Democratic and Popular Republic of Algeria Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research University of Oran
Faculty of Letters Languages and Arts Anglo-Saxon Language Department English Section Language Management and Marketing in Algeria
Doctorate Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfillment for the Requirements of the Degree of Doctor in Sociolinguistics Submitted by Supervised by Louafia Boukreris Pr. Bouhadiba Farouk
Board of examiners Chairman Bouamrane Ali Professor Professor University University of Oran of Oran Supervisor Bouhadiba Farouk Professor Professor University University of ofOran Oran Examiner Hocine Nacéra Professor Professor University University of of Annaba Annaba Examiner Benali Mohamed Rachid MaitreMaitre dede conferenceconference AA UniversityUniversity ofof OranOran Examiner Benmoussat Ismail Professor Professor University University of of Tlemcen Tlemcen Examiner Dendane Zoubir MaitreMaitre dede conferenceconference AA UniversityUniversity ofof TlemcenTlemcen
Academic year 2010-2011
Dedicated to
My dear mother
My dear brothers and sisters
My dear friends
Mostefa Zoulikha ,Leila Moulfi, and Zitouni Mimouna
And my dear colleagues
With love…
This thesis is dedicated to you all
I
Acknowledgements
In a project of this nature, there are always some people who have contributed directly or indirectly to its completion, and thus, to all of these people, many of whom are not mentioned, I owe great debts of gratitude. May the almighty God richly bless them?
First, my very special thanks go to my supervisor and academic adviser, Prof. Farouk Bouhadiba who went beyond the call of duty to give generously his time to offer help during the various stages of my doctoral research. I am most grateful for his constructive criticism, unbounded patience, and interest without which this study would never have reached this stage. I owe him a major debt for having stimulated further thoughts to complement the subject matter of my dissertation.
My special thanks go also to Professor Ali Bouamrane, my principal magister thesis supervisor, who advised me in a continual way on how to get on with my research work. It would not have been possible to write this doctoral thesis without Professor’s Ali Bouamrane prior academic support, help, and patience he offered to initiate me to sociolinguistic research. This has paved me the way to further doctoral research. Thus, the personal and intellectual debts that I owe him as well as my mere expressions of thanks likewise do not suffice.
I would like also to thank Dr. Zoulikha Mostefa SBA for her help, and critical reading of my first draft, and the valuable comments, and advice she offered me.
My thanks go also Dr. Leila Moulfi for her encouragement, help, and support at times when she was more than submerged with some duties.
I wish also to thank my colleague, Zitouni Mimouna, who offered her assistance during the printing phase of my work.
My profound thanks go to all the members of my board of examiners.
II
List of acronyms and abbreviations CA : Classical Arabic MSA: Modern Standard Arabic SA: Spoken Arabic FR: French EU: European Union LL: Linguistic Landscape HRM: Human Resource Management Engco: English Company
List of figures Figure 1: Language Planning Policy Approach………………………………………..96 Figure 2: The world hierarchy of languages…………………………………………..171 Figure 3: Major world languages in the future………………………………………..172 Figure 4: Language management organization……………………………………….210 Figure 5: the education and economic interrelations………………………………….211
III
List of Maps Map 1: Arabic and Berber language layout……………………………………………26 Map 2: Arabic speaking majorities……………………………………………………..27 Map 3: Distribution of the Amazigh varieties…………………………………………32 Map 4: The distribution of the Berber communities…………………………………...34 Map 5: Linguistic communities in Belgium...………………………………………….38
List of tables Table 1: Arabic language varieties …………………………………………………….31 Table 2: The ethnic communities in Algeria…………………………………………...35 Table 3: School infrastructure 1962-1992..………………………………………….. 141 Table 4: Evolution of the Algerian teaching staff…………………………………….141 Table 5: Schooling, infrastructure and teaching staff.………………………………...142 Table 6: schooling development of children………………………………………….142 Table 7: Schooling of girls …………………………………………………………...142 Table 8: primary and secondary school infrastructure from 1964-2000 …………...... 143 Table 9: the EU countries numerical strength………………………………………...178
IV Contents
Dedication ……...…………………………………………………………………...…... I Acknowledgements ………………………………………………………...... ………...II List of acronyms and abbreviations ……………………………………………………III List of figures…………………………………………………………………...... III List of Maps...... ……..IV List of Tables…………………………………………………………………………...IV Contents………………………………………………………………………………....V Abstract...... VIII General Introduction …………………………………………………………………....X
