier education and in daily life allows for abstract terms and expressions to diffuse into everyday speech. This, in turn, enhances speakers’ expressive power, enabling them to fully express their inner thoughts and engage in clear, meaningful communication. Conversely, in limited-language societies, the native language might lack the necessary depth and vocabulary for precise expression. This limitation often leads to more generalized communication, making it challenging for people to fully convey their thoughts and emotions.
Ease of connecting with strangers: In script-native societies, linguistic richness allows people to engage in meaningful and nuanced conversations with strangers. This depth of communication fosters trust and understanding, which are essential for quickly forming interpersonal connections. The ability to discuss complex ideas and shared experiences enables people to build the kind of relationships that are crucial for social cohesion and collaborative efforts. Conversely, in limited-language societies, the language’s stunted expressive power can present challenges when connecting with strangers. The challenge of discussing intricate topics can make it difficult to establish bonds with unfamiliar people.
The power of self-organization: The capacity for self-organization in script-native societies is greatly enhanced by the language’s clarity and precision. A language developed for academic discourse provides the necessary vocabulary and structures for effective planning, decision-making, and coordination. This enables groups to efficiently organize themselves, thereby reducing misunderstandings and ensuring that complicated tasks are carried out smoothly. Limited-language societies can, in contrast, struggle with self-organization due to their native language’s limitations. A lack of linguistic tools needed for precise communication can lead to challenges in planning and coordinating efforts. This can make self-organization difficult and inefficient, potentially hindering collective action and social progress.
Depth of interpersonal understanding: Stereotyping is a natural cognitive process, one that human beings are inclined to engage in (to varying degrees). It serves as a mental shortcut, allowing us to form quick impressions of others. Historically, stereotyping helped us assess potential threats, and was, therefore, key for survival. However, in script-native societies, where the language is rich in expression and nuance, people tend to rely less on such cognitive shortcuts. The language’s depth allows people to describe and understand each other in detailed and accurate ways, which fosters a tolerant and diverse social environment.
The role of language in scientific development: In script-native societies, language plays a key role during scientific development. The linguistic medium is sufficiently rich and adaptable to provide the necessary tools for forming and communicating complex scientific concepts. Limited-language societies, in contrast, often face significant challenges in this area. Their native language can lack the expressive capacity needed for detailed academic discourse, making it difficult to capture, construct, and transmit scientific knowledge. These societies consequently struggle to achieve the same level of scientific progress.

Individuals in limited-language societies often acquire a second language that is well-developed for academic discourse. However, relying on a second language for scientific work is not equivalent to having a native language equipped for that purpose. The depth of understanding, fluency, and cognitive ease that comes with using one’s native language cannot be fully replicated in a second language. That said, I am a strong proponent of multilingualism. Learning a foreign modern language like English is necessary to remain connected to the rest of our globalized world.

It should be clear that I strongly espouse elevating a society’s native language to a modern language suitable for upper-tier education and that this represents the best pathway for progress. But, why exactly is a language’s suitability for academic discourse so central?

Elevating a society’s native language in the way I am suggesting is essential for modernization and creating a cohesive society. This is because academic language, by its very nature, is the most sophisticated form of communication. It encompasses the kind of complex structure, advanced vocabulary, and nuanced expressions that are critical for articulating abstract concepts, fostering critical thinking, and advancing knowledge. It is important to note that mastering an academic language style is not confined to the intellectual elite. Given suitable parameters, it can, instead, gradually diffuse into the broader society. More and more people engaging with an advanced language through education enhances the potential for self-expression in daily life. This, in turn, allows people to articulate their thoughts, emotions, and ideas more precisely and creatively. This diffusion enriches the common language, making everyday communication more effective and nuanced. It also bridges the gap between different social strata, thereby fostering a shared linguistic foundation that strengthens social cohesion. People from various backgrounds communicating complex ideas and properly understanding each other also promote unity and collective identity.

Using a native language in higher education ensures that the most sophisticated ideas and knowledge are accessible to the entire population rather than locked behind a foreign language barrier.

Introduction

About 600 years after the writing of Al-Muqaddimah by Ibn Khaldun, I now ask: “Why does the Arab world appear to be behind the times?” Why do news stories from Syria, Libya, or Iraq often center around civil strife or authoritarian rule, rather than life-enhancing technological breakthroughs or provocative works of art that resonate globally?

I will argue that the primary obstacle is not merely political or economic but fundamentally relates to how we communicate with each other. In essence, I contend that Arab societies will continue to be excluded from modernity until they develop the capacity to read and write in their natively spoken dialects.

To reiterate, a native language is used in the home by parents and their children. It is the first and possibly the only language a person learns. It is the language we think in and use effortlessly during routine, everyday interactions (both inside and outside the home). Arab societies only have native access to their respective group’s oral dialects (which are believed to have diverged from Classical Arabic about seven centuries ago). The problem is that these are “illiterate” dialects in the sense that no one can read and write in them.

Achieving native command of a language after the age of 12 is almost impossible. Some effort will always be involved in coherently organizing ideas and selecting words and phrases. In the Arab world, Classical Arabic is essentially a second language. It is never native; no one speaks it naturally inside or outside the home. In fact, most Arabs only encounter this ancient language in the classroom, which renders native command practically impossible. And yet, Classical Arabic continues to be the only written language in our part of the world.

Most researchers tend to assume that modernization (in the form of social, economic, and intellectual development) tends to result in increasingly sophisticated languages. If so, then the development of a complex language is an effect of modernization. I believe that the relationship also goes in the opposite direction: To reach modernity, we need to actively develop a native modern language (a spoken and written language suitable for high-level academic discourse and education). If not, then modernization efforts will fail. Modern societies are complex and they require complex languages to sustain them. Our oral, non-script dialects (which lack a formal grammar or writing system) only enable limited self-expression. They cannot address the complex and abstract subjects needed for the kind of progress we, as Arabs, aspire to.

Most modern societies adopted their native dialects as languages for reading and writing centuries ago. Today, it is difficult for members of these societies to comprehend how language and communication could function any other way. For example, by the 16th century, most European nation-states had dropped Latin as the exclusive script language in favor of spoken dialects (vernaculars). Greece abandoned classical Greek as its official language in 1976, replacing it with the spoken dialect citizens naturally used day to day. China and Korea likewise abandoned their ancestral languages at the beginning of the last century and adopted their vernacular languages for reading and writing. Arabs are among those rare groups who still use an ancestral language as their exclusive script language. As we will see, this problem can only be solved by creating reading and writing systems for the different spoken dialects one finds in different Arab countries.

In a nutshell, my claim is that native command of a modern language is a prerequisite for modernization and therefore progress. Arabs can never attain native fluency in Classical Arabic because it is a language that no one speaks naturally. Arab students approach it as a foreign language, one that they never master to the same degree as their native languages (even with intense study).

Arabs seem to be too close to this linguistic impasse to identify it for the fundamental problem it is. It seems that they cannot comprehend having native command of a modern language because they only speak (a) oral dialects that are not read or written and (b) second languages (e.g. Classical Arabic or English), where native command is all but impossible. The Arab world consequently faces a significant language barrier. Modernity is on the other side—tantalizingly close, yet currently unreachable.

Centuries ago, Classical Arabic and our native dialects were one and the same. At that time, the Arab world represented the world’s most intellectually prolific civilization. This was no accident of history. Today’s intellectual drought began when spoken Arabic dialects diverged from Classical Arabic. Europe is an illustration of this effect in reverse. During the Middle Ages, Europe produced little written literature. Everything changed when Latin was abandoned and countries adopted spoken dialects with carefully constructed grammars as their official languages. Only a few generations later, European writers were publishing thousands of books every year.

I do not believe that economic plans devised by the World Bank or the International Monetary Fund will help put Arab economies back on track. Indeed, it is relatively easy to come up with modernization plans. Yet, these plans will fail in Arab countries because their leaders and citizens do not have native command of a modern, complex language. Without such a command, even sophisticated plans will fail to be successfully implemented. Interventionism from other world powers will also fail to defuse the rampant civil strife witnessed in many Arab nations. Domestic growth plans inevitably come up short because, at best, they only slow the damage. They cannot resolve the foundational, underlying issue.

Unfortunately, this situation has been the norm for so long that most Arabs simply accept it as irreversible or even “natural.” Those who acknowledge the problem have mostly given up on a workable solution. They resign themselves to a world where manufacturing light bulbs is a technical challenge, while other nations are building advanced satellites and planning to send people to Mars.

In later sections, I will explain how reading and writing in a native modern language modulates the way we speak and connect with others. It also alters our psyche and the shape of our social networks. Different social network topologies bring about different types of mental stimulation. The effect is different from reading and writing in a second language because learning in a second language does not affect the way we speak during daily informal encounters. Lacking a formal grammar and therefore reading material, the spoken dialects we use in our daily interactions remain at the ‘state of nature.’ They are only suitable for small groups (dozens or, at most, hundreds of people), where everyone knows everyone else. They are unsuitable for large societies containing millions of people who constantly interact with strangers.

Social change arises from the collective actions of individuals and large groups working toward a common goal. Aided by shared native proficiency in a modern language, script-native societies can self-organize on a large scale. This, in turn, enables easier communicative connections and coordinated efforts. Limited-language societies, in contrast, face challenges when it comes to spontaneous self-organization. They lack the linguistic tools that would allow them to connect and align their objectives. Indeed, limited-language societies risk being excluded from modernity if they do not develop the ability to relate to strangers in a productive and pro-social manner.

Even if we secure world-class education for every Arab, innovation and progress will continue to be challenging. In the early 18th century, the West was already intellectually prolific when literacy rates were below 30%. I maintain that there is an easy way out of our backwater—a solution staring us in the face. And, we can start working on it today.

Condensing my findings and arguments into a short document has not been easy. I have merged several scientific theories to create a conceptual model of sorts. As we will see, this model illustrates how the Arab world has reached its current impasse and how it can navigate moving forward.

Modernity and therefore progress do not just result from grand plans. The West did not have a so-called plan to modernize. Modernity is what Network Theorists refer to as an “emergent phenomenon” in that it unfolds or arises on its own. It is simply the result of interactions between people at the grassroots level. It is a bottom-up process rather than the result of any master plans implemented by central authorities. We can easily come up with various plans to modernize. But, if we do not have native access to a modern language and its fruits (academic discourse, higher education, and the like), then such plans are doomed to fail. I believe that progress will take care of itself when we remove the linguistic barriers standing in the way of modernity’s “emergence.”

Many modern societies (e.g. Western European countries and South Korea) have faced similar situations at some point in their history. They have often had spoken dialects that converged from a classical language used for reading and writing. These societies invariably passed through a period of stagnation, one in which intellectual production came to a halt. Many then established a writing system for their spoken dialects and abandoned the classical version as an exclusive script language. This pattern has repeated itself around the world, from Europe to China. When it has happened in the past, intellectual output proliferated and economies were re-energized; societies flourished, and the positive impacts are still being felt today.

All of the top 50 countries in the 2016 UN Human Development Index (excluding oil-exporting countries) possess a native modern language that can be used to teach in higher education. Most of the bottom 50 countries in the index speak limited or oral languages. Out of 19 countries classified as “full democracies” in the 2016 Economic Intelligence Unit Democracy Index, 18 have native access to a modern script language. Most countries classified as “authoritarian regimes” contain populations who do not naturally speak a standard, national modern language (or a language appropriate for higher education). We can, then, see that language appears to be at the heart of both the problem and the solution.

In the sections that follow, I will demonstrate how the nature of speech communication in ordinary daily encounters is the soil from which modernity grows. The key point is this: The members of modern societies can read and write in their native language with ease. Today, these native script languages are suitable for academic discourse. This, in turn, fuels intellectual achievement, social cohesion, and economic progress.

Language and the Arab World

Today, Arab dialects are oral. They began separating from Classical Arabic about 700 years ago, which coincides with the time when Arab civilization began its intellectual decay. These oral dialects cannot maintain the unity of thought and engender the concerted action needed for large societies to function successfully.

Why does a native written language connect people more easily and efficiently than an oral language? How and why do native written languages allow easier connections between strangers? The primary reason is that native written languages are more universal. But, what does this look like in practice? To begin answering this question, we need to understand the differences between different modes of speech, as described by sociologist Basil Bernstein.

Particularistic versus Universalistic Speech

As an educator, Bernstein wanted to explain an unusual, but general, pattern to student performances in British schools: Working-class students performed poorly in language-based subjects but achieved scores as high as their middle-class counterparts at mathematical tasks. Further examination led Bernstein to the realization that the middle class and working class employ different styles of speech:

Middle-class speech consists of (a) relatively long and sophisticated sentences and (b) a well-developed vocabulary of uncommon words and ideas. The language is explicit. Ideas are fully realized and organized before being voiced. This means that listeners require little or no background knowledge to be fully invested in a conversation. We can think of such conversations as expressions at ‘high resolution.’
Working-class speech is informal and only a specific group can understand the message and effortlessly participate. A conversation between two working-class people is, therefore, thick with implicit and shared ideas. Short interjections—such as “Right?” and “…you know…”—help both parties check that they are on the same ‘page’ while keeping communication as condensed as possible. This communication style is maintained by a tight and relatively insulated social network. Importantly, however, it does not encourage growth outside that frame.

Additionally, middle-class communication is characterized by universalistic speech, while working-class communication is characterized by particularistic speech:

Universalistic speech is typically organized in a linear, sequential manner. There is a focus on being comprehensive, explicit, and exhaustive (almost like written composition). On the whole, middle-class speech is more universal and elaborate because it assumes no shared background information between speaker and listener. Bernstein also calls this mode of speech “elaborate.”
An example of universalistic speech would be:
Hi, I’m Sarah. For our outreach program, we focus on building relationships with community members by visiting local centers, listening to their needs, and then coordinating resources to address those needs. We have a set of guidelines to ensure everyone feels heard and respected. It’s essential that each interaction is documented so that we can effectively follow up and maintain trust within the community.
This is universalistic speech because Sarah introduces herself and clearly explains the outreach program’s purpose and structure, thereby providing details about the approach and expectations (“building relationships,” “listening to their needs,” “documented interactions”). The speech is explicit and does not assume any prior knowledge or shared experience. This ensures that a stranger understands the process and the values underlying the speech.

Particularistic speech tends to be repetitious and somewhat circular. There is reiteration and the revisiting of points. Working class speech is particularistic or what Bernstein calls “restricted” because meanings are not rendered explicit. This is because there is an assumption of shared information between conversants.
Here is an example:
You know how we handle outreach around here, right? Just follow what the others are doing. We all kind of stick to the same plan; it’s how we’ve always managed things.
This is particularistic speech because the speaker assumes that the listener understands or will quickly adapt to the group’s established methods without needing much explanation (“follow what the others are doing,” “stick to the same plan”). This kind of speech relies on implicit understandings and shared practices that are not explicitly communicated.

This is not to say that members of the middle class always employ universalistic speech. Explicitness becomes redundant when they speak to someone close to them (i.e. when there is lots of shared background information). Indeed, the particularistic mode can be more efficient in such instances. Universalistic speech is also the more formal of the two; it assumes no prior knowledge about the subject being presented. Bernstein concludes that middle-class people have access to both speech modes, while working-class people only have access to particularistic speech.

What drives this difference in speech modes between the two social classes? One factor is mobility. Middle-class people are more socially and geographically mobile, and therefore more often encounter strangers during daily life. They must be more explicit in their communication because they tend to meet people with whom they share little background information. The working class is, in contrast, less mobile and therefore tends to interact with people who are like them. This means that there is less need for explicitness; they can afford to speak in particularistic mode most of the time.

The nature of middle-class work is another reason why these two modes of speech emerge. In their jobs, middle-class people tend to be involved in mission-critical processes, which require communicative clarity and precision. As such, they must employ universalistic speech during communication. In sum, there are two distinct modes of speech: universalistic (or elaborated) and particularistic (or restricted). In principle, many, but not all, people can employ both quite effortlessly.

