Arabic Sociolinguistics

Issues and Perspectives

Yasir Suleiman

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• eBook ISBN: 9781136779442
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Ethnic Studies
• Index: Social Sciences

A coherent and stimulating survey of current research.

PART ONE

IDENTITY AND LOYALTY

1

NATIONALISM AND THE ARABIC LANGUAGE: AN HISTORICAL OVERVIEW^*

Yasir Suleiman

Introduction

In his preface to Jaroslav Stetkevych’s book The Modern Arabic Literary Language (1970) William Polk writes (xviii):

“It is easy for speakers of English, secure in the imperialism or even colonialism of their language- conquering and settling, as it were, whole vocabularies of German, French … and Arabic- to scorn what appears to be puerile or at least pedantic defensive linguistics. Secure in the far-flung domain of our language, we cannot really understand the desperate defensiveness of those who stand against us. Is not language, after all, merely a means of communication, and, as such, to be judged merely in pragmatic terms? If a better means is available, should it not be adopted? Can there be any real virtue in maintaining inefficient, … or … obsolete languages? To the defenders of other languages, the case appears quite differently … [They] have found in those languages not merely a means of communication but the genius of their nationhood.”

The treatment of language as the core ingredient and the most prominent manifestation of nationalism is characteristic of Arabic discourse on the topic. In spelling out the content of this position, the Arab nationalists adopt as an article of supreme faith the view that language is not just a means of communication, of conveying messages between interlocutors, but a most eloquent symbol of group identity (Edwards 1985) and one whose ultimate strength lies in its ability to provide the cultural and instrumental backbone of the group’s legitimate objective of furthering its ethnocultural self-interest. This participant at the 1983 symposium on the ‘Arabic Language and the Nationalist Awareness’ (al-Lugha al-‘Arabiyya wa al-Wa‘y al-Qawmī, 1984) held in Baghdad. One contributor, Muḥammad Jābir al-Fayyāḍ (ibid.), indirectly likens the function of the Arabic language in the construction of Arab nationalism to that of the air the Arabs breathe or the water on which their life so crucially depends. He then goes on to say that any attack on the Arabic language represents an all-out attack on every aspect of Arab culture. In the Arab nationalist discourse the universal theme that language cannot be separated from culture, in the same way as culture cannot be separated from language, is imbued with meanings whose significance encompasses a broad spectrum of issues- particularly the role of the glorious Arab past, with its proud achievements in the human sciences- as the dominant authenticating base and legitimising infrastructure. Accessing culture through language thus becomes an exploration of the contribution of the medium and an articulation of the very essence of its content. Arab nationalism as a modernizing force is dynamically and inextricably rooted in this conception of the role of language in the life of the people; it is thus equipped with the durable ability to transcend the vast fluctuations in political fortunes which have befallen it over the past few decades.

In dealing with the relationship between Arabic and Arab Nationalism in the 19th and 20th century I shall proceed as follows. I shall first deal with the early beginnings of Arab nationalism, including the role of external factors and the Turkification policies in the last years of the Ottoman Empire in developing a heightened nationalist awareness in the core part of the Arab Middle East. I shall then examine the basic tenets of Arab nationalism as formulated by al-Ḥuṣrī, the most prominent thinker of this ideology in the 20th century, and the antinationalist response to Arab nationalism in Egypt and Greater Syria. Finally I shall examine the impact on this interaction between language and nationalism of the recent resurgence of Islamic Orthodoxy which gripped, and is still gripping, parts of the Arab World. Throughout Arab nationalism is set squarely in its linguistic context, just as Arabic is set in its nationalist context.