Chapter one: Language Diversity 1.1 Introduction...………………………………………………………………………..1 1.2 The Concept of Diversity and its Development...……………………………….…..2 1.2.1 Linguistic Diversity. ………………….………….…..….…...... ……4 1.2.2 Approaches to Linguistic Diversity……………………………...………10 1.2.3 Different Views of Language Diversity…………………………………12 1.2.4 Politics and Linguistic Diversity……………………………….….…… 17 1.3 Language and Population in North Africa ………………………………....……....19 1.3.1 Linguistic Diversity in Algeria……..………………………………...….23 1.3.1.1 The Arabic Language………………..…….………………...... 27 1.3.1.2 The Berber Language……………………..……….…………….31 1.3.2 The Side Effects of Diversity………………………………..…………..35 1.4 Conclusion……………………………………………………….………………....39
V Contents
Chapter two: Colonial language planning policy 2.1 Introduction……………………………………………………...………….……...40 2.2 Education before 1830……………………………………………………….…...... 43 2.3 The Colonial Educational Policy Project...…………………………………...... …..45 2.3.1 The French Authorities’ Position……………………………………….46 2.3.2 The Settlers’ Position.………………………………...……….………...50 2.4 The Implementation of the Colonial Policy...……………………………………...51 2.5 The Language Policy of ‘divide to rule’ …………………………………………...56 2.6 The Framing of the Sociolinguistic Situation…………………………………...... 57 2.6.1 Motivations behind the Arabic Language Status Devaluation…………..59 2.6.2 The French Schooling Policy…………………………………………...62 2.6.3 The Search for Policy Incentives.………………………….…...……….64 2.6.4 Berber Policy Advocators ………………………………….……..…….67 2.6.5 Policy Objective ……….…………………………………………...... 73 2.7 Conclusion……………………………………………………………...………….76
Chapter three: Language Planning in Independent Algeria 3.1 Introduction……………………………………………………………………...... 80 3.2 Planning: Definition………………………………………………………………..81 3.3 Language Planning…………………………………………………………………82 3.4 Language Planning and Nationalism…...... 98 3.4.1 Language and State Building………………………….………………..101 3.4.2 The Case of Algeria...…………………………………………………..103 3.4.3 Language Selection...... 105 3.4.4 Language Planning Environment………………..……….…………….108 3.4.4.1The Elite: The Clash……………………………………...……..110 3.4.4.2 Importance of Literacy.…………………….…………………..121 3.4.4.3 The Berber Crisis…………………………………..…………...124 3.5 Arabization: Evolution within the French Colonial Legacy..……………….…….137 3.6 Conclusion…...... 146
VI Contents
Chapter four: Language Management and Marketing 4.1 Introduction…………………………………………………………………..…...149 4.2 Management Theory………………………………………………………….…...152 4.3 Language Management……………………………………………………………152 4.3.1 Language Auditing…...... 156 4.3.2 Human Resources Management………………………………..……….157 4.3.2.1 Human Capital……………………………………..……………160 4.3.2.2 Social Capital…………………………………………….…...... 162 4.4 Education and Language Planning..…………….…………..…………………….163 4.4.1 Language Uncertainty…………………………………………………...169 4.4.2 Language Modernization………………………………………………..179 4.5 Language Attitudes……………………………………………………...………...181 4.6 Types of Attitudes…...... 183 4.7 Economic Consideration of Language Planning …………………………………188 4.8 Marketing: a Definition…………………………………………………………...191 4.8.1 Language Marketing: an economic adaptation……………………..…...192 4.8.2 Baker and Prys Language Marketing Approach…………………………194 4.8.3 Language landscape: Awareness and Marketing Role…………….…….198 4.8.4 Language and the Labour market………………………………………..201 4.9 Language Management Agencies………………………………………………..205 4.10 Translation as a Language Management Activity ………………………………211 4.11Conclusion...…………………………………………………………………..….211 General Conclusion……..…………………………………………………………….215 Bibliography …...... 221 Annex …...... 239
VII Abstract
Diversity is one of the most puzzling and challenging feature of the different existing species in the universe. It is everywhere present in all species. The human species displays a complex diversity case, which encompasses racial, cultural, ethnic, religious and linguistic diversities. The latter is one of the concerns of the present work. At far epochs, the linguistic landscape was rather local. Language difference was not an issue. There was no politico- linguistic awareness. People identified to their groups on the basis of other factors such as religious practices and beliefs .However, with the rise of nationalism, language acquired the power to unite or disintegrate communities and to be identified as a strong correlate with territorial and group ties. Territorial expansion and its control required that all groups that fall within the territorial limits to be submitted to a language conversion process for which strategies were used. Language diversity has been ever since the rise of nationalism associated with unity promotion and /or conflict fuelling and a strategy for separation purpose. The latter was used by the ex-colonial countries. Soon after independence, the countries realized that the political independence was imbued with ingredients for its self-destruction or destabilization among which the linguistic diversity which was invested purposefully by the colonizers. This constituted an urgent problem to be considered as early as independence.
