Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Expanded contents list
- List of maps, figures, and tables
- List of abbreviations
- Transcription, glosses, and transliterations
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction: language and identity in modern Egypt
- 1 Identity and beyond: setting the framework of analysis
- 2 A historical overview of the development of national identity in modern Egypt with reference to language: the formative period
- 3 “Arabic” indexes amidst a nation and a nation-state: ideologies, attitudes, and linguistic realities
- 4 Social attributes of Egyptian identity
- 5 Identity and narration in Egypt
- 6 The politics of identity and linguistic unrest: the case of the Egyptian Revolution
- 7 Conclusions
- Appendix: chronological list of songs examined
- Bibliography
- Index
3 - “Arabic” indexes amidst a nation and a nation-state: ideologies, attitudes, and linguistic realities
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 September 2014
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Expanded contents list
- List of maps, figures, and tables
- List of abbreviations
- Transcription, glosses, and transliterations
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction: language and identity in modern Egypt
- 1 Identity and beyond: setting the framework of analysis
- 2 A historical overview of the development of national identity in modern Egypt with reference to language: the formative period
- 3 “Arabic” indexes amidst a nation and a nation-state: ideologies, attitudes, and linguistic realities
- 4 Social attributes of Egyptian identity
- 5 Identity and narration in Egypt
- 6 The politics of identity and linguistic unrest: the case of the Egyptian Revolution
- 7 Conclusions
- Appendix: chronological list of songs examined
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
“Do you know how to call out in Arabic,
In the name of God and my country,
- Then surely you are the Egyptian!”
(from the song yib?a ?inta ?aki:d il-masri: (“Surely you are the Egyptian”) by Latīfah (2001))The Tunisian pop singer Latīfah has a famous song in ECA in which she defines “the Egyptian.” Her main definition of an Egyptian is one who speaks Arabic. Arabic as a classification category has been discussed in the last chapter and will recur throughout the book, especially in Chapter 6, in which I discuss how the media, during the 2011 Revolution, claimed that speaking Arabic was the primary criterion for defining “the real Egyptian.” However, the reference to Arabic in this song is both ambiguous and general. The sentence b-ism illa:h wa b-ism bila:di: (“In the name of God and my country”), when said in Arabic, is largely neutral; it is chosen intelligently to be realized almost identically in spoken SA and ECA. For an Egyptian, it does not evoke the associations of ECA, nor of SA. Tactfully, the producers of the song avoid tackling the issue of Standard Arabic versus colloquial. However, they still provide another proposition about language and identity and the close relationship between “Arabic” and the Egyptian identity, yet provide no answers about which “Arabic” is associated with identity and thus avoid the tension that occasionally exists between advocates of standard and colloquial forms of Arabic.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Language and Identity in Modern Egypt , pp. 105 - 148Publisher: Edinburgh University PressPrint publication year: 2014