In developing these themes nothing will be said concerning the interaction between nationalism and the Arabic language in North Africa in the colonialist period, and how this situation unfolded in the post-independence era in Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia. This is a vast topic and one of immense linguistic and political significance which deserves separate treatment (see Holt in this volume)

Arabic in the Pre-Nationalist Stage: External Impulses

The ideology of Arab nationalism- in its most abiding formulation as a Pan-movement whose ultimate goal is to transcend the boundaries of the individual nation-states which make up the Arab World to form an extended national state-developed in the first half of the twentieth century. Its staunchest proponent was Sāṭi‘ al-Ḥuṣrī who wrote extensively on the subject. However the roots of Arab nationalism go back to 1798, the date of Napoleon’s expedition to Egypt, and the coming to power in 1805 of Muḥammad ‘Alī who vigorously promoted a programme of social reforms in the country based on the increased contact between the Egyptian elite and Western culture as represented by France. Recognising the importance of Arabic as a group-solidarity symbol and its capacity to serve as an instrument for challenging the dominance of the Turkish elite, the Mamlukes and the Ottomans, in the affairs of the state, it is not surprising that Napoleon brought with him to Egypt the first Arabic printing press to publicise his message and that he cunningly chose to encode his first proclamation to the people of Egypt in Arabic, beginning it with the religious formula “In the Name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful: there is no God but God” (Tibi : 1981:54). The dye was cast: here we have the first real attempt by the Europeans to resort to Arabic as a means of, not so much articulating a nationalist ideology on behalf of the Arabs, but as an effective instrument for displaying the ‘otherness’ of the Ottomans and for weakening the dependence on common faith in Islam as a factor which brings the Arabs and the Turks together.

The increased consciousness of the importance of Arabic as an associative and affiliative bond between the Arabic-speaking people received a second boost as a result of the work of the Western missionaries in the Levant in the 19th century. In stark contrast to the French missions, which openly and uncompromisingly pursued a determined policy of French self-interest, revolving around the promotion of the French language chiefly among the Maronites, the American Protestant and the Russian Orthodox missions initially chose to deliver their message through the medium of Arabic. In his work on the genesis of Arab nationalism, Bassam Tibi explains the basis for the practice of the American Protestants as follows (ibid:74):

“… since Protestantism situates Christianity firmly within the vernacular, the American missionaries learnt Arabic. The missions also employed Arab scholars on a new evangelical translation of the Bible into Arabic. In addition they encouraged a number of other scholars who were attempting to revitalise the Arabic language, and with their help religious texts were written in Arabic for use in the mission schools. The American missionaries naturally worked in Arabic because this brought greater and more obvious success. The revitalisation of Arabic also meant the revitalisation of the national culture, and thus the creation of a new national identity”.

The motives of the Russian Orthodox church in supporting Arabic were rather different. As one of the primary objectives of Czarist Russia was that of challenging the control which the Greeks exercised over the Eastern church, they gave their support to the lower ranks of the clergy who were predominantly of Arab origin. This Russian policy inadvertently lead to the promotion of Arabic within the Church, which, in turn, found itself having to compete with the American Protestant missions in their fruitful emphasis on the ‘vernacular’ as a means of achieving success in their activities. Not even the French missions were able to ignore this success, for, at least for a time, they thought it prudent to include Arabic as one of the subjects in their school curicula.

It is clear from the above discussion that the roots of the Arab nationalist idea in its prenationalist stage were underpinned by the increasing contact between the Arabic-speaking peoples, mainly Christians in the Levant, and European culture. To this we may add that the early impulses of Arab nationalism were influenced, at least on the emotional level, by the success of the Balkan nations in achieving their independence from Ottoman rule in the 19th century. The important and unifying role of language as a symbol of national identity in the struggle of these nations for independence was not lost on the Arabic-speaking elite in their efforts to promote the interests of their people, whether within or outside the Ottoman Empire. However the major impetus in the development of the Arab nationalist idea at the beginning of the 20th century came from the aggressive policy of Turkification, adopted by the Young Turks after their arrival to power in 1908. This policy is most vividly represented in the vigorous and repressive promotion of the Turkish language at the expense of Arabic in the Arabic-speaking lands in the Fertile Crescent.