All newly independent countries ventured in a language planning policy the implementation of which confronted ups and downs generating a certain political and social unrest. Algeria is no exception. It is for this very reason that need arises to think of ways to conduct an analysis as to the side effects of the planning policy so as to bring the policy to satisfaction. This is the concern of the fourth chapter which is an attempt to deal with the different factors that influence the policy. Among these factors is the investment on the human factor so that the issue of language is espoused by its users.
VIII Abstract
Governments can assist in such an enterprise. The major work remains within the hands of the masses. The government together with the influential social organizations, which are versed or concerned with the language issue, need to create a favorable climate, each according to its power position to develop the human resources necessary to generate a knowledge society which is a guaranty for social health , wealth and cohesion. When members of a community, society or a nation derive or identify some rewards be they moral or material, they certainly develop a sense of commitment to the collective cause.
IX General Introduction
There is no doubt that the decision to promote Classical Arabic henceforth (CA) as the official and national language of Algeria stems from the role it plays in ideally unifying the Algerians within a geographical and religious space. Consequently, this politically motivated impetus finds itself strengthened with a policy of Arabisation. As a choice it is politically convenient and bears the idea of generalising the use of CA. It is a strategy for its development and conquests of the most important domains of use mainly science and technology. This objective can be realised only if CA is provided with the means of development including human and material resources. In addition, the objective cannot be limited to a quantitative success. There are other factors that relate to the advantages realized with a language; namely the social, professional and self -actualisation gains, which in turn can highlight the motivation to bring the objective to satisfaction. This is where the problems lay as to implementing the policy. In fact, the scientific and technological challenge rises to oppose the political one. This opposition is mainly due to the modernisation option Algeria has been pursuing, and for which French was seen as the vehicle for technology.
Within the scale of development, Arabisation then, has played second fiddle to the politics of modernisation and industrialisation. The strategies of development relied heavily on material investment and neglected to a large extent investment in human capital, which plays an important role in the preparation of the social environment to bring projects to realization.
This work examines the conditions under which CA has been promoted as the national and official language of Algeria as well as the conditions within which it has been seeking promotion through the language planning policy known as Arabisation. This strategy for the promotion of CA would consequently not only call for the development of the capacities to mobilise and organize the social forces, but also to determine the ways in which educational, social and economic factors lead to language development. As set forth in the Constitutions, Algeria is defined as a homogeneous speech community united around CA. No reference is made as to the Arabic diglossia,
General Introduction
X the Berber language, and the presence of the French language. In fact, Algeria operates with CA as a medium of instruction totally spread to primary, intermediate and secondary levels, but it occupies a negligible place in Higher Education. Parallel to CA, the French language is widely used in the sectors of the economy as well as in scientific and technological domains, while vernacular Arabic and Berber are used for social interaction.
The sociolinguistic situation within which the promotion of CA is captured together with the importance attached to industrialisation and modernism cooled off the strong enthusiasm for Arabisation. The challenge of development then has affected the way in which the policy of Arabisation has been realised. In spite of the efforts that have been made so far, we can note that the economic and industrial development has intervened to dissociate the objective of modernism and development from the objective of language promotion and development. This dissociation has pictured the evolution of the policy of Arabisation. As a process, it evolved in the least scientific and technological disciplines such as history, geography and philosophy, and in the least demanding levels of education. It also evolved in the sectors which are isolated from the economic and industrial ones. These sectors which are Education, Information, Defence, and Justice are directly related to the State sovereignty. A symbolic value then is attributed to CA. Given the development of Arabization, CA is not led to make a real and efficient entry in the sectors related to development and technology transfer for which French is retained as a medium.
