Department of Middle Eastern Languages | Языковой Центр

Department of Middle Eastern Languages

The Department of the Middle Eastern Languages Region of the Center of European and Asian Languages is a specialized department, which provides education in the field of Arabic language, as well as the culture and history of the Arab countries, including an introduction to the Islamic studies, which is an integral part of Arab-Muslim culture. The Department is also planning to launch courses in Hebrew, Farsi and Turkish languages.

The department was founded in February, 2021.The teachers are well-experienced tutors of Moscow State University. The department employs latest practices in the teaching process, while continue to maintain the teaching traditions of one of the oldest universities in the country.

Our teachers have completed internships abroad, and they are regularly searching for the most successful teaching models based on the examples of Russian and foreign higher educational institutions.

The important strategic directions of the department’s work are:

  • organization of innovative programs in Arabic language and regional studies of the Arab countries;
  • extension of the department by opening courses  of Turkish, Hebrew and Farsi languages with the corresponding regional studies;
  • organization of courses “Introduction to Islamic Studies” within the courses of the Middle East region history and culture;
  • establishing contacts with leading universities in the Arab countries, preparing students for internships to immerse themselves in the Arabic language;
  • establishing partnership with centers conducting intellectual competitions in the Arabic language in Russia and abroad, subsequent preparation of students for the competitions;
  • development of the scientific and methodological potential of the department staff.
Gerasimova Arina Andreevna

Head of the Department of Middle Eastern Languages

In 2018, Arina graduated from the Institute of Asian and African Studies of the Lomonosov Moscow State University with the philological specialization. In 2020 she defended her master's thesis on experimental phonetics of the Arabic language. 

Gerasimova Arina Andreevna
Head of the Department of Middle Eastern Languages

In 2018, Arina graduated from the Institute of Asian and African Studies of the Lomonosov Moscow State University with the philological specialization. In 2020 she defended her master’s thesis on experimental phonetics of the Arabic language. 

Currently, she continues her scientific development doing PhD at the Department of Arabic Philology. Also in 2019, Arina completed an internship at the Sultan Qaboos University — جامعة السلطان قابوس (Muscat, Oman).

Among her professional interests are such disciplines as the philology of Arabic language and general linguistics, Islamic and Koranic studies, history and regional studies of the countries of the Middle East region. Arina’s knowledge and experience about the culture of the region has been gained during multiple visits to Arab countries, which she often shares during her performances at the annual All-Russian Science Festival NAUKA 0+, supported by Moscow State University.

Arina has a wide professional experience in working with Arabic language, which she earned during her internships at the Trade Mission of the Russian Federation in Cairo in 2017 and at the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation in 2019. As part of her duties, she applied multilingual translation skills using Russian, English, and Arabic.

Arina’s scientific and pedagogical work is more than 3 years. Since 2017, she serves as a teacher of the Arabic at Lomonosov Moscow State University. She has list of publications such as “Phonetic realization of hamza in Arabic” (article, 2017), “Comparison of different styles of the Qur’anic recitation” (article, 2018),

”Basic communicative types of Arabic intonation in the Egyptian dialect” (article, 2019), “Laryngeal movements in the Arabic language” (Master’s Thesis, 2020). 

Teachers of the department