These types of speech are sometimes referred to as “codes.” Speech communication exists on a spectrum, with particularistic code at one end and universalistic code at the other. A good example of universalistic code is a public speech delivered to a large and diverse audience. TV news reporters are another example because they must connect with an entire city, region, or nation. The contents of a book represent a notable example, one that is highly relevant to this discussion. Written communication is the most formal type, often assuming that the author and reader share no implicit or prior content. Writing is, then, the epitome of universalistic code.

Universalistic speech is also on full display in TV or online interviews and debate programs. The interviewee knows that a large audience is watching and indirectly addresses them along with the interviewer. There are no assumed, shared, or implicit meanings between the interviewee and the audience. This means that the interviewee must be explicit and make the background or context of her ideas clear to the audience. This avoids the need for clarifying questions (from either the interviewer or the audience). The logic of the interviewee’s argument should also be sound, comprehensible, and ideally agreeable to most listeners.

In day-to-day life, the social distance between any two people predicts their level of reliance on universalistic speech. Strangers, for example, have few or no shared meanings. There is, however, less need for explicitness when people are close to each other. Indeed, the logic of their conversation might not be entirely clear to an outsider. This is the essence of the particularistic mode. Note that this does not suggest that people who speak in particularistic mode are less logical in their conversation. Rather, the logic is implicit and invisible to an unrelated third party.

As mentioned, writing is exemplary of universalistic code. A written book must be understood by anyone reading it. The author often toils away on a draft with no one interrupting him to ask for clarification. His meaning must, therefore, be rendered explicit to readers who do not necessarily share any implicit concepts or contexts. It is fair to say that the advent of writing heralded the appearance of universalistic code.

Given the above, one must have good command of a language in its written form to effectively employ universalistic code. In universalistic speech, sentences are crafted in almost the same way as composing a text, albeit without the same degree of conscious effort (which is not to say “effortless”). Highly literate, well-read people have greater command of universalistic speech due to their heavier exposure to written material. People from limited-language societies, in contrast, have limited access to universalistic speech because their native language has no written form.

There is undeniably a correlation between (a) one’s ability to compose in writing or one’s exposure to written material and (b) one’s access to universalistic speech. Many Arabs face challenges in written composition because they often write in second languages rather than in their spoken dialects. As stated, very few people develop strong command of a second language. This is a severe communicative handicap. Many Arabs cannot address the kind of complex subjects that require a high degree of conversational explicitness because their spoken dialects are oral.

In the distant past, when people lived in groups of dozens or hundreds and everyone knew everyone else, there was no need for universalistic speech. Everyone shared the same context and implicit meanings, making explicitness unnecessary. But, today we have large societies where people regularly interact with strangers. These people cannot function efficiently without access to universalistic speech and therefore a modern written language.

Ideas expressed in universalistic speech are more explicit and the logic is rendered more salient. Such ideas are, in turn, likely to leave an imprint on a listener’s mind and possibly be relayed to other people. This is how ideas can spread, and those expressed in universalistic speech tend to have more staying power. They leave an impact on the listener, which is likely to create a lasting tie. Most importantly, universalistic speech allows strangers to cooperate because of the transparent and explicit mode of expression. Strangers can be efficient in their cooperative activity due to the explicit code used during such conversations.

Transcription reveals the difference between universalistic speech and particularistic speech. In the former, a good part of the text appears to be directly written by the author (as if it is transferred from the mind of the author into writing). In the latter, it is obvious that the text was spoken as part of an informal conversation, one that was addressed to a specific group of listeners.

Universalistic speech allows for original, idiosyncratic self-expression—the kind that reveals a person’s individuality. The speech comes from one person to another, not from one group representative to another. As stated, universalistic speech allows connections with almost anyone, irrespective of social group. Particularistic speech is, conversely, more suited to connecting with people from the same background. Universalistic speech is also more articulate. One can think of it as communication in high resolution, while particularistic speech is communication in low resolution. The difference between these two modes’ ability to connect people has far-reaching ramifications, which I will explore further in the section titled “Networks and Society.”

As members of a limited-language society, Arabs also face a public speaking deficit. Oral dialects are often unsuitable for public speaking because they lack the formality and universalistic form needed to address large audiences (where there is likely little shared context). Without effective public speaking, it becomes challenging to mobilize people, encourage voluntary collective action, or rally support for a cause. As a highly developed and rich script language, Classical Arabic enables universalistic speech and is therefore suitable for public speaking. The problem is that few master it to the degree needed to deliver persuasive speeches to an audience.

Another communicative obstacle that limited-language societies face relates to correspondence and formal speaking. In many respects, language holds large groups of people together. Members of large groups should have the ability to communicate seamlessly and convey meanings with a high degree of accuracy in a formal manner. Large groups can unify and jointly work toward a common purpose through language—both oral and written forms (e.g. emails, memos, and reports). Oral languages and (to a lesser degree) limited languages often fall short of fulfilling these objectives. They do not facilitate the transmission of information with the necessary formality and precision. Due to these languages’ particularistic nature, communication lacks the sustainability and universality needed for effective retransmission. Ancient or classical languages likewise face challenges when it comes to modern usage. They often rely on expressions and metaphors that are not relevant or appropriate in contemporary settings (e.g. the corporate workplace or government institutions).

Language and Societal Evolution

Breakthrough ideas that influence society often result from the incremental growth and development of original thought. They are rarely conceived in their final form overnight. People must be able to formulate complex ideas in speech and writing, present them publicly, and brainstorm with colleagues. Members of limited-language societies can find it challenging to publicly present complex ideas in their spoken language. They also struggle to brainstorm effectively and exchange complex concepts. A strictly oral or limited language cannot address sophisticated issues; it lacks the universalistic code needed for intellectual flourishing. It would also be awkward for Arabs to brainstorm in an ancient language—a language that is more suited to literary subjects and that few people speak fluently. This leaves switching to a modern foreign language as the most feasible solution. But, not all members of a society can master foreign languages to the point of fluency. There is generally a big gap between native speakers and second-language speakers.

Ideas must be exchanged and debated for there to be real societal evolution. Most great ideas occur and are developed in academia. Modern societies can engage in academic discourse because their native language is well-developed and used for teaching at universities. But, how exactly does the absence of a widely used native modern language affect the evolution of a contemporary society? I contend that this absence both influences the way we engage in disagreements and can significantly inhibit cooperation. Most concerning is that diversity, which should be a source of strength, can sometimes become a cause for division.

Language and Social Interactions

Ordinary disagreements can either help societies achieve better outcomes or lead to intensified conflict and division. In a modern society, citizens are well-connected. A strong sense of community and national identity allows even strangers to view each other as allies. Through an unspoken ‘social contract,’ individuals from the same society can understand that disagreements should not escalate into adversarial positions or outright conflict. Instead, both parties can agree to prioritize the greater good. At the other end of the spectrum, members of many societies identify most strongly with their subgroup. Feelings of national identity are less pronounced. When strangers in such a society meet, they might not immediately see each other as potential allies. Resolving disagreements can become emotionally charged and the community’s broader interests can get overlooked.

As I will explain later, people in limited-language societies can face significant challenges in cooperating seamlessly with people from different social groups. The nature of social connections in these societies can make it difficult for people to naturally see one another as allies. This can lead to situations where disagreements have a high risk of escalating into conflict rather than being resolved at an interpersonal level.

Modern societies make efficient use of their time due to an enhanced ability to cooperate and productively manage disagreements. This enables continuous progress. Efficiencies gained from seamless cooperation across social groups create surplus time (i.e. the time available after meeting one’s basic survival needs and those of one’s family). These societies require less time to execute tasks or plans, which provides ample opportunity to engage in creative pursuits, improvise, and drive progress. They can often minimize the “mechanical” time many people spend simply earning a living.

Communication challenges and inefficiencies inherent in limited-language societies consume more time. Members of these societies are often taken up with routine, low-value tasks, which leaves little time for idea generation or similar higher purposes. In summary, modern societies are often more intellectually prolific because they have more time.

Linguistic codes affect the shape of people’s social networks (a point that I will return to in the section titled “Networks and Society”). Humans are biologically monopolar in their relations with others. What this means is that most of us try to connect with people who have similar backgrounds while shying away from perceived strangers. The process of natural selection has created this defensive tendency. Being a member of a close-knit and familiar group increased our chances of survival on the ancient plains of Africa. When two primitive humans met in a remote place, they had to quickly establish a connection (e.g. common ancestry, culture, or idols) to justify not killing each other.

Strangers living next door to each other is a relatively recent phenomenon (a blink of an eye on the evolutionary timescale). For millions of years, humans lived in nomadic hunter-gatherer bands that did exceed several dozen members. Humans only settled and started living in tribes numbering hundreds around 10,000 BCE with the discovery of agriculture. States or nations containing hundreds of thousands of strangers living together only originated around 3,500 BCE, shortly before the invention of writing (3,200 BCE). In short, we are not naturally inclined to live among strangers.

We have not outgrown our monopolar natures, but modern societies have managed to mitigate the latent tendency to form small, isolated in-groups. Modern societies empower individuals to connect relatively easily with strangers. This is largely because the members of such a society can speak a modern language in universalistic mode during their daily encounters. They have become multipolar in the sense that they have the tools to form relationships with virtually anyone. This, in turn, tends to lead to well-diversified social networks.

I am suggesting that limited-language societies exhibit a tendency toward higher levels of homophily, which is the natural inclination to primarily form connections with those who exhibit similar characteristics. Although homophily is a universal phenomenon, it appears to be more noticeable in limited-language societies. In such societies, social networks often include people from similar regions or social backgrounds. This seems to be because oral or limited languages (although rich in their own ways) can limit people’s ability to express themselves in a manner that fully reveals their unique characteristics. Speech in an oral or (to a lesser extent) limited language conforms to a group’s particularistic (or inward-looking) mode rather than the universalistic (or interpersonal) mode. The result is that the subgroups exhibiting the former tend to remain disconnected. This, in turn, weakens the relevant society.

In limited-language societies, communicative richness and depth are often stunted by particularistic speech. This can lead to an overreliance on stereotypes when interacting with strangers or individuals from different parts of society. Without the ability to convey nuanced or complex information, oral communicators can resort to generalizations, which makes it difficult to see someone as an individual distinct from their group. Script-native societies, in contrast, offer a medium for universalistic speech. These societies benefit from the expressive richness that a script language provides. This allows for greater individuality and communicative idiosyncrasy. It becomes easier to perceive people’s uniqueness when they can articulate their thoughts and ideas clearly and precisely. This is crucial for establishing meaningful connections with others.

We can see that modern languages provide the tools for highly nuanced expression, which, in turn, facilitates strong social bonds. When communication moves beyond basic interactions—when it is enriched with personal nuance and creativity—it can foster genuine understanding and interpersonal connections. For this reason, script-native societies tend to be more interconnected and more likely to develop a large-group identity than limited-language societies are. Put otherwise, the ability to communicate broadly and precisely across different societal sectors helps build a more cohesive and unified national identity. Script-native societies also tend to be homogeneous in their shared cultural and linguistic practices, which contributes to harmonious social relations. As such, these societies tend to be stable, with a deep sense of national belonging and mutual understanding among its members.

Although significant, the gap between script-native and limited-language societies can be closed. Modernity need not remain a distant dream in the Arab world. The journey might be long (after all, Greece only adopted its spoken dialect as the official language for upper-tier education after nearly a century of debate). That said, a thousand-mile journey begins with a single step. I am proposing that the solution lies in developing grammars for Arab-spoken dialects. This will allow Arab societies to read and write in those dialects. By doing so, we can eliminate the major obstacle that stands in the way of progress in the Arab world.

Networks and Society

It is necessary at this point to take a bird’s-eye view of how societies work. The academic discipline called Network Theory is dedicated to understanding networks and how they function. Structurally, a society is like any other network. The members (or people) are nodes, and they form connections to other nodes. Some people have many connections; others have relatively few. The illustrations below represent two networks of friends. The one on the left is dense (with many interconnections) and the one on the right is sparse (with relatively few interconnections).

Density

Adapted from Understanding Social Networks—Theories, Concepts and Findings, C. Kadushin.

‘Degrees of separation’ is a core concept in Network Theory, one that has made its way into our collective consciousness. In the left illustration, Eleanor and Francis have one degree of separation, while Ruth and Laura have two degrees of separation. Research has shown that two random individuals among the 7.5 billion currently inhabiting Earth will be separated by an average of only six contacts. This means that a chain of acquaintanceship will only need six connections to bridge the relational distance between any two people alive today. This surprising fact is an example of the so-called small-world property, another Network Theory concept.

The Internet is a great example of a network possessing the small-world property. A multitude of paths connect servers to computers and other servers. This makes the internet as we know it possible. If the network lost its small-world property, then its efficiency would vanish and high-speed internet would cease to exist. Even the human brain can be conceptualized in terms of Network Theory. Neurons connect to each other via synapses. And, the roughly 100 billion neurons in the brain are tied together into one giant network. Each neuron is connected to any other neuron through a given degree of separation.

But, what happens when certain connections are pruned from a network and the world becomes large? Continuing with the brain example, some scientists believe that Alzheimer’s disease is a consequence of increasing the degrees of separation between neurons (whatever the root cause happens to be). The tragic result is a steady (but sometimes sudden) drop in cognitive capacity and sense of self. Extrapolating from this, we can see that networks (including social networks) risk becoming dysfunctional if the small world property is reduced. In societies where connections are limited, the network’s efficiency and stability are compromised. In contrast, a highly connected society—one that maintains a strong small-world property—operates more efficiently, thereby fostering greater cohesion and stability.

Progression versus Stagnation

The same network principles I have been discussing can be applied to understanding societies. A key variable differentiates accomplished democracies from the kind of stagnant economies we see in Arab countries and other developing parts of the world. This variable is connectedness. Any two individuals in a modern society have fewer degrees of separation between them when compared with those in stagnant societies. Modern societies are more interconnected and they function at a higher efficiency. This is the small-world property in action.

How did modern societies acquire a strong small-world property when other societies have a weak one? My answer is that native command of a modern language—a language suitable for academic discourse—is a necessary condition. Someone who has native command of a modern language can access universalistic speech, which makes connecting with others quite seamless and natural. On the whole, societies that speak oral or limited languages tend to have restricted access to universalistic speech, which makes connecting with strangers less seamless. In gist, limited-language societies are not as interconnected as modern societies are. Oral and (to a lesser extent) limited languages are not suitable when societies are composed of millions of people.

The invention of writing has provided societies with the remarkable ability to communicate across great distances and time periods. One of writing’s key impacts has, however, not yet been fully explored. This relates to how writing has influenced the way we speak during daily interactions and, in turn, affects our social structures. Our communication is transformed when we can read and write in our spoken languages, which makes them suitable for academic discourse. This enables us to engage in a universal and therefore productive mode of expression.

Weak Ties

Modern societies are configured differently from limited-language societies. The access to universalistic speech that members of modern societies enjoy allows them to connect quite easily with others. They tend to have large personal networks with acquaintances across social subgroups rather than a closely-knit network of related people. In Network Theory, the connections in modern societal networks are called weak ties, which are essential parts of a cohesive and well-ordered society.

Sociologists distinguish between weak ties and strong ties. Weak ties represent relationships with mere acquaintances, while strong ties represent relationships with close friends and extended family. The strength of these ties varies along a spectrum; but, for current purposes, we can simply distinguish between weak ties and strong ties. The defining characteristic of a weak tie is the large degrees of separation that exist between two people (excluding their direct relationship). Because someone’s network of contacts is unlikely to overlap with that of any given acquaintance, there are no other short paths connecting them. Strong ties, in contrast, are connected by a multitude of other short paths.

