Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of illustrations
- List of tables
- Acknowledgements
- 1 Introduction
- 2 Language, power and conflict in the Middle East
- 3 When language and dialects collide: Standard Arabic and its ‘opponents’
- 4 When dialects collide: language and conflict in Jordan
- 5 When languages collide: language and conflict in Palestine and Israel
- 6 Language and conflict in the Middle East: a conclusion
- Appendix 1
- Appendix 2
- References
- Index
- Cambridge Middle East Studies 19
1 - Introduction
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of illustrations
- List of tables
- Acknowledgements
- 1 Introduction
- 2 Language, power and conflict in the Middle East
- 3 When language and dialects collide: Standard Arabic and its ‘opponents’
- 4 When dialects collide: language and conflict in Jordan
- 5 When languages collide: language and conflict in Palestine and Israel
- 6 Language and conflict in the Middle East: a conclusion
- Appendix 1
- Appendix 2
- References
- Index
- Cambridge Middle East Studies 19
Summary
Books have strange histories. This one is no exception. There is no doubt, however, that it is motivated by a combination of personal and professional interests. On the personal level, political conflict has touched my life on many occasions and in very tangible ways.
As a Palestinian Arab now living in the diaspora, I have grappled with the reality of conflict from afar, almost on a daily basis. But I have also been trying to make sense of my own identity. For the exile, parenthood accentuates these concerns in a myriad of ways. When, at an early age, my elder son asked me whether he should play for Palestine or Scotland in any World Cup final, I knew he was grappling with his own identity. The fact that there is no hope, I should perhaps say danger, of that happening in my lifetime or even his – although they say miracles do happen – does not negate the validity of his question. The question about football was in fact a question about ‘Who am I?’, a proxy for concerns of an existential kind. And when my children used to ask how a country (Palestine) could exist if it is not on the map, I knew that models of reality could be more meaningful than acts of memory and the mental images the imagination can conjure. I owe my interest in maps as cartographic-linguistic texts to these family encounters.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- A War of WordsLanguage and Conflict in the Middle East, pp. 1 - 6Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2004