In the early years following Independence, Arabization rose as one of the principal goals of the educational policy. If the political support was inevitable, its implementation has been a strenuous and tough process. The implementation fuelled debates between the proponents of a Westernised oriented education giving favour to balanced bilingual education and the advocators of a radical Arabization. The pace and span of Arabization has for the most part been function of the distribution of power in the government.
General Introduction
XI The Arabization process intensified in the early years of political independence. There was a tendency towards a return to the cherished pre-colonial era and the recovery of a national Arab-Islamic identity. However, and for practicable reasons, implementation was fractioned according to human and material resources available means and the constraints of the world of economy and science. Thus, implementation has concerned the least demanding levels starting from Primary education through a fractioned vertical spread to reach, gradually, the other academic levels and school subject matters of primary, intermediate and secondary academic levels. By the year 1989, Algeria reached total Arabization . All baccalaureate branches were arabized while the university was still at its stammering stages of arabization concerning the least demanding scientific disciplines. It is here that the enthusiasm has been cooled off revealing socio-economic aspects and earnings of language use and learning.
Students embarking for higher studies are faced with a learning environment hostile to the use of the capital cumulated at school. The second barrier represents the job market opportunities. It should be noted that alongside the state schools, there were some other state vocational training schools which were directly related to their corresponding ministries to supply the necessary staff. These schools operated mostly in French while Arabic in its “School form” was completely excluded compelling students to get adapted to the corresponding teaching language. Reliance on French as an advanced language of wider communication and a medium facilitating access to the modern world of science and technology has made Arabization harder to achieve. School, as an institution, has been gradually participating in the Arabization enterprise with the reluctance if not a total disinvestment of the social, economic, and science-oriented domains.
General Introduction
XII
In fact, Attitudes towards Arabization fall into three major groups. First, the traditionalists who preach the use of the Arabic language and the protection of the cultural heritage. Second, the modernists who do not show interest in the project for they are rather concerned with securing an education which leads to the modern world. Third, the nationalists whose attitudes are oriented towards territorial and linguistic unity patterned on the European promoted model, the French one mainly, aiming at homogenizing linguistically the Algerian society. They view Arabization rather as a political worry and strategy rather than a cultural or economic one.
Another aspect of the Arabic language which fuelled further the debate about Arabization resides in its linguistic factors and the co-existence of the dialectal varieties with Standard Arabic, the written language which is learnt at school, and the colloquial varieties which represent the mother tongue. The controversy relates to the pres-school children’s exposition to the Arabic language. Proponents advocate the promotion of the colloquial form, an initiative which is traced back to the colonial era, and which has been revived to address the child’s earlier learning process. This trend believes the child’s exposition to Arabic in its learned form or standard one at school is similar in some respects to replacing French with Standard Arabic. So, in some respects, replacing French with Standard Arabic simply substitutes one non-native language for another; albeit with a net gain in terms of Arabic culture. Of equal importance is the problem of linguistic impoverishment of Arabic.
Arabization is perhaps the most important factor in standardizing Modern Standard Arabic henceforth (MSA). As an approach, it holds two different formulas: A linguistic one which concerns the process of making loans to fit into the Arabic pattern which falls within the corpus planning policy. A second one, which involves the transfer of knowledge and learning to Arabic. This includes using MSA in all aspects of life such as education, communication, government offices, and intellectual domains. This rather falls within status planning perspectives. In addition, the effort of coining new words and terms in modern sciences is an important aspect of this process.
General Introduction
XIII Language policy and language planning are two closely related topics that deal with the selection and promotion of a certain language(s) for particular uses within a society. Language planning is the systematic attempt to change the ways in which language is used within a society. Language policy is the prescribed implementation of language planning by governments or other institutions. Newly independent countries represent exciting cases to study and test language planning policies. Implementation has evolved within enormous linguistic, political, economic, social and educational problems. Algeria is no exception. Politically fragile and economically underdeveloped, it still wrestles with colonial history and heritage, including language use.