Below is an illustration depicting the general idea. The links E-I and A-B represent weak ties. They are weak because there are no other paths joining E to I or A to B. Moreover, the friends of A or E are not friends with the friends of I or B. Weak ties act as bridges between groups. Without the two pertinent links, we would only have two separate networks, with no information traveling between them. Or, if there were other paths, then they would be too long for information to effectively flow between the two networks. In contrast, the ties within each of the two networks are not bridges. If the strong tie A-D is lost, then information still flows evenly through the system because there are several other short paths connecting A to D. A need not get information directly from D. Information can, instead, travel from A to F and then from F to D.

Granovetter a

Adapted from “The strength of weak ties,” American Journal of Sociology, M. S. Granovetter.

Sociologist Mark Granovetter was on the 2014 list of Nobel Prize candidates for his work on weak ties. He also authored the paper “The strength of weak ties,” which is the most-cited paper in the field of sociology. He claims that weak ties act as bridges between communities and social subgroups that would otherwise be disconnected. Weak ties, rather than strong ties, hold society together. The former are, therefore, responsible for reducing degrees of separation, which results in a strong small-world property.

When societies are strong and resilient, people from distinct subgroups and communities often interact through their membership in voluntary associations (e.g. political parties, clubs, and NGOs). The societal structure allows them to connect relatively easily. Members of limited-language societies have few weak ties and, therefore, find it more difficult to find common ground with strangers or people from very different backgrounds. People from limited-language societies tend to have small personal networks predominantly composed of strong connections with people who are similar and/or belong to the same social subgroups. This exemplifies a strong ties network.

As should be clear by now, there is an intimate connection between the linguistic code used and the prevalent structure of personal social networks one finds in any given society. People in script-native societies have social networks that predominantly consist of the weak ties essential for a cohesive society. This is because these people have access to universalistic speech, which allows them to connect and cooperate with virtually anyone. In contrast, social networks in limited-language societies are predominantly composed of strong ties. People in these societies exercise particularistic speech, which, as mentioned, inhibits connecting with strangers (i.e. people who are distant in the societal network).

What would happen if the average degree of separation between individuals in a society suddenly increased due to a lack of weak ties? Granovetter answers as follows:

The macroscopic side of this communications argument is that social systems lacking in weak ties will be fragmented and incoherent. New ideas will spread slowly, scientific endeavors will be handicapped, and subgroups separated by race, ethnicity, geography, or other characteristics will have difficulty reaching a modus vivendi [a way of living].

It is worth noting that this is (coincidentally) an accurate description of the challenges faced by many limited-language societies, such as Arab societies.

The Roman Empire offers a case study of how language can contribute to the dissolution of an entire civilization. By 200 BCE, spoken Latin had diverged from classical Latin, essentially becoming a separate oral language with no script. The result was that connections between distant parts of Roman society were lost. In other words, the empire had lost its small-world property. Leaders and decision-makers had no insight into what was happening in the various regions. This led to the collapse of the empire; it lost its function as a collective, single unit. Total disintegration quickly followed.

Why did social cohesion make a rebound during the Renaissance—a rebound that has continued to the present day? On my account, this resurgence occurred because European societies transitioned from being limited-language societies to script-native societies. They did so by abandoning Latin and adopting their spoken dialects as script languages. This shift enabled stronger connections, clearer communication, and a generally more cohesive social structure, which, in turn, supported the development of interconnected societies capable of keeping pace (both culturally and economically).

In sum, oral and limited languages restrict connectivity, which increases the average degree of separation in a society. When this happens, the society cannot function as a cohesive unit. This is what happened to the Arab civilization when the various dialects diverged from Classical Arabic. The civilization became oral, which is exactly what brought down the Roman Empire.

Note also that the process of modernization is autocatalytic (the product of interactions is often the fuel for further interactions). People with modern spoken languages master universalistic speech, which allows them to connect and cooperate with strangers and thereby establish many weak ties. This ultimately results in strong civil societies—societies that encourage more of the right kind of interactions. A highly cooperative society is also an essential foundation for a robust and resilient economy. It’s no accident that economic vitality and modernity are tightly correlated.

Civil society is, however, on unstable ground when it comes to oral societies speaking in the particularistic mode. Social networks are limited and subgroups are insulated from each other. The inability of citizens in these societies to connect and cooperate makes their economies weak. And, the economy is vulnerable when it is weak. In particular, governments cannot provide adequate care for their citizens. People then depend on strong ties with family and close associates who can help them in times of need. The social network becomes divided into subgroups and lacks the connectedness characterizing modern, prosperous societies.

Consequences

The primary consequence of all these factors is that limited-language societies tend to be afforded less political freedom than citizens in script-native societies. This is because deep disagreements can escalate into conflict in the former. It is no coincidence that Arab countries score the worst marks for political freedom. I do not think that invoking (good or bad) political leadership can properly account for this state of affairs. Instead, Arab leaders’ style of governance is the natural outcome of the relevant social structures. In the Arab world, we live in a fragile equilibrium, one that can easily be thrown off balance. This is because Arab societies are not adequately connected and therefore lack strong national identities.

Consider Egypt. Given its ancient roots, Egypt is commonly believed to be a homogeneous society. But, this idea was proved wrong when Mursi—a leader in the Muslim Brotherhood—was elected in 2012. Had Mursi stayed in power, we could have witnessed a civil war. Deep, irreconcilable differences emerge if one scratches the surface of Egyptian society. The all-too-familiar result was that coercive military rule appeared necessary to stop things from escalating out of control during the so-called Arab Spring. Other examples include what happened in Syria and Libya: People revolted during the Arab Spring, but the outcome was civil war rather than a freer society.

Why do script-native societies tend to be more innovative and intellectually prolific? Why does speaking a native language with a written form seem to foster greater creativity? Creativity thrives on mental stimulation, and script-native societies provide a diverse and therefore stimulating environment. This increased stimulation generates more original ideas, which, in turn, engender productivity and progress. Complex, nuanced, and idiosyncratic discourse becomes the norm when a society’s language is native and sophisticated. This allows for dynamic mental engagement and the exchange of sophisticated ideas. When social networks are characterized by weak ties, there is also a low risk of groupthink and thereby a greater potential for generating original ideas.

People do not receive the same level of mental stimulation in limited-language societies, where social networks are often homogeneous and comprised of strong ties. Although these closely-knit networks allow for strong community bonds, they tend to expose individuals to limited, parochial experiences and perspectives. This inhibits novelty and discourages the kind of mental engagement that fosters creativity.

But, why did the Arabs essentially ban reading and writing in the various spoken dialects (to the point of making it taboo)? The answer relates to the goal of a pan-Arab identity. Yet, the result seems to have been the opposite. The absence of writing in spoken languages has weakened Arab identity and caused a divergence among the countries currently making up the Arab world.

The notion of a unified Arab identity is often discussed but can be complex and nebulous. If referenda were held in countries like Morocco, Jordan, and Lebanon about the desirability of unification, then the majority would probably not support it. Some readers might doubt this claim. They might claim that, if these populations feel like they are part of one Arab people (in the modern political sense), then they will naturally rally behind the prospect of unification (similar to what happened in East and West Germany after the fall of the Berlin Wall). Yet, although Arab nationalist ideology promotes a single Arab identity, the Arab world is actually a rich mosaic of diverse peoples and cultures. This diversity contributes to what we call “Arab civilization.” Historically, there has not been a single nation of Arabs stretching from Mesopotamia to Al-Andalus. Such a conception is more of an aspiration than a reflection of historical reality. That said, there was a time when these peoples experienced greater cultural and linguistic homogeneity. This was especially the case when they shared a common spoken language, one that was widely used and understood.

For Arab countries to become closer and more connected, it is essential that they embrace intellectual expansion and the exchange of ideas. History demonstrates that intellectual prolificacy thrives when spoken dialects have grammars for writing and are developed to become highly sophisticated. For the various Arab communities to truly engage with and understand each other, they must build stronger connections and interactions. Only then can we seriously consider the idea of a pan-Arab political structure (akin to the European Union).

Arab unity can only be achieved through sharing literary, artistic, philosophical, and scientific outputs. It is not accomplished by imposing Classical Arabic as the sole script language. As stated, it is crucial to develop and elevate native dialects for utilization at the highest levels of academic discourse. Doing so will allow Arab societies to foster the kind of intellectual output that can be shared across the region. This will, in turn, enrich and connect Arab communities in meaningful and productive ways. Note however that I am not advocating for the abandonment of Classical Arabic (or English, as the so-called ‘universal language’). Multilingual education is required in today’s day and age, but education in a native dialect is also a must.

Historically, Classical Arabic has served as a unifying factor in Arab culture and societies, much like Latin once did for Europe. The adoption of vernaculars in Europe eventually led to the fragmentation of that unity. Nonetheless, developing a written script for each Arab society’s spoken dialect is unlikely to have the same divisive effect. Some might think that implementing my proposal will create distance, rather than unity, between Arab nations. Advancing oral languages is, however, necessary for fostering intellectual prolificacy across the Arab world. As diverse communities produce and share their intellectual outputs, they can come to understand each other in a genuine and profound way. This will help establish the meaningful ties that are currently lacking.

It is worth noting that, in Europe, the vernacular languages diverged significantly. However, in the Arab world, the spoken dialects remain mutually intelligible and can be understood by different groups with some effort. Making this sacrifice for an unrealized unity is a necessary step toward reinventing a connected and therefore prosperous Arab civilization. The present state of Arab homogeneity is somewhat limited. We have limited visibility into each other’s societies due to a lack of shared intellectual output. By embracing my approach, Arab societies can not only preserve their unique cultural identities but also strengthen their unity through deep and authentic connections.

Our current state of stagnation is unnecessary, and I wonder why most Arabs seem to simply accept it. As mentioned, the Arabs once constituted the most intellectually prolific civilization in history. Arabs seem to have “settled,” and are now willing to remain economic laggards (as is suggested by most development and performance indicators). Many Arab people seem to be unconcerned with their precarious state of affairs. Meanwhile, people in the so-called developed world are discovering the secrets of the atom and developing cutting-edge cures for diseases.

To be frank, I find it shocking that Arabs go along with ‘business as usual’ when their societies are in shambles. At this rate, we do not have a bright future to look forward to, and neither do our children. The Arab mind seems to be in deep hibernation. Many believe that Westerners, Japanese, or South Koreans simply happen to be “cleverer.” But, they are not. The key difference is that they no longer face the linguistic obstacles we do. There is no reason why we, as Arabs, cannot stand shoulder-to-shoulder with today’s leading civilizations. I would like to believe that the Arab collective memory retains an imprint of what it is like to be at the pinnacle of global achievement and prestige. There is no reason why we cannot make cutting-edge scientific and medical discoveries. Europe once faced the same impasse that we do today, and they overcame it. We can do the same.

In conclusion, speaking and writing in a modernized language allows people to connect more naturally because they have access to universalistic speech, which is more suited to establishing connections between strangers. The result is a social network of people characterized by weak ties. As Granovetter has noted, weak ties are essential for a cohesive and well-functioning society. They both reduce the average degrees of separation in a society and result in a strong small-world property. As described, a strong small-world property is crucial for any given network to operate at high efficiency. Without it, the network becomes dysfunctional.

What Happens Next?

Beginnings are difficult. But, identifying with the cause helps smooth the pathway to a solution. We can begin the project I am proposing by translating texts from Classical Arabic and other languages into the various spoken Arab dialects. Later, original books and newspapers in these vernaculars will appear. Readership and authorship will surely take off. Our children will discover how enriching and rewarding school can be when writing and reading in one’s native language.

We will no longer have to switch to English or French to express something a little more complex or intellectual than usual. We will be able to express ourselves in public in our spoken dialect with both poise and command. Our leaders and representatives will be able to articulate bold, yet practical and comprehensible, national plans to push our economies forward. Unlike today, these plans should then produce tangible results. Geographical mobility within societies will also likely increase. I believe that our economies will thrive and that we will become wealthier (both as individuals and as societies). The most complex scientific and philosophical concepts will have equivalents in our spoken languages. We can then start contributing at the frontier of scientific discovery.

It is important to note that the various Arab countries’ new literate dialects should remain mutually intelligible given their similarities. We will then be able to debate the fundamental issues facing our societies without the risk of deepening societal divisions. Political freedom should, in turn, steadily increase. I predict that people will embrace their idiosyncrasies and adopt more contrarian opinions. Our economic enterprises can become globally competitive when Arab workers are able to cooperate more seamlessly with each other. We should regain our confidence when it comes to innovating, creating, and competing. This will allow us to become intellectually prolific and enjoy general flourishing.

We should also be able to effectively mobilize ourselves and self-organize in great numbers for collective action. This can, in turn, encourage people to lobby for their social and political needs. Participation in voluntary organizations should also increase, which will help our societies maintain greater connectedness and thus evolve faster. I believe that our psyche will be so drastically altered as we experience the birth of a new civilization. Our worldview should change so dramatically that it will no longer overlap with the old worldviews we previously held. We will experience a collective cognitive shift—a ‘Gestalt switch’ for the ages.

Some readers might dismiss this vision as a utopian fantasy. After all, most people cannot begin to imagine a modern and flourishing Arab world. Arabs manufacturing advanced satellites or rockets that send people into space might appear closer to science fiction than reality. Skeptics might believe that those who advance such ideas must be impractical dreamers. Indeed, our handicapped social systems have affected our collective unconscious in such a way that we cannot see a future any different from the present.

In response, we can consider South Korea’s rapid growth (or what some have called “the miracle on the Han River”). In just a few generations, South Korea evolved from one of the poorest countries in the world to a technological powerhouse, one that boasts some of the world’s largest and best-run industrial and technological companies (e.g. Samsung and Hyundai). Obviously, some Koreans once had to believe that this renaissance was possible, no matter how unlikely. In the end, the entire nation invested in the dream—a dream that was, and still is being, realized.

Interestingly, Arab societies are wealthier and more advanced than South Korea was during the middle of the last century. This suggests that we can forgo the status quo and consider modernization to be a real possibility. Yet, there are no sensible government plans aimed at revitalizing Arab countries and achieving breakthrough progress. Productive discourse related to modernization appears to be absent in the Arab world, even though it is plainly the most pressing issue currently confronting our community. Governments only seek to maintain their current positions among third-world countries and avoid slipping further behind. This is simply not good enough if we are going to realize the dream of a better future.

Modernity

All script-native societies possess a necessary, if not sufficient, condition for modernization. In other words, native command of a modern language is necessary for, but cannot guarantee, modernization. This is supported by the following observations:

No societies currently meet the criteria for modernity (as I have defined it) without native command of a modern language.
No societies classified as limited-language societies are fully modern (in the sense I have described).

Nonetheless, some script-native societies are still classified as developing rather than developed. These include Iran, Bangladesh, Laos, and several Latin American countries. These countries face major obstacles despite using their native spoken languages in education (including higher education). Two primary factors have hindered these countries’ ability to properly leverage their script-native advantage:

Recent emergence from illiteracy: Many of these societies had literacy rates below 20-30% in the 1950s and are still in the early stages of developing a literate culture. For example, as recently as 1990, the lowest five Latin American countries by GDP had literacy rates between 50% and 60%. Achieving the full cultural, intellectual, and economic benefits of script nativity requires several generations of sustained and (at least near) universal literacy.
Historical challenges: These countries have faced significant historical challenges, including political unrest, wars, isolation, and colonial legacies. Other modernizing societies did not face these extreme conditions to the same extent—conditions that hinder adequate investment in education, particularly higher education.

It is also worth noting that certain Asian ex-Soviet republics—such as Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan—have faced significant challenges. They have struggled to modernize after their separation from the Soviet Union despite being script-native and having historically high literacy rates. For these countries, the journey to modernization is uniquely difficult.

Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan lack a history of independent self-governance. Prior to Soviet rule, these regions were primarily tribal rather than fully established nations. During the Soviet era, their economies were structured to serve the needs of the larger Soviet system (particularly Moscow) rather than foster local development. As such, these countries did not function as self-sufficient entities. Later, they inherited a handicapped system that was not designed to operate autonomously. These countries continue to grapple with the Soviet legacy because they lack alternative historical models for governance or development. This further complicates their path to modernization.

Some other script-native countries had similarly low literacy rates in the mid-20th century but managed to modernize or are on their way to modernization. Examples include Turkey, South Korea, Indonesia, and Malaysia. These countries benefited from sustained political stability and visionary leadership. This enabled them to prioritize education and implement linguistic reforms, thereby investing in human capital development. Thus, although initial conditions like low literacy are significant, effective leadership and sustained political stability are critical to script-native countries embarking on a path toward modernization.

Modern societies exhibit the following features:

Robust industrial sectors and strong economies.
Academic institutions that routinely deliver scientific and technological breakthroughs.
Individual autonomy.
Cohesive civil societies voluntarily engaging in collective action.
The ability to constructively settle disputes.
Political freedom.
Strong and enduring national identities.
High levels of readership and authorship.

These features seem to occur in combination, yet few have recognized and investigated the topic. Most societies that enjoy a strong economy are also scientifically advanced. And, strong civil societies almost always have more political freedom. These features are also highly correlated. Leave one out, and the rest tend to fall away.

These interrelationships invoke many questions: Why are people in free societies more intellectually prolific? What is the connection between having a strong national identity and achieving scientific breakthroughs? One can generate numerous questions like these by combining any two of the above features of modern societies.

The most logical explanation is that all these features are the natural outcomes (or symptoms) of a single underlying factor, which we can call an independent variable (to continue the scientific analogy). If this independent variable is present, then these symptoms appear together by default. The independent variable’s absence will, conversely, predict the absence of the above features in almost all cases.

Given my argument so far, it should be obvious that a well-developed native modern language is the common factor in societies that display the above eight features together. Modern societies have native access to a written language, one that is sophisticated enough to be deployed in academic discourse and higher education. In conclusion, a society can never join modernity (as defined here) without a well-developed native language.

In the following subsections, I will investigate each of the eight factors in turn. In the context of what has been established so far, I will attempt to explain why language underpins each of them.

Robust Industrial Sectors and Strong Economies

Scientific knowledge is at the heart of any developed industrial sector. Advanced science allows societies to engage in equally advanced manufacturing. Moreover, only the most efficient and interconnected companies can compete in the global arena. This degree of corporate efficiency is impossible in societies that rely on oral languages.

Arabs face a unique dual challenge. First, their native language is primarily oral and lacks a written script. Second, pursuing higher education in Classical Arabic means studying in a language that no one speaks naturally in daily life. In many parts of the Arab world, the business vocabulary in Classical Arabic is also limited, which makes it challenging to draft meaningful business reports or engage in well-developed professional correspondence. This challenge is further compounded by the fact that the spoken dialects (most people’s native languages) do not have a written form. As such, written business correspondence is often below par and it is difficult to draft comprehensive business documents that leave an impact.

The development of a specialized business vocabulary is crucial for facilitating effective brainstorming and the emergence of innovative ideas. The absence of a standardized linguistic medium that supports advanced research and development (R&D) can also pose challenges for Arab companies looking to invest in these areas. Addressing such linguistic gaps can help foster a more innovative and research-oriented business environment in the region.

The Arab manufacturing sector depends on importing necessary machinery from modern societies and learning how to operate it. Companies never reach the point where they absorb the how and why of the production process because there is no suitable linguistic medium for doing so. The theoretical aspects remain a mystery, so Arab scientists and technicians cannot master or improve on the relevant technology. As a result, we remain confined to producing generic products. These are difficult to differentiate from the competition and therefore carry low profit margins. This problem and the innovation deficit of domestic private enterprises leave Arab economies weak and dependent on others.

2. Academic Institutions that Routinely Deliver Scientific and Technological Breakthroughs

Academia is the epicenter of scientific and technological breakthroughs. Research papers by the hundreds of thousands are published each decade across the different academic fields. Experts in these fields then read and respond to the various published findings and arguments. The contents of these publications, in turn, feed corporate R&D departments, allowing them to invent new products and incubate groundbreaking ideas.

Arab societies (and limited-language societies in general) cannot put these scientific breakthroughs to work despite access to the relevant publications. This hampers the making of new products and business process enhancements. Researchers and technicians in limited-language societies struggle to engage in sophisticated discourse because their oral (or limited language) does not allow for it. They have no medium suitable for complex, effortless self-expression. They might need to engage in a lengthy explanation to clarify some concept in an oral language, while that same concept can be summarized in a single keyword, expression, or metaphor in a modern language. It is far more stimulating for the mind to receive a complex meaning in one expression than an unnecessarily long-winded explanation.

Another reason why there is relatively little independent and globally significant research in limited-language societies relates to a lack of mental stimulation. Academic discourse in a native language can provide the intellectual engagement needed to foster valuable and novel ideas. In contrast, a strictly oral or limited language can fail to fully stimulate the brain this way. Interestingly, when academics from limited-language societies emigrate to modern societies, they often find themselves more inspired and capable of publishing academic research. This might be because they become immersed in a linguistic environment that provides the mental stimulus necessary for academic growth.

As stated, I think that we have to learn and master English as well as complexified versions of our native languages. So, I am not arguing for a kind of ‘linguistic isolationism,’ where Arabs only learn and master (advanced) local dialects. Some might think that this is too demanding. Yet, mastering both English and a local dialect should not be a major challenge. Indeed, it is a scientific fact that learning a foreign language becomes much easier if one has mastered one’s native language.

Individual Autonomy

In societies where weak ties dominate, individuals tend to have greater autonomy. They are more idiosyncratic and more likely to adopt (and even defend) contrary opinions. In short, there is greater diversity in thought and expression. Individualism appears to be a natural consequence of the typically sparse and multipolar social networks found in these societies—societies that largely rely on weak, rather than strong, ties between group members. There is less pressure to conform to the group’s mode of thinking in a social network dominated by weak ties.

The sheer number and subtle influence of weak ties means that people are less likely to inherit opinions from their subgroup. That said, sparse networks connected by many weak ties can only sustain themselves when people are capable of engaging in universalistic speech. This is because doing so allows them to quite easily connect with anyone. Purely oral languages lacking a corresponding script and limited languages can only be spoken in the particularistic mode. This inhibits connections with people from different backgrounds.

Cohesive Civil Societies Voluntarily Engaging in Collective Action

In modern societies, civil society’s strength plays a pivotal role in shaping the dynamics of collective action and social cohesion. Civil society facilitates diverse interactions when it is robust (i.e. characterized by well-established civic organizations, community groups, and public forums). Robust institutions provide platforms where individuals from various backgrounds can come together, exchange ideas, and work toward common goals.

A different pattern often emerges in societies where civil society is weak. These societies tend to exhibit more pronounced homophilic tendencies. People primarily associate within familiar, homogeneous social networks based on shared characteristics (e.g. ethnicity, religion, or socioeconomic status). These networks can offer a sense of security and trust, but they also limit opportunities for cross-group engagement and reduce overall social mobility. The lack of diverse interactions in such societies can reinforce in-group preferences, thereby perpetuating social divisions and hindering the exchange of ideas across groups. This not only weakens the social fabric but also diminishes the potential for voluntary collective action. People become more insular and less inclined to engage with broader social issues.

The Ability to Constructively Settle Disputes

A strong national identity is one of the primary reasons why disagreements do not escalate to full-blown hostilities in some societies. Belonging to a well-interconnected society encourages people to feel an affinity with their fellow citizens. Such a nationalistic “group feeling” can encourage productive debate rather than aggression. People see their fellow citizens as “ingroup,” rather than “outgroup,” members.

Political Freedom

Because they can (for the most part) settle disputes calmly, script-native societies tend to enjoy greater political freedom and, most importantly, freedom of speech (societies under communist rule being the exception). Disagreements are managed in a way that renders them an avenue for achieving better outcomes, thereby incrementally moving society forward. In contrast, disagreements in limited-language societies often create social divisions and governments tend to grant people little political freedom.

It is no accident that Arab countries top the list of the most authoritarian regimes in the world. Partly for the reasons described above, people cannot safely be afforded freedom of speech. Arab societies lack interpersonal connectedness due to the absence of a national, native modern language. There is a lack of homogeneity, which is closely related to the small-world property’s absence.

Strong and Enduring National Identities

People in script-native societies tend to have a strong sense of national identity. In his bestselling book Imagined Communities, political scientist and historian Benedict Anderson explains that national identities were born when people started reading and writing in their spoken dialects. Exposure to common printed material generated a national group feeling, making the modern nation-state possible. People lacked national identities before this pivotal moment because they mostly identified with their tribal group, social class, or religion.

In Europe, the aristocracy did not imagine themselves as French, British, or German, for example. Instead, they identified with the European aristocracy. National identification is a relatively new phenomenon. It only arose after the invention of the Guttenberg press in the 15th century, which made books and newspapers cheaply available in post-Latin Europe’s spoken dialects. Nonetheless, I do not think that exposure to print media in a native language is the only factor driving the formation of national identities. Underlying that phenomenon is the universalistic speech made possible by native command of a national modern language.

National identity is further reinforced by the ability to connect with almost anyone. Social networks in script-native societies are diversified, containing people from a variety of backgrounds. Inter-personal relationships often cross society’s many subgroups. And, one tends to see fellow citizens as allies when one has a strong national identity. As explained, this mitigates the consequences of disagreements and prevents needless conflict. People with opposing views will often act more responsibly and calmly. Those with a strong national identity understand that disagreements should not escalate. They also tend to keep society’s best interests in mind.

High Levels of Readership and Authorship

Readership in the Arab world is extremely low. Measured as Arabic books consumed annually per capita, Arab readership is half what it was in 18th-century Britain for books in English (when the literacy rate in Western Europe was around 30%). Even those who are considered to be proficient in Classical Arabic say that they gain little pleasure from reading and writing. Most also have limited confidence and skill in this regard.

Reading and writing in Classical Arabic is not an enjoyable exercise. It is, therefore, unsurprising that few Arabs possess the levels of readership found in modern societies. This is a severe intellectual disadvantage, one that must be addressed sooner rather than later. Reading stimulates the mind and fosters the proliferation of novel ideas. Without it, we do not feed the neural networks that are essential for innovative thinking. Arab authorship is at an equally low level, which further compounds the issue. The Arab population exceeds 350 million people, yet the total number of published books from all Arab countries is a small fraction of what a country like Spain publishes annually (despite having a population of 40 million people). Once again, the reason is that very few people can master Classical Arabic to a near-native level. Arabs are also not exposed to the mental stimulation necessary to foster confident authorship in what amounts to a fossilized language. If we had access to reading and writing in our spoken dialects, then readership and authorship would, no doubt, increase exponentially.

In modern societies, an eight-year-old native speaker has a vocabulary of about 8,000 words, while an adult native speaker’s is 20,000 to 35,000 words. In contrast, someone living in a foreign country will usually only master 10,000 words (which is close to the eight-year-old native speaker). Since the languages Arabs learn at school are, essentially, studied as foreign languages, it follows that an adult Arab’s vocabulary offers limited scope for successful communication and self-expression.

The mind begins developing at an early age, starting at home. Although rich in cultural significance, Arab oral languages do not fully engage the cognitive potential needed for 21st-century challenges. The simplicity of our spoken languages limits their ability to effectively stimulate the brain. Indeed, we seem to be nurturing a generation with a limited capacity for tapping into its intellectual potential. The talent in the Arab world has yet to be fully unleashed. Underlying all this is the fact that, in script-native societies, young children learn the same language used in academic and intellectual pursuits.

In the sections to follow, I will discuss what I consider to be the three catalysts of social evolution: dialectics, discretionary time, and diversity. These tend to be prevalent in modern societies. I will also argue that a modern language is necessary for the manifestation of these catalysts.

Dialectics

Dialectics relates to the idea that evolution is the outcome of conflict or some similar competitive process. It is an old Greek concept, one that has been borrowed or revisited by several great philosophers. But, how does one define ‘competition?’ On my account, competition is a managed conflict—a sort of combat operating according to rules that all concerned parties observe. The objective in competition is not to eliminate one’s opponents for good but to establish an advantage. Established rules ensure that the situation incentivizes traits with the greatest value and determines which competitor benefits most from these traits.

Admittedly, competition has a dark side, and evolution is not without costs. There are always winners and losers (or victors and victims) in such a process. Some will be left behind and some will advance. Yet, there can be no evolution without losers. Nonetheless, the main difference between dialectics and competition relates to the notion of generation: A dialectical process generates something new, while competition only selects from existing participants. We can, then, refer to dialectics as generative competition.

Heraclitus was the first to come up with this idea (although he never actually used the term ‘dialectics’). We know that he was one of the most ancient Greek philosophers, living in the 6th century BCE. But, little is known beyond that. Most of what he wrote has been lost. There are, however, about 80 to 120 fragments of writing that remain, each consisting of about two to three sentences. For Heraclitus, nothing in nature is constant, except change itself; and change, he said, comes from strife (i.e. conflict). So, evolution is change, and change is the result of strife. Heraclitus also stated that “strife is justice” and “all things come into being through strife necessarily.” On my understanding, this means that, for something to come into existence, there must have been a conflict between two (prior) things.

We can further think of Heraclitus’ notion of “justice” as ‘adjudication’ or ‘selection.’ Strife is an adjudicative process, one that selects an outcome. Strife or competition is, then, a selective process. Evolution occurs through selection and selection is the outcome of some form of conflict. Darwin’s theory of natural selection is an example of Heraclitean thinking: There is competition within (and sometimes between) a species, and nature ‘selects’ the fittest to survive and multiply. This is how species evolve.

The term ‘dialectics’ was most likely coined by Socrates or Plato. According to Plato, reaching the truth about something requires a dialectical exchange of ideas. This is the process by which truth-seekers can reach what they are looking for. Put simply, for Plato, dialectical exchange is the process (or art) of deploying reason (or logic) when contradicting (or refuting) arguments. This is, however, not a purely skeptical enterprise; the process is progressive. A dialectical exchange involves a progressive competition between arguments.

‘Dialectics’ is, however, not synonymous with ‘dialectical exchange.’ Dialectics is an archetypical principle that can be applied to any evolutionary generative process. Dialectical exchange is the application of dialectics to verbal exchanges between truth-seeking conversants engaged in logically refuting each other’s claims.

For Socrates and Plato, dialectical exchange is akin to what the philosopher Leo Strauss has referred to as a friendly quarrel between two people seeking the truth about some subject matter. Importantly, the aim of such a quarrel is not to have one’s view prevail. Instead, the quarrel is an exercise in contradicting each other—a kind of stress testing to see if each other’s arguments hold up to scrutiny. The two parties have different views about some subject, and they can potentially expose the fragility and partiality of both views by engaging in this refutation exercise. The fact is that each party has a partial vision of the truth, and these visions do not necessarily overlap. What matters is that there must be contradicting positions.

In principle, both perspectives’ weaknesses and inherent contradictions are stripped away during the dialectical exercise. Thereafter, a higher, more universal order of truth emerges. This can (a) explain the apparent contradiction between the two views and (b) render those views subsets or partial instances of a more holistic truth. Dialectical exchange is, thus, a competitive, generative, and progressive process. One’s opponent is a necessary element, and one is unlikely to attain a breakthrough without her.

To be clear, dialectical exchange is not what is commonly called rhetoric (or the ‘art of persuasion’). Rhetoric’s goal is to persuade and not necessarily seek the truth. Someone addressing an audience does not engage in a dialectical process because he is not contradicted. His aim is only to convince the audience of his view, and one need not rely on logic to convince others. One can stir emotions or leverage one’s credibility to make a point.

