• Corpus ID: 155999440

Linguistic Policies and the issue of ethno-linguistic minorities in the Middle East *

@inproceedings{Miller2003LinguisticPA,
  title={Linguistic Policies and the issue of ethno-linguistic minorities in the Middle East *},
  author={Catherine Miller},
  year={2003}
}

• Catherine Miller
• Published 2003
• Sociology

Summary In the last decades (i.e. since the 1950s and 1960s), many minorities in the Middle East have been advocating or fighting for their linguistic rights. On the other hand, the majority of Arab countries have tried to impose a quasi monolingual policy in favor of Arabic language. If the languages of the former colonial powers are still playing an important role, those of the nonArab communities have always been marginalized on the basis of nationalistic and religious arguments. Focusing mainly on Egypt and Sudan, this paper attempts to identify the historical roots of the current linguistic policies and to assess their impact and implications for identity formation and national cohesion. The present monolithic linguistic policies are inherited mainly from a narrow conception of nationalism with Arabism being the dominant ideological model. Although it is not always easy to establish a clear distinction between Arabism and Islamism when dealing with the issue of Arab nationalism it appears that Islam, as a religion, did not play a decisive role in the linguistic choices of the modern Arab and Middle Eastern States. In many cases, the linguistic and cultural policies in favor of Arabization have been implemented by secular States (the Nasserist regime in Egypt, the Baathiste regime in Syria and Irak, the FLN in Algeria) but religious references were also explicitly made to acquire more legacy. It is therefore a combination of secular nationalism and modern political islamism that fed most official discourses supporting Arabization. The Arabization policies failed to ensure national consensus and national unity in a number of Arab countries with sizeable non-Arab minorities. This political failure have urge some governments (Morocco, Algeria, Sudan) to recently officially adopt a more tolerant attitude towards the non-Arab component of their society.