CAIRO-ON Tuesday night, Dar el-Shorouk bookshop in the upmarket quarter of Zamalek was the venue for a special cultural event, the first of its kind in Egypt and the rest of the Middle East. The opening ceremony marked the release of the first edition of The Basic Japanese-Arabic Dictionary. Many Arabic-language speakers learning the Japanese language and fascinated by the Japanese culture have been waiting 60 years for this dictionary! The Japan Foundation Cairo Office has had this dictionary published, as part of its programme for translating Japanese books into Arabic and distributing them, in cooperation with Dar el-Shorouk, the world's leading Arabic publisher and distributor. The Japan Foundation, an independent administrative institution, was established in 1972 by the Japanese government to carry out international cultural exchange programmes, with a view to deepening the mutual understanding between Japan and other nations. "We are grateful to Dar el-Shorouk for publishing this dictionary. I say ‘Mabrouk and Shokran' [Congratulations and Thank you]!" said Ambassador of Japan in Cairo Kaoru Ishikawa. "We [Egypt and Japan] must engage in cultural exchange. We must preserve our culture and also maintain a balance between the tsunami of globalisation and our culture and civilisation," he stressed. Egypt and Japan enjoy strategic, economic, political and cultural relations, but more needs to be done in the field of translation, as Ibrahim el- Moallem, the chairman and founder of Shorouk Group, believes. "Cultural relations are the most important area of growth between Egypt and Japan. However, the exchange of translations and missions between the two countries is unfortunately still lacking. We need more," el- Moallem told The Egyptian Gazette. "Imagine that the last famous work of Arabic literature translated into Japanese was late Nobel laureate Naguib Mahfouz's Bein el-Qasreen [Palace Walk] 30 years ago!" El-Moallem said that Dar el-Shorouk, established in 1968, was eager to translate Japanese literature into Arabic, as it had already done with four children's books. According to him, there are a number of agreements for translating Arabic literature into Japanese and vice versa. The 980-page dictionary features 2,981 modern items, all used in everyday conversation, with a number of examples for every item. It also has a simplified and clear introduction to Japanese grammar. The dictionary has been translated by four professors at the Department of Japanese Language and Literature, the Faculty of Arts, Cairo University: Essam Hamza, Walid Ibrahim, Alaa Eddin Soliman and Ihab Ebeid. “Five years ago, The Japan Foundation in Cairo Office asked me to form a group of young Japanese lecturers to translate the basic Japanese-Japanese dictionary, which the Foundation has, into Arabic,” Professor of Japanese Studies Isam Hamza told The Gazette. This dictionary, he added, will help 5,000 students in Egypt and a similar number of students studying Japanese in the rest of the Arab world. “The number of Japanese-language students is increasing and more Japanese studies departments are opening at State-run and private universities. This standard dictionary will help them, until they are proficient enough to use a Japanese-Japanese dictionary,” he stressed. Masato Furuya, the Director of Japan Foundation in Cairo Office, said that the dictionary was far cheaper than the original ones, “so students can afford to buy it”. “I hope this dictionary helps anybody interested in Japan and cultural exchange activities between Egypt and Japan,” he told this newspaper. “The Japan Foundation continues to support the projects to translate and publish Japanese books into Arabic,” he added. The Basic Japanese-Arabic Dictionary Published by Dar el-Shorouk 980 pages LE75