Plato interestingly made the metaphorical statement that he was against writing. He said that he would ban it if he had the power. His motivation was that writing lets us unfold ideas or theories without anyone present to offer contradictions. Writing allows one to ‘build castles on sand.’ For Plato, a claim (or argument or thesis) has no value if no one is around to offer counterclaims. Speech, rather than writing, is, therefore, the ideal mode of dialogue. In speech, we can reach the truth because we get immediate feedback to our arguments, and each claim must be stress-tested and approved. This is why all of Plato’s writings are in dialogue form. For Plato, being a contrarian is, then, the best service anyone can do for their society. Disagreement helps a group expand its horizons and evolve in a positive direction.

But, this is not the whole story. Plato was a rationalist who believed that we are a priori endowed with universal truth. (This stands in contrast to the empiricist claim that we discover truth through sensory experience). For the rationalist, we do not discover truths. Instead, we remember them in a process called anamnesis (the opposite of amnesia). For Plato, we suffer from amnesia at birth, but we occasionally recollect fragments of the truth embedded with each of us. We thereby realize some aspect of the greater, universal truth. But, anamnesis needs a mental stimulant. Plato considered dialectical exchange to be the best stimulant in this regard. In other words, anamnesis (or truth-comprehension) requires dialectical exchange.

I gather from this discussion that logos—the spoken word—is the most powerful mental stimulant for those pursuing universal truth. Yet, not all forms of logos are equally stimulating. If the language of dialectical debate is non-native (or distant from native), then its function as a stimulus will be undermined. And, if it lacks the necessary development for engaging in complex academic discourse, then it cannot adequately stimulate the mind to generate novelties. Moreover, for knowledge to progress, we must be exposed to things that are different or opposite from the norm.

Given the above, I surmise that the following three variables complete Plato’s idea:

Native or excellent command of the discourse language.
Language developing in a way that makes it suitable for academic discourse.
Exposure to opposing views.

Absent these three variables, debates will remain basic and unlikely to yield novelties. Continuing the motif from previous sections, two interlocutors must have native or excellent command of a modern language for their dialectical exchange to function properly.

Of course, some people with an oral or limited native language have access to a foreign modern language. This will allow them to engage in dialectical exchange. However, this does not apply to the vast majority of the population. The dialectical exchange Plato described is an ideal we rarely attain. That said, exchanges with some or other dialectical characteristics are, of course, taking place during our daily interactions, in research labs, university classrooms, deliberative assemblies, and so on. In any event, the above three variables are not all prevalent in limited-language societies. These societies primarily use oral or limited languages that do not provide the complexity needed for advanced dialectical exchange. They consequently miss out on the mental stimulation native script-based languages can offer. This, in turn, hinders the ability to foster new discoveries and progress.

Imagine someone attempting a dialectical exchange about the difference between Eastern and Western thought. He might want to say something like this:

In the West, people think in terms of the relationships, causes, and effects of distinct objects. However, Eastern people do not define objects as separate entities. They instead comprehend all elements as a single fluid entity with its own inherent dynamics.

One would find it very difficult to express this idea in an oral dialect due to the level of abstraction involved.

Because they have access to a native logos, members of modern societies repeatedly stimulate themselves during countless daily interactions. They become more creative and can achieve continuous change and progress. This is because creativity is a process that brings new ideas into existence. Indeed, there is no change without novel ideas.

I have explained how native access to a modern language allows people to connect more easily. Script-native societies’ social networks are configured differently from those of less-developed societies. This is due to the weak ties typifying the former. Script-native societies’ networks allow for individual autonomy and originality in dialectical exchange.

These variations on Plato’s insight are necessary, but not sufficient, conditions. Some countries (e.g. Cuba, which is script-native) might face obstacles despite having the prerequisites to modernize. These countries can, nonetheless, rapidly modernize by removing the political impediments blocking progress. But, countries that do not have native access to a modern language will not be able to modernize if they do not develop their native language.

Democracy is not a culture-specific model for political organization. Irrespective of their development stage, all countries should be able to achieve democracy naturally and independently (i.e. without external help). This is because every mind can comprehend certain universal truths—collective self-governance being one of them. That said, successful democratic self-governance depends on the three essential variables listed above. It is difficult to instill a democratic system if those variables are absent. But, if they are, then the country can employ dialectical exchange to progress naturally and organically toward a modern democratic state. Anyone should be able to arrive at the rational conclusion that having a say in how they are ruled is ideal. To this end, democratic rule is the best possible system we currently know of. It should be in everyone’s interest to be recognized by others as an independent and important member of society, one whose needs can be voiced and potentially actioned.

I contend that, by default, individuals and societies undergo progress given the right circumstances. We are endowed with the capacity to continually discover higher-order truths via dialectical exchange (or remember them through anamnesis, as Plato would put it). When diffused throughout a social network, a native logos can reveal necessary truths and propel us toward universality. What I mean by ‘native logos’ is the specific collections of words in a native language that constitute an argument capable of spreading throughout society. Arguments then collide with each other and generate novel ideas. This is dialectics; but, we need to remove obstacles obstructing the logos from diffusing.

Dialectics in Science

The concept of dialectics (or the idea that evolution and progress rest on conflict or contradictions) can be identified in the scientific method. According to British-Austrian philosopher Karl Popper, the process underpinning scientific discoveries is grounded in contradictions or what he called “empirical falsification.” Here, a theory is only scientific if it is empirically falsifiable (i.e. if it can, in principle, be experimentally proven wrong). A theory claiming that objects fall to the ground because they have a subconscious fear of heights is not scientific because one can never prove it wrong empirically.

For Popper, science evolves through the observation and recognition of contradictory claims or theories (i.e. through a process of ongoing falsification). Observing some phenomenon that contradicts a theory creates an explanatory vacuum, which demands a more complete or empirically adequate theory. Scientific breakthroughs require (temporarily) inexplicable phenomena. There are currently countless phenomena that cannot be explained by prevailing theories. And, no matter how accurate any given theory’s predictive power is, a day might come when we observe something that the theory cannot explain. In principle, no theory is eternal and we will never be omniscient.

The textbook view is that science involves both induction and deduction. Induction is the process of moving from the particular to the universal—from observations to rules or laws. Deduction, in contrast, starts from the universal and moves to the particular. Induction is the process of discovering new and potentially universal laws. However, further observations can contradict a law. A new, higher-order law is then needed to render the existing law compatible with the observed contradiction. Popper was, however, against induction. He saw no place for it in the scientific method. Instead, he maintained that scientists begin with an act of creativity—a guess or what he called a “conjecture.” They then (in principle) try to falsify that conjecture.

For Popper, experiments aiming to verify (rather than falsify) a theory do not add value to science. This is because, as stated, a new experiment could falsify the theory at any moment. For science to progress, scientists should be busy trying to overthrow (rather than corroborate) existing theories. This is reminiscent of the Platonic dialectical process discussed previously. Every new scientific law or theory represents a kind of fortress that must be besieged (if not brought down entirely).

Not everyone agrees with Popper in interpreting science as progressive (or dialectical). Another iconic philosopher of science—Thomas Kuhn—claimed that science progresses via wholesale “revolutions” or “paradigm shifts” (a term that has since become widely used). Here, the dialectical process (if there is one) is more profound. Scientific inquiry generates what Kuhn called “anomalies”—we invariably observe phenomena that cannot be explained by some presiding theory in its current iteration. There are inevitable contradictions, which can only be resolved through wholesale changes in worldview.

An example is the Newtonian revolution. Isaac Newton could not have envisioned his laws of gravitation if he had not introduced the idea of action at a distance, which caused the kind of paradigm shift Kuhn had in mind. Before Newton, scientists believed that force could only be transmitted through contact. It was mystical at the time to imagine that one body could influence another without contact. It was also believed that the force causing a body to fall rests inside the falling body. The idea that the Earth attracts the body signaled a dramatic change in worldview, one that contradicted prior common sense.

Kuhn also described a change in worldview as a “Gestalt switch”—a sudden and salient shift in perception. The worldview before the switch and the worldview after do not even intersect. The philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein described a Gestalt Switch as being analogous to the famous duck-rabbit illusion (illustrated below). You see a duck and then it is a rabbit, but you cannot see both at the same time. Also, you do not move gradually from seeing a duck to seeing a rabbit; it is not an incremental process.

duck-rabbit

The people behind paradigm shifts can be thought of as true revolutionaries. Using robust experimental and rational methods, they refute the most fundamental assumptions on which an entire scientific field rests. On Kuhn’s account, the scientific field then collapses and a new field rises up, one that employs an entirely new vocabulary. Einstein’s paradigm shift, for instance, rested on his discovery that time and space are relative to an observer. Previously, scientists (like Newton) had believed that time and space are constant and independent of the observer.

This evolutionary scientific process is partly grounded in dialectical exchange. Scientists debate and refute each other’s arguments and findings. New scientific claims are published in academic journals, which are read by subject matter experts who often contradict them. At the cutting edge of science, things are not as clear-cut as many believe. Most claims are conjectural and subject to controversy. Contradictory schools of thought continually refute each other’s claims.

Limited-language societies lack the necessary medium—a sophisticated, native modern language—for this sort of dialectical exchange. An Oral or a limited language is not sufficiently developed (either in vocabulary or expressions) to address complex scientific concepts. The result is a lack of meaningful or contributory scientific advances.

Dialectics in Economics

In economics, dialectics occurs in the form of creative destruction—a concept introduced by Austrian-American economist Joseph Schumpeter. According to Schumpeter, economic growth is sustained by the entry of new entrepreneurs. These mavericks disrupt established players who are doing business according to outdated models. Creative destruction is a continually stressful and painful process, one that results in bankruptcies and layoffs. It is, however, inevitable, and even necessary, for economic evolution or progress. This is the grim reality of economic growth—the inevitable collateral damage it generates and the ravages it leaves behind.

The potentially obsolete cycle of established entities is catalyzed by the entry of new players who reshape and then dominate the economy while the old ones die. We can think of young companies advancing over the ‘corpses’ of bankrupt companies and ‘looting’ their market share. The telegram operator Western Union was the world’s dominant telecommunications company until the telephone was invented. Western Union turned down an opportunity to buy the patents for telephony at a relatively small sum of money. After the fact, this appeared to have been rank foolishness. But, at the time, there were compelling reasons to believe that telegrams were the superior mode of communication. A telegram is delivered to you and can be read anytime, while a phone conversation requires the receiving party to be at the right address at the right time. Phone conversations also left no record of communication, while the contents of telegrams could be easily and indefinitely preserved.

A more recent example of the carnage created by economic evolution is identifiable in what Samsung’s Galaxy and Apple’s iPhone have done to previous market leaders like Nokia, Blackberry, and Motorola. We can infer that some future (currently unconceived) companies will, in turn, likely displace Samsung and Apple in this market.

In any event, the process of creative destruction often faces challenges in limited-language societies. As stated, the oral or limited languages in these societies do not provide the level of mental stimulation that fosters the development of new ideas and innovations. The level of competition also seems to be lower because many companies in these societies are primarily focused on providing generic products and services, which leads to less differentiation.

For enterprises to become competitive and evolve, there must be dialectical exchange and a robust internal sharing of ideas. This includes the ability to respond effectively to competitive threats, manage intricate organizations, collaborate in sophisticated ways, and envision and develop novel, complex products. These processes often require a spoken language that supports abstract and nuanced communication. As stressed, this is challenging in limited-language societies, which can impact the ability of enterprises in these regions to innovate and grow.

Practically speaking, dialectical exchange happens in an organization whenever mission-critical decisions are on the table. Many ideas are advanced and then refuted when launching a new product or service. The same applies when reacting to the competitive threat of a new entrant into the market, deciding whether to adopt a new strategy, or devising a new organizational structure. Ultimately, a few ideas survive the dialectical process and get given the green light. These situations arise with high frequency in a dynamic and competitive industry or market. For the process to succeed, the principal stakeholders must formulate complex ideas with a high degree of clarity and precision. They also need a well-developed business vocabulary, which is only contained in well-developed modern languages. In limited-language societies, the native language used on a daily basis has limited expressive power. This means that the dialectical process does not realize its full potential. The result is that market economies in these societies do not reach the sophistication found in modern (i.e. script-native) economies.

In their bestselling book Why Nations Fail, Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson list the many (mostly political) reasons why some nations are relegated to the sidelines of history. According to Acemoglu and Robinson, a major reason why some nations get left behind is that their rulers resist creative destruction; they fear the economic consequences of wholesale and regular upheavals.

Few rulers in the past comprehended that the resulting damage was a necessity. In 16th century England, Queen Elizabeth I banned the recently invented knitting machine to prevent major job losses in the industry. In the same century, the Ottoman Sultan outlawed the printing press (except for very selective purposes). Some scholars have claimed that the Sultan’s motivation was to protect the jobs of about 80,000 scribes in the Empire. This might be true. But, it could be that the Sultan did not want to deal with the consequences of higher literacy rates. Logically speaking, absolute rulers should prefer the status quo over conducting experiments with potentially disruptive consequences. Regardless, two centuries later, Britain had a literacy rate of 30%, while the Ottoman Empire lagged below 5%. Nations whose leaders resist creative destruction (or the idea that evolution comes at a cost) end up paying a heavy, sometimes fatal, price in the long run.

In general, an absolute monarch or ruler is inept at meeting society’s needs. There are, of course, exceptions; but, this relies on the appearance of a rare ‘benevolent dictator.’ Because absolute rulers do not employ dialectics in reaching conclusions and making choices, their decisions are invariably sub-optimal. This slows the pace of evolution. A stagnant society is also easier to govern than a dynamic one. From a despot’s perspective, progress might not be worth the trouble because he will have to deal with the ravages left behind by creative destruction. Rulers are also sometimes swept aside during this process. Another possibility is that the governing apparatus simply cannot or will not handle change.

When leaders insist on tight control over everything happening in their land, they will inevitably scale down the economy. Absolute rulers prefer to avoid dealing with the destructive effects of evolution, so they inevitably stymie it at every opportunity. This has the effect of strangling the economy.

Democracies offer a stark and instructive contrast. In democratic societies, the flame of evolution remains lit because dialectical exchange continuously shapes opinions and decisions in the halls of government. There is, of course, a lot of rhetoric. But, we cannot deny that bona fide dialectic exchanges also occur between adversaries who seem to want the best for their country. An absolute leader, in contrast, lives in a blind alley. He is not compelled to listen to the advice of smaller government bodies. These bodies are places of intense dialectical exchange, but the leader does not reap any of its benefits.

Interestingly, a key difference between the political right and left involves the degree to which they believe that a government should interfere to mitigate the damage creative destruction causes. This continuous tug-of-war between the two worldviews is necessary to define the optimal level of government intervention (otherwise there is no way to determine if leaders are doing too much or too little). In functioning democracies, there are always two or more sides endlessly competing, even if there is no obvious long-term goal in sight. There is no ultimate “winner.” The equilibrium or optimal degree of intervention is reached dialectically. Representatives debate publicly and the population makes the choices. The political right tends to argue in terms of how much individual liberty and economic strength will be sacrificed or gained when passing new legislation. The political left tends to focus on how much damage and inequality the legislation will mitigate or create.

Communism, in contrast, seeks to eradicate the damages of creative destruction once and for all. Arguably, its mission is to end uncertainty. The result is that communist nations choke their economies (sometimes to death). What made Margaret Thatcher iconic was that she convinced her people that sacrifice was unavoidable. If they wanted to continue evolving and attain economic prosperity, then some suffering was required. It is part of the ‘evolution equation,’ and cannot be entirely eradicated. Thatcher made it clear that the only way to eliminate collateral damage from evolution is to counterproductively block its primary cause: evolution itself. Thatcher removed the government safety net many in the UK population were enjoying, and the economic results were incredible (even if critics point to a growing income disparity).

