Bilingualism in North Africa

Although Arabization has many vocal champions, nothing significant has been done to change the present system. In fact, as Charles Gallagher rightly pointed out some years ago, there is very little frank discussion of the pros and cons of Arabization,' for it is a highly controversial issue with serious political implications. Meanwhile, bilingualism is becoming institutionalized and is likely to stay as a permanent fixture, whatever its drawbacks. Biculturalism has often been interpreted as the competition of two prestigious but antagonistic cultures representing irreconcilable world views. This cultural antithesis somewhat justified in the years preceding and immediately following independence has continued to be dramatized, even by western observers who write about the crisis of identity of the victims of biculturalism, their split personality, the traumatic experience of being exposed to two hostile value systems, and finally the probable showdown between secularism and the religious backlash that can be expected. These unfortunate psychological consequences may well exist, but have yet to be documented. This dramatization of the cultural conflict is to be explained in part by the genuine concern felt by the specialists of the Middle East who are keenly aware of the importance of traditional values and the often superficial impact of modernization in most Arab lands, and who are led to minimize the differences between Maghreb and Machrek, including the decisive influence of French culture. Some scholars may also be inclined to take culture as an autonomous category, relatively independent from the economic, social, and political factors that in fact constantly transform it. Most writers have been unable to appreciate the significant linguistic changes that have taken place since independence, for the simple reason that these changes are only beginning to be documented by the linguists. Let this linguistic evolution is of utmost importance in giving us some indications concerning the changing character of biculturalism and in suggesting some hypotheses concerning its sociopolitical implications hypotheses that have to remain very crude at this stage of our knowledge and perhaps can never be pursued systematically, given their politically sensitive character

Linguistics · Neuroscience of multilingualism · Political science · Sociology · Language, Linguistics, Cultural Analysis · Philosophy

• Language, education and politics in the maghreb

  Mohamed Souaiaia•Language Culture and Curriculum•1990

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• Code-switching and language change in Tunisia

  Lotfi Sayahi•International Journal of the…•2011

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