A new educational model and the crisis of modern terminologies: a view of Egypt in the nineteenth century

Abstract

The beginning of modern Arab education coincided with the Arab Awakening in the nineteenth century. The modern educational system witnessed its most important developments in the Arab world, as shown by the case of Egypt, under the Ottoman Empire. Examining a new model of education as shown in the literary sources of the Arab Awakening, one finds that there were difficulties in presenting the various scientific texts in a lecture format. The students were unfamiliar with the new scientific terminologies, and the professors, in turn, did not have suitably accurate scientific terms within the Arabic language. This article discusses the crisis of terminologies that challenged the development of a new educational system. It also describes the expertise acquired by local scholars from foreign experts during their educational missions to Europe. The knowledge they gained enabled them to modernise the Arabic language upon their return. Eventually some of the terminology used within the new educational system filtered through to everyday use within the wider culture.