None of this is meant to suggest the political right’s ideas are superior to those of the left. Rather, it just so happens that Thatcher was correct at that time and place in history. The UK economy was suffering from too much government intervention and was, consequently, out of equilibrium. Its leadership had overcorrected for the destructive effects of economic evolution. There are certainly cases where an economy can benefit from more, rather than less, government mitigation against creative destruction, but this was not one of them.

Dialectics as a Historical Process

According to German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, the evolution of political order is dialectical, which he conceived of as a conflict between classes. There is a continuous struggle between people for recognition as equal human beings. Slaves, for example, were not recognized by their masters; they were dehumanized. Feudal lords likewise stripped the humanity from their serfs. Hegel reframed the political history of the previous 2,500 years as a duel between masters and slaves, between ruler and ruled, between subjugator and subjugated. Only masters have the privilege of shaping history. The subjugated only have a role if they seek recognition and revolt. But, For Hegel, there is an end to this struggle because history converges toward a finality. History ends with the formation of the modern nation-state, where people share equal rights and everyone recognizes everyone else. The end of history—when society represents the ideal political model—is, therefore, the end of the struggle for individual recognition.

Karl Marx was heavily influenced by Hegel. He (correctly) claimed that workers in his day were exploited by their capitalist masters. Although people thought that slavery and serfdom had ended, a similar situation had crept back in under a different guise. For Marx, history had, therefore, failed to end in the way that Hegel described. The class struggle was ongoing. As is well known, Marx maintained that the end of history will be exemplified by the communist state—a state of absolute equality, where the workers (who actually make the world turn) finally rule.

About two centuries after Hegel, Francis Fukuyama has continued to examine history where Hegel left off. Fukuyama traces the events leading up to the fall of communism and the establishment of liberal democracies around the world, where everyone (mostly) recognizes everyone else as equals. According to Fukuyama, democratic models have no more contenders after the fall of communism. The final triumph of liberal democracies over communism brings history to an end.

Communism fails precisely because communists want to squash the principle upon which evolution depends, namely dialectics. Communism suppresses freedom of speech and market competition. There is no point in competing anymore because all entities belong to the same owner: the state. But, without competition, there can be no creative destruction. Communism does not allow a selective process to decide which companies are fit to survive and which ones are better off going bankrupt. As a result, companies in a communist state can survive despite being unfit. Indeed, a communist state’s objective is to employ all workers, even at the expense of efficiency. This means that shuttering businesses is out of the ordinary. Even though communist regimes care about efficiency, they cannot mimic the level seen in Western capitalist democracies. This is where a genuine struggle for survival between competing firms decides who leads and who falls by the wayside. Communist economies become cluttered with unfit firms, making them inefficient compared to their counterparts in free-market economies. Indeed, the Soviet Union is sometimes considered to be the largest failed social experiment in history.

Some readers might reply that China can be held up as an example of a successful communist society. The country seems to be making economic progress despite being a communist dictatorship. This is true, even if that progress has slowed in recent times. However, it is important to note that China’s success has come from (partly) loosening communist controls and introducing free market or capitalist-style principles and mechanisms. As such, it is not communism per se that has provided China with the growth it has enjoyed in recent decades.

In any event, has history really come to an end? I do not think so; it is just that history is evolving differently. History used to progress through revolutions, but now citizens in many countries enjoy equal rights and equal representation. There is, thus, no more justification for revolutions. This does not mean that people have ceased to hold expectations and demands. Rather, there is a new process for social evolution, one that consists of organized collective actions. In democracies, people rally support and self-organize to lobby for their demands. This is how history progresses.

I believe that one of the fundamental features of being human relates to our capacity for improvisation. By this, I am not referring to the dictionary definition of an ‘unprepared performance.’ Whether composing a symphony, developing a corporate strategy, seeking a cure for cancer, or even organizing a wedding, we are involved in improvisation. These activities require original thought and bear the unique signature of their creator. However, many people work at a job with low autonomy for 10 hours or more a day. They have no room for improvisation and the work is mechanical, with little opportunity to apply personal judgment. These people are not truly free. On the contrary, they are serving time where the freedom to improvise has been taken away.

Nonetheless, numerous people experience freedom in the work they do, provided the job has high autonomy. Freedom is not the total absence of constraints. In essence, I contend that people want the freedom and the equal opportunity to improvise. For a long time, improvisation was monopolized by the world’s ruling and elite class (the ‘bourgeois’). The ruled or peasant class (the ‘proletariat’) were mostly illiterate and had to toil for most of the day. They had no time to improvise, and they lacked the skills to do so even if they could. These folk remained in the shadow of history.

I have explained why people have greater opportunities for originality in a script-native society. In gist, the reasons are twofold:

Linguistic exchange in a modern language offers mental stimulation and allows people to articulate novel ideas relatively seamlessly.
The diverse multipolar social networks in modern societies engender individual autonomy and therefore originality.

Arab societies lack the level of robustness needed to withstand the consequences of intense dialectical exchange. Indeed, most Arab societies have limited freedom of speech. This is because our social networks are fragile. We are susceptible to becoming divided by disagreements owing to our lack of social cohesion.

Decisions of national consequence are not made according to intense dialectical processes and are consequently sub-optimal. This is not because our leaders just happen to be incompetent or because our cultures are inherently more oppressive. Instead, our societies are constructed in such a way that disagreements tend to boil over into outright conflict rather than take the form of a friendly quarrel (as in dialectical exchange). This is because we lack a national identity that can bind us as implicit allies.

Freedom of speech is a primary catalyst for evolution. If there are no dialectical exchanges where we express disagreements and work out compromises, then we stop progressing and the evolution of history slows down dramatically. As argued, our Arab social networks lack robustness because they are shaped by our spoken languages, which are still at the state of nature and therefore unsuited to melding large societies together.

The examples I have discussed in this section suggest that evolution and progress are intimately tied to the dialectical process. Whether in politics, philosophy, economics, science, or daily life, dialectics is at the heart of innovation and general flourishing. Yet, the underlying feature of dialectical phenomena is language. Without native access to a modern language, the dialectical process remains stunted. It can never reach the level where real and meaningful change occurs. If we do not have native access to a written language, and if that language is not developed to a level suited for academic discourse, then there is little hope for genuine progress. In sum, our Arab societies lack the dynamics created by dialectics, which require native access to a modern language.

Discretionary Time

A key characteristic differentiating humans from other apes is surplus or discretionary time. A chimpanzee’s day is almost entirely devoted to survival. Chimpanzees spend eight hours every day just chewing food. The rest of the time is largely spent finding food, digesting, sleeping, and mating, with little time left for socializing. In every possible way, humans are more efficient consumers of time and energy than chimpanzees. The same energy consumed by chimps to walk 3km allows us to travel 12km. We only chew food for about 30 minutes a day (putting aside indulgent eating). We have shorter intestines, which consume far less energy for digestion. Because we cook our food, we can also extract much more energy and nutrients from the same quantity of food. As a result, we do not have to spend most of the day procuring the intake of calories we need to survive. This leaves us with surplus time to dedicate to other important activities.

Because of our capacity to generate surplus energy, modern humans are the only species to have an associated surplus of the universe’s most precious commodity: discretionary time. We are the only species that can improvise because we are the only species that has substantial amounts of time beyond what is needed to survive.

What have we done with this discretionary time? Arguably, we evolved larger brains to harness surplus time. Non-human animals do not have large brains because they do not need one for survival. They are in a perpetual fight for existence, and their genetic endowment helps them compete in this fight (but nothing more). So, which greater purpose do we direct our extra time toward? As previously stated, improvisation is at the heart of the matter. We cooperate to extract more discretionary time, which allows us to discover, improvise, and engage in new experiences. This is a never-ending story; we can never reach the stage where we have enough time. We seem to have an infinite need for it, but we are (unfortunately) stuck with a fixed 24-hour daily cycle.

To me, the idea that advanced technology will put people out of work misses the point. Technology helps us create surplus time, which we can then devote to activities like discovery and creation (things that machines cannot do). If a machine can perform some activity, then that activity has matured to the point where it is so mechanical that human input and improvisation are no longer necessary. We are on a continuous quest to devote surplus time to higher purposes. This is why we cooperate—to extract more surplus time and improvise.

The evolution of social structures works to support this quest—from bands of hunter-gatherers (dozens of members) to tribes (hundreds of members) to chiefdoms (thousands of members) and finally to states (over 50,000 members). Large numbers of people living together in dense networks mean that more individuals can engage in activities beyond just securing food for survival. Such societies can afford specialists who do not work in food gathering or production. When humans lived in hunter-gatherer bands, there was duplication of expertise. Many people knew how to do exactly the same thing. As groups grew larger, there was more and more division of expertise and labor. This allowed people to extract discretionary time.

The progression I am describing was, however, not strictly linear. Hunter-gatherer bands were egalitarian, and experts agree that they enjoyed better living standards than agricultural societies (even if the former preceded the latter). Hunter-gatherers consumed more calories per day and enjoyed a wider variety of food. They also had more free time. As humans shifted away from the hunter-gatherer model to chiefdoms and states, they moved toward despotic modes of governance.

But, were hunter-gatherers free? They had nothing that could be called private space, and they had to constantly conform to the band’s way of life. There was little room for displays of difference or disagreement. Society resembled a flat structure, with minimal stratification and novelty.

Because of their mobility, hunter-gatherers had to limit their reproduction. They did so by abstinence, lactational amenorrhea (which involves extending the breastfeeding period), and even abortion or infanticide. When humans discovered agriculture around 10,000 BCE, they settled down and grew in number. Now, people started producing surplus food—a surplus that translated into a population increase. By choosing the agricultural way of life, humans entered the “Malthusian economy”—named after Thomas Robert Malthus, an English reverend and economist living in the late 18th and early 19th centuries.

According to Malthus, the ability to create surplus food results in more people consuming that food. It does not result in more wealth (or, as I would put it, more discretionary time). Once the surplus is eliminated, people return to a subsistence equilibrium. Most people in the Malthusian era perpetually lived at subsistence levels. There was no meaningful growth of per capita GDP because population growth consumed all surpluses. Discretionary time was still limited. Surpluses were only regenerated (and then only temporarily) during natural disasters, epidemics, and similar calamities that wiped out large portions of the population.

Until the Industrial Revolution, most people lived at subsistence levels. The mechanization of production methods made the surplus time we still enjoy today possible. Humans finally broke the Malthusian feedback loop. An increasing number of people could (and still can) afford to engage in discovery and creation after the Industrial Revolution. Put otherwise, production growth now exceeds population growth. Up until the late 18th century, perhaps 70% to 80% of the world’s people were involved in agriculture (i.e. securing food). In today’s most advanced economies, that percentage is around 5%.

Today, we are competing over the finite 24 hours in a day, and there is profound inequality in how this surplus time is shared. Consider how much of your time is spent engaged in creative activities, applying judgment to critical matters, or living out new experiences. Compare that with how much time is spent trying to survive or performing mundane mechanical tasks. Everyone wants more of the former, but there is not enough to go around (at least, not currently). Spanish fashion retailer Zara, for instance, improvises its designs in studios located in the West but assigns the mechanical task of actual construction to so-called developing countries.

Given the above, we can see that people live in large concentrations and cooperate through the division of labor to generate surplus time (the time left after a society has met its survival needs). Another reason to cooperate relates to concerted improvisation. People cooperate during their surplus time to improvise (i.e. discover and create novelties that will be useful to society). This involves the co-creation and co-construction of something new and unique.

Communism takes away people’s right to improvise and instead monopolizes it within the state apparatus. People are then engaged in executing centrally improvised plans. People’s improvisational potential can be mobilized, but it must serve ends that are dictated top-down. Even art must be useful to, and in service of, the state’s self-absorbed ideology. Communist art, for example, tends to depict the life of workers or ‘the Revolution.’

Even companies compete for discretionary time. Let us say that some company takes less time than its competitors to make a product. This time-saving need not be entirely passed on to the consumer in the form of a cheaper price. A fit company can divert time away from mechanical work and invest it in high-concept improvisations that make the company even more competitive.

Today’s world revolves around a discretionary time axis. Modern economies have the most discretionary time, which enables improvisations related to activities like solving health problems or enhancing school education. Note that discretionary time is not time left after one has finished work for the day; it is also part of work. If you earn $10,000 a month and only spend $2,000 on necessities, then you only need to work for one-fifth of the month to survive. The rest of the time is discretionary. Citizens in less developed economies spend a greater portion of their 24 hours devoted to survival-related tasks. They have little time left for purposeful improvisation, and therefore less room for self-actualization and progress.

As discussed, modern economies are more collaborative because they have native access to a modern language. They face fewer obstacles when it comes to smooth interpersonal interactions, which helps them generate more discretionary time. A key aspect characterizing these societies is the ability of total strangers to come together and cooperate with relative ease. Limited-language societies, in contrast, have limited connectivity. This places a limit on social cooperation. People in these societies generate less surplus time and have less discretionary time to engage in improvisational activities.

When it comes to Arab societies, I believe that the limit on discretionary time is a bug, rather than a feature, of the system. This bug can, nonetheless, be removed. And, we do not need to redesign our entire social, political, or economic order to do so. Instead, we must fix the issue at its source. As argued, the bug is in our language, which is still at the state of nature. It does not allow for interpersonal dialogue between strangers. This notably limits our ability to effectively and seamlessly cooperate. Real cooperation requires us to see each other as allies, and this can occur through the adoption of spoken dialects as written languages.

In sum, humans generate surplus or discretionary time when they cooperate—time that can be used for improvisation. Oral or limited languages are not conducive to cooperation between individuals in today’s large societies. People in these societies consequently extract little surplus time and have few opportunities for improvisation. This is a sign of low-efficiency societies—societies that lack connectedness and thus a strong small-world property. The result is that people in limited-language societies do not experience sufficient freedom (which I defined as the ability to discover and improvise). Societies with native access to a modern language can, in contrast, extract more discretionary time. They can dedicate more time to exercising their freedom through productive improvisational activities.

Diversity

Diversity is the third key catalyst to social evolution. It is perhaps taken for granted that diversity brings more perspectives, ideas, and problem-solving skills to the table. Collaboration between like-minded people is unlikely to yield the same potential for improvisation as a group of people from diverse backgrounds. Some would even claim that diversity trumps ability, in the sense that people with average knowledge, but diverse backgrounds, can beat a team of like-minded experts. That said, it remains a puzzle how a diversity of people—people who are unrelated or even total strangers—manage to cooperate effectively.

As discussed, most of the world’s population lived in bands of no more than a few dozen up until about 10,000 BCE. Everyone knew everyone else, and cooperation was almost exclusively between genetic relatives. In fact, we are biologically disinclined to cooperate with strangers. In such a situation, diversity can inhibit cooperation. Our biology can be the source of prejudices and stereotypes. Studies suggest that our minds unconsciously treat meeting a stranger as a threatening situation. We quickly try to classify the stranger as a member of the “outgroup” or “ingroup.” If she is identified as an outgroup member, then the brain generates stereotypical reactions that make us unlikely to cooperate. Indeed, a sizable body of research has revealed a dark side to diversity: It can cause us to communicate less, experience more conflict, and suffer performance impairments.

As mentioned, humans tend to connect and establish ties with those who share similar traits. This behavioral tendency is called homophily. Homophily implies that contact between similar people occurs at a higher rate than with dissimilar people. It also suggests that (in social network terms) dissimilar people are likely more distant. And, any information relayed from one to another will likely have to pass through more people than is the case with similar people. So, it seems that we do not live in such a diverse space after all (despite the diversity of backgrounds one might find in a typical modern urban neighborhood). Two families living across the street from each other, but from different ethnicities, are unlikely to be close in terms of social contacts and networks. This is because race, ethnicity, and religion tend to create the strongest divides in society (even if they can also create the strongest ties). The result of these divides is that we are not as diverse as we might like to believe.