Turkification, Arab Nationalism and the Arabic Language

In his book Min Ḥāḍir al-Lugha al-‘Arabiyya (‘The Arabic Language Situation’, 1971) Sa‘īd al-Afghānī, a leading Syrian linguist of the classical persuasion, outlines some of the policies of Turkification which were implemented in Syria at the beginning of the 20th century, and the responses they elicited from the educated elite. In promoting their policy the Young Turks decreed that Turkish was the language of instruction in the government sponsored schools in all subjects, including the teaching of Arabic. Thus Arabic was taught through the medium of Turkish by Turkish teachers whose command of the Arabic language was less than adequate. Prince Muṣtafā al-Shihābī, who attended a government secondary school in Damascus for one year at the beginning of this century, reports that his Turkish Arabic language teacher spoke Arabic with a Turkish accent, and that he had a very limited command of its complex morphology or its rules of gender agreement (ibid:93). Pupils at the government schools were not allowed to use Arabic among themselves, even during their free time. Those who were unlucky enough to fall foul of this rule, whether consciously or accidentally, were punished. Teachers of Arabic were paid less than teachers of other subjects. Employment opportunities in the government sector, except in the Department of Religious Endowments (awqāf), were geared towards school graduates who knew Turkish, and knew it well. The Arabic names of some mosques, particularly those of the four rightly-guided Caliphs, were removed and replaced by the names of the presumed ancestors of the Turks, for example Jankīz Khān, Hūlākō and Taimūrlink (al-Daqqāq n.d.:48). These and other practices cast doubt on the commitment of the Ottomans to even continue with the pretence that Islam was sufficient to unite the Arabs and the Turks within the Empire. Derision and abuse were hurled on the Arabs and their language, with the attack being lead by two newspapers “Iqdām” and “Ṭanīn”. The latter newspaper was launched by an ex-governor of Dīwāniyya, outside Baghdad, who wrote in the said newspaper how shocked he was to find that none of the town people could speak Turkish; the idea of course did not cross his mind that he could be at fault for not knowing any Arabic, the language of his charges.

The Response to Turkification: Promotion of Standard Arabic

The Arabs’ response to the policy of Turkification took different forms. On the linguistic front, the response crystalised in the form of repeated calls for the revitalisation of the Arabic language and for its use as the language of education and administration in the Arabic-speaking parts of the Ottoman Empire. The conference of Arab activists which took place in Paris in 1913 demanded the use of Arabic, instead of Turkish, as the medium of instruction in all the primary schools in the provinces of the Fertile Crescent. It also called for the building of new secondary schools in which Arabic would be the medium of instruction, leaving Turkish as the language of teaching in the old government schools in what appears to have been a conciliatory attempt at placating the Ottoman authorities. As a result of these demands, and the agreement which was reached between the Arab activists and the Ottoman authorities, two secondary schools were started, one in Damascus and the other in Beirut. Although Arabic was adopted as the language of instruction in these schools, this experiment ran into the ground very quickly soon after the start of World War I.

The aim of promoting the Arabic language was also pursued by the many cultural societies which were established to achieve this and other related objectives, including al-Muntadā al-Adabī (1909), al-‘Arabiyya al-Fatā (1911), al-‘Ahd (1913) and al-Nahḍa (1907). The latter was the most active of these societies. The second article in the constitution of this society explicitly states that one of its aims is the active promotion of the Arabic language. In implementing this policy statement the Nahda society took the following steps, some of which are notable more for their symbolic value than for their wide-spread applicability: (1) instilling the love of Arabic in the hearts and minds of the young Arabs living in Istanbul, and teaching them the mother tongue to eliminate the interference from Turkish in their speech; (2) giving weekly lectures in standard Arabic and holding weekly seminars in which Arabic language texts were read and discussed in the standard; (3) performing plays in the standard; (4) replacing the customary Persian/Turkish numbers in backgammon by their A...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• CONTENTS
• Names of Contributors
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• Part One: IDENTITY AND LOYALTY
• Part Two: ASPECTS OF LINGUISTIC BEHAVIOUR
• Part Three: VARIETIES AND VARIATION
• Part Four: THEORETICAL ISSUES