It is worth noting the distinction between co-location and co-presence in this context:

Co-location relates to geography. Here, there can be the outward appearance of diversity (vis-à-vis people’s proximity to each other).
Co-presence is more personal. If there is no interaction (or little interaction) between co-locating groups, then there is no co-presence (despite geographical proximity).

So, people can remain distant on a network map even if they happen to be geographically close. This has, at least, one salient implication: A society will not enjoy the benefits of diversity if the features of diversity are present but individuals within the various groups are not interconnecting.

Homophily can be measured by comparing someone’s relationships to a baseline model. If, for example, African Americans represent 20% of the US population, then we would expect that a white American will have one in five African Americans among his close contacts. White Americans should, in turn, comprise 80% of an African American’s contact network. It goes without saying that our networks do not follow these rules of probability. Instead, we tend to gather with those who are culturally and ethnically like us.

As suggested, homophily likely developed through natural selection as a protection mechanism. However, it creates some severe limitations, specifically when it comes to inhibiting the benefits of diversity. Homophily tends to generate ‘us and them’ thinking. This is what sociologist Henri Tajfel defines as the “ingroups and outgroups phenomenon,” which forms the basis of human prejudice and discrimination. On Tajfel’s Social Identity Theory, our personal identities are largely shaped by the groups we belong to, whether they be national, religious, social, civil, economic, or otherwise. Our sense of self is, then, the intersection point of these different group identities. As a result, we split the world in two: People are either contained within the sphere of our groups or they are not. Someone is either an ingroup member or an outgroup member. Stereotypes typically develop to quickly (and somewhat lazily) categorize and describe outgroup members.

Homophily limits the level of social network diversity. From a biological evolutionary perspective, this makes sense because diversity can cause conflict despite its benefits. If early human bands were composed of diverse individuals, then there would likely have been ongoing murderous conflict. Put simply, diversity per se is not conducive to survival.

Having to interact with many diverse people is also more taxing on the mind than dealing exclusively with those who are like us. Mental capacity puts a limit on how many close relationships we can realistically maintain. American anthropologist Robin Dunbar has argued that there is a connection between brain size and the size of primate social groups. The larger the group, the greater the social complexity individuals have to manage, and this requires a large neocortex (i.e. enhanced cognitive power). Dunbar conducted an impactful study where he plotted the group sizes and brain sizes of various primates. Based on his findings, he extrapolated the relationship to humans. Since he knew the size of the human neocortex, he could then deduce the average natural human group size. He came up with the number 150, now known as “Dunbar’s number.”

But, what does this number reveal? And, how does Dunbar define “group?” Dunbar defines ‘group’ as the largest collection of individuals in which everyone can know everyone else. The military can be invoked as an example. In the military, the basic fighting unit must be cohesive. Every soldier needs to know every other. The Roman army’s basic unit was the cohort, made up of six troops consisting of between 80 and 160 soldiers. In modern armies, the size of a basic fighting unit is, likewise, about 150. The “Dunbar limit” signifies the threshold above which a group can no longer function in a coordinated manner. Exceed this threshold, and there will be strangers in the group; there will be people who barely know each other and/or do not interact.

Dunbar went on to test his notion of an ideal group size by checking the censuses of hunter-gatherer villages. He found them to, on average, consist of 150 individuals. The size of Neolithic villages in Mesopotamia during the period 6,500 BCE to 5,500 BCE also ranged from 150 to 200 inhabitants. This explains why hunter-gatherer groups or tribes will split when they reach a certain size. The group can no longer maintain its cohesiveness beyond a certain threshold.

We also need to explain how human settlements became vastly scalable. Groups grew from a few dozen (Dunbar’s number or the size of a hunter-gatherer band) to hundreds of thousands and even millions of strangers living in modern nation-states. Anthropologist Jared Diamond has offered a plausible explanation: Humans managed to cross Dunbar’s limit through the monopolization of force. Diamond states: “In a tribe, where many people are still close relatives and everyone at least knows everybody else by name, mutual relatives and mutual friends mediate the quarrel.” But, things change when groups cross the threshold of a few hundred (below which everyone can know everyone else). The increasing number of “dyads” (any given pair of people) become pairs of unrelated strangers. Thus, a large society that continues to leave conflict resolution to its members is likely to implode. There must, instead, be the centralization (or monopolization) of force. It follows that societies of thousands can only exist if they develop a conflict-resolving centralized authority.

Communal decision-making also becomes increasingly difficult as population size grows. The story of human evolution can be understood as the story of how people have overcome their biological and homophilic constraints to achieve diversity and connect with those outside their immediate circle (i.e. with strangers). Initially, the way to scale society and maintain order was through despotic rule. As discussed, democracy has, however, proven to be a more effective model over time.

So what do we make of diversity? Scott Page—author of The Difference—has offered an appealing answer to the question of whether diversity is a good or a bad thing. He writes:

You should expect the diverse groups to be the best. We should also expect them to be the worst. We should also not expect to have study after study showing that diversity beats homogeneity.

In other words, while diversity engenders the power to find solutions and reveal new information, it can also cause trouble and require management.

Like all good things, diversity comes at a cost. Just as nuclear power is a source of cheap and unlimited energy, the accidents at Chernobyl and Fukushima Daiichi reveal that we pay a high cost when there are design and management failures. It is a matter of tradeoff, where benefits should, ideally, outweigh the costs. So, diversity should provide great rewards if we manage to reduce the associated costs (or side effects). We can think of diversity as a wild form of potential energy that must be tamed to yield its benefits.

As mentioned, our disinclination to accept diversity is rooted in our biology and so is our inclination to be biased toward those who are different from us. Without diversity, the dialectical process loses its selective evolutionary ability: There is no meaningful difference between competitors. At the same time, diversity works against cooperation: People who come from dissimilar backgrounds cannot easily agree and coordinate their efforts. That said, diversity brings tremendous benefits if people can surpass their initial hesitation. A diverse group is fitter and more competitive than a homogenous one. As such, societies that tolerate diversity, and therefore differences of opinion, will leverage the benefits of competition, meaningful cooperation, and, of course, improvisation.

Nonetheless, diversity does not only occur at the group or community level. Script-native societies (sometimes labeled “individualistic societies”) tend to be diverse at the individual level as well. This represents a kind of originality for the masses. Paradoxically, individualistic societies seem to be the most cooperative. Most script-native societies fit into this category. They have managed to remain cooperative beyond Dunbar’s threshold despite a vast diversity of opinions at the individual level. Iconoclasm is tolerated, which allows for increased creativity and idiosyncrasy. People can be outspoken about their opinions without the risk of being persecuted, even when those opinions offend the majority. Indeed, to engender diversity, we must become less inclined to take offense when confronted with contradictory opinions. In modern societies, this is possible because people have access to universalistic speech, which allows them to bypass individual differences and productively connect with those from different backgrounds.

The predominant grouping pattern in script-native societies often shifts from inherited affiliations (e.g. ethnicity, race, and religion) to affiliations based on shared interests or causes e.g. civil society organizations). This is, of course, not always the case (as evidenced by a rise of the extreme right in some of these societies). Yet, in general, this shift fosters greater diversity. It allows people to align themselves according to individual beliefs rather than inherited traits. The relevant societies therefore benefit from the enhanced creative and cooperative potential that diversity brings.

Diversity in many limited-language societies has the potential to be a source of creativity and innovation. Yet, it is occasionally experienced as a source of division. Oral or limited language dialects are not suitable for a diverse society. Instead, they are suitable for small human settlements below Dunbar’s number. Above that number, people start encountering strangers, hearing contradictory opinions, and witnessing idiosyncratic ways of life. A stunted language makes members of limited-language societies unable to manage disagreement successfully in such scenarios. Script-native societies afford more freedom while maintaining diversity because they are more suitable for cooperation between strangers beyond Dunbar’s threshold.

Societies that tolerate a diversity of opinions are, however, not necessarily culturally superior. What matters is that their social networks are robust due to a strong national group feeling. Successful societies simply afford more diversity—the kind of diversity that enhances, rather than threatens, social progress.

So, how did some societies manage to scale beyond Dunbar’s number while concurrently exemplifying free political systems? As mentioned, societies initially achieved scale through despotic regimes. However, freedom and liberty gradually evolved; and this, I contend, started with the advent of writing and literacy. The invention of writing has markedly impacted the way we speak to others. Speaking a native sophisticated language is not the same as speaking a language that is still at the state of nature. As described, native modern languages are suitable for large, diverse societies because they allow for universalistic speech and mitigate the risk of conflict. Diverse societies also offer stimulation for the mind. This fosters original and productive ideas, which, in turn, enhance productivity, progress, and general flourishing.

The Case of Lebanon

In Lebanon, developing a writing system to codify our spoken dialect could foster greater unity across the country. Lebanon is sometimes held up as an example of different religious communities successfully coexisting. There are, in fact, 18 distinct sects living side by side (including Maronites, Shia, Sunnis, and Greek Orthodox). However, our connections do not sufficiently cross the boundaries of our own subgroups (even though we coexist within the same geographical limits). There is co-location, but not always a strong sense of shared presence or common identity. We tend to exhibit a certain degree of homophily, meaning that social ties are often formed within, rather than across, communities. This separation is reflected in several aspects of daily life. Many schools, sports teams, and businesses, for instance, are organized along sectarian lines. Our society can, therefore, feel fragile, with underlying divisions that risk deepening during times of disagreement. To ensure a stable and prosperous future, we must build a more resilient society, one where disagreements can be managed without threatening our unity. An example from network theory can illustrate what I mean by a resilient society.

A network is robust when it functions as a cohesive whole, even if we remove some of its connections. This is because of the multiple paths connecting any two nodes. There is a threshold below which we can continue to remove connections without the network collapsing. Above this threshold, the network starts breaking up into islands of smaller networks. This is how the internet displays a high degree of robustness, even when there are server failures. This robust quality was behind the purpose of the internet’s precursor ARPANET—a system the US Defense Department designed to ensure that vital communications links would survive a nuclear attack. If any link was destroyed in an attack, communication would be maintained due to the number of remaining paths connecting any two nodes or terminals.

Some networks are, however, not robust; they are vulnerable to fragmentation or splitting. Such networks are made of embedded modules (or communities) with fragile links to each other. The figure below is from a study of the relationships between members of a karate club. It comes from a case study by Wayne Zachary, published in 1977. The instructor at the club—Mr. Hi—asked the president (who was also an instructor) to raise lesson prices so that he could improve his salary. The president declined the request, and the club split over the issue. Some members supported Mr. Hi and others supported the president. During this time, Zachary collected information about the various members—information related to external activities like attending parties and meetings outside the club. The goal was to determine who was friends with whom. The result is reflected in the diagram below.

Karate

Adapted from Understanding Social Networks–Theories, Concepts and Findings, C. Kadushin.

There are clearly two modules in the diagram, each composed of people who were friends with each other and with one or the other instructor. Most importantly, we can see that there are few connections between the two groups. Later, and perhaps unsurprisingly, the club was split, with each new club headed by one of the instructors involved in the disagreement. The split was almost exactly along the line that separates the two groups in the diagram. There are more severe consequences when this happens at the societal level. There is a risk of deep division or even civil war when a society is comprised of modules with few connections between its members or groups of members. Simple disagreements can cause the fracturing of a society. Such societies will likely have little political freedom due to the high risk of division and conflict.

Our Lebanese society lacks robustness, much like the Karate club in the example above. There are, however, many more separate modules in our social network with few connections between them. The future will remain rather bleak as long as this situation remains. There are not enough connections between our disparate Lebanese sectarian groups. Indeed, we do not have a strongly unified culture. There are 18 sects, and although the culture is homogeneous to a certain extent, it lacks the strong cohesiveness typically found in script-native societies. Lebanon will have to strengthen its social unity in a way that transcends sectarian boundaries. This will result in a good kind of diversity at the individual level. By establishing our own national written language, we can begin our journey toward modernity and achieve the unity, productivity, and general flourishing that the Lebanese people have always sought.

To be blunt, establishing a national written language is the only way for Lebanon to become a cohesive, unified nation that enjoys the fruits of modernity. Given my argument in the book, it seems that there is simply no other way forward. If we fail, then we are condemned to continue struggling to keep our heads above water rather than making genuine progress. As Benedict Anderson has claimed, one can only develop a national identity and discover what it means to truly belong in a large society after establishing a national written language. The real Lebanon—a country far greater than many can even imagine—will emerge if we undertake this quest.

This will, of course, not happen overnight. It will take efforts spanning generations to have a fully developed script-native Lebanese language. Nonetheless, practically speaking, Lebanese schools can gradually introduce lessons in our native language. This is not a far-fetched idea. In Algeria, there was a debate in 2015 about whether to introduce school classes in spoken Algerian. The chief argument for the idea invoked scientific evidence that students learn better and faster if they are taught in their native tongue. It is also a scientific fact that people learn foreign languages faster if they have good command of their native language. In Lebanon, we are at a severe learning disadvantage compared to much of the rest of the world. This is because our children and young adults are taught in second languages. The brain processes Classical Arabic as a second language because it is non-native. Indeed, scientific evidence has shown that reading in a native language compared to a second language activates different parts of the brain. The two activities involve different mental processes.

The most important steps to creating the reality I envision involve (a) exposure to written materials in spoken Lebanese and (b) creating the ability to write in Lebanese in a standardized manner. Given my arguments in the book, this should be enough to trigger the requisite chain reaction.

For 1,400 years, Arabs have granted script exclusivity to Classical Arabic while native dialects have diverged from it. The result has been a failure to become intellectually prolific and achieve tangible progress. Europe likewise granted script exclusivity to Latin for 1,000 years after their dialects diverged from it. The result was intellectual drought throughout that period. Europeans finally decided to try something else between the 14th and 16th centuries; they adopted their spoken dialects as script languages instead of Latin. The result was intellectual, social, and economic progress. It is nonsensical for Arabs to follow the same old path and expect a different outcome. It is time to take the necessary action.

Breaking Free from the Victimhood Narrative: The Real Challenge is Ours

A common and dominant argument in discussions about the stagnation of the Arab world centers on the so-called legacy of colonialism and Orientalism. It is often said that colonial rule and Western misrepresentation of the East (Orientalism) are the primary reasons for our intellectual, political, and economic underperformance. This argument, however, is deeply flawed—not because colonialism did not happen, but because it is used as an excuse rather than a challenge to overcome.

If colonialism and Orientalism were insurmountable obstacles, then no previously colonized nation would have progressed. Yet history tells a different story. China, Malaysia, South Korea and Indonesia were all subjected to colonialism and external ideological pressures, yet they rose above these challenges. The difference was not in the degree of oppression they faced, but in their ability to develop linguistic and intellectual tools that allowed them to absorb, analyze, and transform knowledge into action. These nations refused to define themselves as victims of history and instead took control of their own narratives and futures.

The Arab world, however, has embraced a defeatist strategy, one that keeps us trapped in the rhetoric of passive victimhood. Instead of analyzing our internal structural weaknesses, we continuously blame external forces—be it colonialism, Western intervention, or global conspiracies. This mindset does not lead to progress; it only ensures perpetual stagnation. We have turned colonialism from a historical event into an eternal excuse, a justification for why we cannot move forward rather than a challenge to be tackled.

The truth is colonialism did not create our linguistic crisis—our own linguistic system did. Even before European colonization, Arabic had already developed a deep divide between the classical written form and the spoken dialects. We have been for centuries a collection of limited language societies. Colonial rule may have introduced new political realities, but it did not create the fundamental linguistic schism that limits the Arab world’s ability to generate and disseminate knowledge effectively. The solution is not in endlessly debating the "legacy of colonialism" but in reforming our linguistic structures to create a system that enables intellectual and societal progress.

The societies that find solutions to their challenges are the ones that survive and thrive. The societies that succumb to defeatist rhetoric remain trapped in cycles of dependency, resentment, and stagnation. The Arab world must make a choice: to continue playing the role of a historical victim, or to take active control of its intellectual and linguistic future. The only way forward is to develop a linguistic and educational system that empowers people to engage with knowledge, innovate, and progress—without waiting for external circumstances to change.

The legacy of colonialism and Orientalism is just one of many historical challenges. But history does not decide our future—our ability to articulate solutions and implement them does. Societies that take charge of their linguistic and intellectual destinies move forward. Those that remain fixated on external blame remain in hibernation. It is time to wake up

Epilogue: Beyond the End of History

Ibn Khaldoun was interested in developing a grand theory to explain the rise and fall of civilizations. For him, language was a key factor in this dynamic process. It plays a crucial role in shaping social cohesion, cultural identity, and intellectual development. He believed that a society’s ability to sustain itself and thrive is directly linked to the integrity and sophistication of its language. This is evident from his discussions about the importance of linguistic purity and the negative impact of linguistic corruption on social unity and governance.

This book continues where Ibn Khaldoun left off, exploring the profound impact of language on social development. My work is a modest attempt to continue Ibn Khaldoun’s quest, yet it entails a strong thesis: Today, language is the primary factor (rather than just one of many factors) determining the success or decline of a society, country, or civilization. Everything else can be considered a temporary setback or a symptom of underlying linguistic issues.

But, where are we in history today? Is it the end of history as Hegel claimed or as Marx predicted? Discretionary time is crucial for creative and improvisational pursuits, but it is not equally distributed across the globe. Limited-language societies, in particular, struggle with limited time for such pursuits. The fact that many people have restricted expressive power shows that freedom (as the power of self-expression without restraint) has not been universally attained. Due to the kind of linguistic deficiencies I have been discussing, many societies are still grappling with complex problems that they are ill-equipped to address and solve collaboratively.

Indeed, we are far from having reached the end of history. Ongoing challenges rooted in linguistic and expressive limitations continue to shape historical developments. I do not think that the true end of history will be marked by ideological or economic convergence. It will, instead, be marked by the attainment of true freedom—when all people can fully express themselves and participate in creative and intellectual pursuits without restriction. Until then, history remains very much a work in progress.

Appendix A: Countries Facing Challenges with Multiple Dialects

In some ways, we are blessed with a simpler situation in the Arab world compared to many countries. The dialects spoken in each Arab country tend to be homogeneous, and dialects across Arab countries are mutually intelligible to varying degrees.

Some countries struggle with multiple ethnicities speaking different dialects that are not mutually intelligible and do not come from the same linguistic family. This situation is prevalent in Sub-Saharan Africa. There, multiple ethnic groups in the same nation sometimes speak different oral dialects that do not have a written form. How does the theory I have put forward in this book apply to these cases? How do we ensure native access to a standard language, one that interacts with the spoken dialects to enrich and render them suitable for sophisticated discourse? Let us discuss South Africa as an example.

The linguistic landscape of countries with multiple mutually unintelligible oral dialects that originate from different linguistic families presents a unique challenge, specifically when it comes to elevating a native language or dialect to the realm of academic discourse. South Africa is notable in this regard because it is home to 11 official languages, some of which are mutually unintelligible and stem from different linguistic families. This situation complicates the feasibility of establishing a unified language of instruction for higher education.

On close examination, we find that Bantu dialects are spoken natively by approximately 80% of the South African population. This presents both an opportunity and a challenge. If we want to remain consistent with the principles laid out in this book, then it makes sense to maintain English as one of the official languages of instruction since it is already the dominant language in higher education. However, on my account, a Bantu dialect (or perhaps a dialect synthesizing elements from multiple Bantu languages) should be developed for academic use alongside English. Systematically enhancing a Bantu dialect and integrating it into the education system will allow a significant portion of the population to gain native (or near-native) access to a sophisticated, academic language. This could, in turn, serve as a catalyst for positive social development.

Malaysia’s use of both English and Malay as official languages in higher education represents a model that balances local linguistic heritage with global academic standards. Spain is another example. The Spanish have managed to provide primary, secondary, and sometimes even higher education in some of its regional dialects.

This approach is not without its challenges, and further reflection is required to address potential challenges. That said, the benefits of creating a native academic language will be profound. The case of South Africa illustrates the complexities of such an endeavor, but it also highlights the possibilities that emerge when national educational policy prioritizes linguistic development. Successful cases where multiple oral dialects prevail while the general population gains native access to a standard language used in higher education offer a blueprint for others to follow.

Historically, many countries have undertaken a primary developmental effort related to achieving universal literacy. Although this endeavor has exhibited notable progress, the economic outcomes have often been mixed. I have argued that literacy must be in the native language (or a closely related language) and that this language must be suitably developed for academic discourse. To become innovative and advance toward modernity, it is essential for societies to transform from the limited language to the script-native model.

This project might seem daunting; yet, but it holds the promise of radical transformation in the long run. In cases where multiple oral languages have no (or a limited) written equivalent or are only suitable for primary or secondary education, a workable solution could involve the following:

Group the languages by linguistic families.
Within each group, choose the predominant dialect and develop it to a level that is suitable for higher education. If it is not yet written, then develop a script and begin gradually teaching it, starting with primary education.
If the group has too many dialects and no prevailing one, then develop a synthetic language based on these dialects.
If there are multiple groups, then apply the same process to each one. This might require more than one standard national language.

Examples like Norway, Malaysia, and Belgium illustrate how more than one language (including some synthetic ones) can be used as standard national languages and/or for higher education. Even smaller societies can aspire to elevate their spoken dialects to a level that is suitable for academic discourse. Iceland, for example, has a population of only 300,000 and uses its national language in universities.

As noted, achieving the goal I have outlined will undoubtedly be challenging. It is, nonetheless, possible. Typically, intensive authorship in the new languages, or translations into those languages, will be necessary to infuse them with new vocabulary and expressions. This will, in turn, enhance their expressive power.

Traditionally, this process has taken generations (sometimes centuries). However, modern technology—specifically AI—offers the possibility of a faster turnaround. An oral language typically has a vocabulary of 10,000 to 20,000 words, while a language that is suitable for higher education requires at least 50,000. Assisted by linguistic experts, AI might be able to significantly aid in generating a culturally relevant and linguistically natural vocabulary for a dialect’s speakers. If so, then what once took up to a century to evolve generically might now be achieved in two to three decades. This will, however, require great dedication and effort, not to mention collaboration and perseverance.

Appendix B: Advanced Economies Speaking Non-Script Dialects

In this appendix, I will examine three kinds of cases: (a) China, Japan, and South Korea, (b) Swiss-German society, and (c) Finland. My objective in exploring these cases is to analyze societies that have modernized despite a significant portion of the population speaking an oral language without a written form.

China, Japan, and South Korea

Countries like China, Japan, and South Korea use a standard written language for education, government, and formal communication. However, this language is based on a dialect that only part of the population speaks naturally. A significant portion of the populations in these countries speak non-script dialects during daily life—dialects that do not have a direct written form or are not used for formal purposes. Despite this linguistic diversity, these countries have modernized and developed into advanced economies. How can this be explained in the context of my theory? At least two factors stand out: (1) natural exposure to a standard language and (2) permeability.

Natural exposure to Standard Language

In China, Japan, and South Korea, speakers of non-script dialects can acquire the standard language with native or near-native command. A standard language is a widely accepted and codified form of a language used for official, educational, and formal communication in a country. It typically has a set grammar, vocabulary, and spelling conventions, which serve as a benchmark for correctness and a unifying tool among speakers of various dialects. This is largely due to being exposed to a base population that naturally speaks the standard language during everyday conversations. The presence of this naturally fluent base serves as a model for others to emulate. This enables the standard language’s widespread adoption across different regions and dialect groups. Such a situation contrasts sharply with the Arab world, where there is no base population for Classical Arabic. As such, Arabic speakers do not have the opportunity to naturally acquire the standard language (in the way that Chinese, Japanese, and South Koreans can). The result is a persistent gap between spoken dialects and the standard language.

Permeability

In a linguistic context, permeability refers to the ability of a language or dialect to absorb and incorporate elements from another related language or dialect. (These elements include vocabulary, expressions, and grammatical structures.) When a dialect is permeable in relation to a standard language, it can easily borrow and integrate the required elements. This enriches the dialect's expressive capacity and allows it to evolve alongside the standard language.

Dialects in China, Japan, and South Korea are highly permeable with the standard language. The result is that the former are capable of conveying sophisticated and nuanced ideas, and this makes them suitable for universalistic speech. Arabic dialects, in contrast, lack permeability with Classical Arabic. This lack of permeability results in limited vocabulary and expressive power, rendering the dialects inadequate for complex or abstract communication.

The ability of Chinese, Japanese, and South Korean dialects to enrich themselves through permeability with their respective standard languages has profound implications for both linguistic and cultural development. The enriched dialects not only facilitate more effective communication within these societies but also support a high level of intellectual and cultural exchange. This contrasts with the Arab world, where dialects remain largely isolated from the standard language (Classical Arabic). Such a scenario underscores the role native command of a naturally spoken script language plays in fostering a rich, expressive, and cohesive cultural environment.

Swiss-German Society

Swiss-Germans speak Swiss-German in daily life—a dialect that is not written. They nonetheless have native or near-native fluency in standard German, which is used for writing. This fluency is largely due to Swiss-Germans’ natural exposure to a base population that natively speaks Standard German. Here, the base population serves as a model for others to emulate. Swiss-Germans can, then, acquire standard German in a relatively natural manner. This contrasts with the Arab world, where the written language is a learned and non-native form with no natural base population.

Swiss-German and standard German are also closely related, which allows for the fluid interchange of expressions and vocabulary. This permeability enables Swiss-Germans to borrow and integrate sophisticated linguistic elements from standard German, thereby enhancing expressive capacity. In this way, Swiss-German becomes a dynamic and adaptable form of communication. It is enriched by its relationship with the written standard language and capable of conveying complex ideas.

Finland

In Finnish society, people speak various native dialects during daily interactions—dialects that do not have a direct written equivalent. For formal occasions and writing, they use a synthetic standard language developed from the native dialects. Despite being synthetic, this standard language is closely tied to the spoken dialects through shared phonological and lexical features.

The permeability between the standard language and the spoken dialects further enhances this relationship. Finns can easily borrow expressions from the written standard language and incorporate them into the spoken dialects. As before, this enriches everyday communication with suitably complex vocabulary and ideas.

Appendix C: Transitions from Limited-Language to Script-Native Societies

Many of the countries that have made the difficult and bold decision to adopt a native language as the language of administration and upper-tier education had low literacy rates around the middle of the last century. Nations like South Korea, China, Indonesia, Turkey, Malaysia, and Vietnam were emerging from periods of significant political upheaval and instability, with literacy rates often around 20% or 30% during the 1950s.

These countries recognized that improving literacy was essential for both national development and fostering a strong, unified national identity. Their governments not only focused on raising literacy rates but also took the crucial step of using a native language for administration and higher education. In just a few generations, they are either well on their way or have already achieved the development envisioned in their language and education policies. In the ensuing decades, these nations embarked on a deliberate and sustained effort to elevate their national languages to the requisite level. This was not an overnight transformation. It required long-term commitment and consistent government policies aimed at promoting the use of the national spoken language in all tiers of education, from primary schools to universities.

The results of these efforts are now evident. Countries like South Korea, China, Turkey, and Malaysia have achieved remarkable success while using their national languages across all sectors, including science and technology. Others, like Indonesia and Vietnam, are, similarly, making significant developmental strides. These success stories demonstrate that, although the journey is long and challenging, there are significant rewards related to promoting a native national language to the level of upper-tier education. Doing so paves the way for social cohesion, economic development, and national pride.

South Korea

Mid-20th century situation: In the early 1950s, South Korea had a literacy rate of around 22% to 30% and was recovering from the devastation of the Korean War. The country faced significant political and economic instability.
Government language program: After the war, the South Korean government launched widespread education reforms. As part of its nation-building strategy, it promoted the use of spoken Korean (Hangul) at all levels of education, including higher education.
Current economic situation: Today, South Korea is a highly developed economy with near-universal literacy. The country excels in sectors like technology, manufacturing, and education, with Korean firmly established as the language of choice in academia and industry.

China

Mid-20th century situation: In the 1950s, China had a literacy rate of around 20% and was emerging from the Chinese Civil War. There was widespread poverty and political instability under the newly established communist government.
Government language program: The Chinese government initiated widespread literacy campaigns. This involved standardizing spoken Mandarin as the national language and promoting its use in education and scientific research.
Current economic situation: China is now the world’s second-largest economy, with near-universal literacy. Spoken Mandarin is the dominant language in all sectors, including upper education, technology, and trade.

Turkey

Mid-20th century situation: In the 1950s, Turkey had a literacy rate of about 33% and was undergoing a transition from the early Republic era. There were notable efforts to modernize and stabilize the country, both politically and economically.
Government language program: Under Mustafa Atatürk’s reforms, the Turkish government had already begun replacing the Arabic script with Latin and promoting spoken Turkish as the language of administration and education. These efforts were then extended to higher education.
Current economic situation: Turkey has since achieved significant economic development, becoming an upper-middle-income country. Turkish is firmly established in education and governance, thereby contributing to national unity and economic progress.

Indonesia

Mid-20th century situation: In the 1950s, Indonesia had a literacy rate around 10% to 15%. The country was newly independent and faced the challenge of unifying a diverse population and stabilizing the political landscape.
Government language program: The government adopted Bahasa Indonesia as the national language and began promoting its use in education and administration (although implementation in higher education and sciences has been gradual).
Current economic situation: Indonesia has become one of Southeast Asia’s fastest-growing economies, with a literacy rate exceeding 95%. Bahasa Indonesia is being increasingly used in education (although English still dominates in certain fields).

Vietnam

Mid-20th century situation: Vietnam in the 1950s had a literacy rate of around 10% to 15% and was embroiled in the First Indochina War. The country was divided and faced significant political and social upheaval.
Government language program: After reunification in 1975, the government began abandoning French and promoting literacy nationwide. Standardized Vietnamese—specifically the dialect spoken in Hanoi—became the language of instruction across all levels of education. This was part of a broader government language program aimed at unifying the country and elevating the national language to a central role in education and administration.
Current economic situation: With a literacy rate of over 95%, Vietnam is now one of the most dynamic economies in Southeast Asia. Vietnamese is used across all tiers of education, thereby contributing to the country’s rapid development.

Malaysia

Mid-20th century situation: In the mid-20th century, Malaysia had a literacy rate of around 40%. Following independence in 1957, the country aimed to foster national unity and reduce the reliance on English (introduced during colonization).
Government language program: For its national language, the Malaysian government adopted Bahasa Melayu (Malay), based on the spoken dialect of the Malay ethnic group. Malay replaced English in most areas. It was also standardized and made the language of instruction across all levels of education.
Current economic situation: By adopting a standardized national language in education and administration, Vietnam positioned itself for rapid economic growth. This ultimately helped elevate the country to the rank of an upper-middle-income nation.

Although most nations have developed language policies, the case studies in this appendix demonstrate how embracing and elevating a national language engenders true progress and modernization. Countries that have chosen to widely adopt their native language for administration and education are on their way to modernity (even if they cannot be fully compared to West European nations that made this transition centuries ago). In stark contrast, nations that continue to rely solely on a colonial, foreign, or ancestral language for administration and higher education are hindered in their pursuit of modernity. The evidence is clear: A society can only fully unlock its potential and achieve lasting progress by empowering its own vernacular language.

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