The present wok is composed of a general introduction, four chapters along which an attempt is made to deal with the overall issue which is language management in Algeria within a nation-wide and international level.
One of the fundamental challenges facing Algeria is that of approaching positively the intrinsic language diversity. Furthermore Algeria is confronted with the challenge of global language diversity that has been characteristic of our global age. One of the main question raised here is how can the intrinsic Algerian language diversity be made comprehensible to Algerian citizens within a unity language formula. What tools are required in order to accomplish this mission? Any effort towards accomplishing this task needs to take into consideration the different influential dimensions. These include the historical, political, and socio- economic ones. on the other front needs to measure up the implications of the linguistic dynamism at the international level and understand it with reference to herself and the rest of the global community and finally interpret this phenomenon from an Algerian perspective. The linguistic uncertainty that features the status of languages needs to be under scrutiny for a safety point of view because language is becoming a strategic tool deployed in the same manner and for the same purposes armed forces are deployed for.
General Introduction
XIV One of the central aspects of globalization today is the issue of linguistic diversity. More than ever before the different languages of the world are drawn so closely on different levels. This proximity makes not only the issue, but also the challenges and in lesser cases, the chances of language diversity within the process of globalization more conscious. The issue of globalization is certainly an issue of development both politically, technologically, economically, culturally, and linguistically.
Chapter one dips not only into the concept of diversity and its evolution through time, but it also tackles the different aspects of the phenomenon as well as the case in which it is encountered in Algeria, and what it represents.
Chapter two focuses on colonial language planning and its effects on the present day language situation. It attempts to highlight the reason why both the Berber language and the Arabic language are rather seen as raising conflict instead of richness of the linguistic and human capitals. There is a link between language and development. This is the case when development is seen more broadly. This link between language and development could be seen from the point of view that language can serve as an ultimate catalyst or as a hindrance for development. Considering the position of Algeria today within the process of globalization would entail examining the relationship between languages in terms of language diversity and globalization from an Algerian perspective.
Chapter three deals with the language planning project Algeria decided about based on the international prevailing strategies in practice in the European case. Part of the chapter has as its focus initial concepts of language planning and the way language planning processes have evolved to address pertinent issues of language problems. What comes to notice is that language planning requires the cooperative efforts of political, educational, economic, and linguistic authorities. Furthermore, to achieve a policy goal one must step up people's motivation to adhere to the plan.
General Introduction
XV
Chapter four addresses language policy from a management outlook focusing on the different management activities that intervene in language planning policy. The chapter addresses the approach on two levels. In fact, a strong tie exists between man and language. Each depends on the other with reference to the respective processes of promotion and development. Thus, the issue of language cannot be addressed in isolation. Language planning is people planning, and language management is the management of people. People represent the providers of language vitality, and language management while language constitutes the tool that allows man to release his inner expressive potential and self- realization. Seeking to the valuing and care of this tool will certainly have impacts socially and economically on users as individuals interact in a complex manner with the environment in which they are usually seeking at least a decent social rank.
XVI Chapter one : Language Diversity
1.1 Introduction
The term diversity reveals the idea of variety, difference and opposition. This is what the universe is made up of. It is there within the vegetal, animal and human species. The latter case carries some other important differentiating factors that determine diversity among which the racial, cultural, ethnic, linguistic and religious ones used as a basis on which people self -categorize. In fact, people do identify themselves with a social group on cultural grounds, which encompass language, religion and origin in addition to lifestyle. Viscount (1944:99) notes:
“In common language we speak of a generation as something possessed of a kind of exact unity , with all its parts and members one and homogenous . Yet plainly it is not this .It is a whole in a state of constant flux .Its factors and elements are eternally shifting. It is not one, but many generations.”
In Ancient Greece, patricians were differentiated and opposed to plebeians and slaves. Feudal Europe distinguished Lords from fiefs and serfs. South Africa displays an example opposing the white and the black. India offers a case of ritual purity and pollution. Similarly, North Ireland illustrates a religious case while Turkey offers an ethnic case associated to the Kurdistan community. The Francophone and the Arabophone represent a linguistic case. Furthermore, diversity happens to be an everlasting phenomenon taking an endless diversifying process conceived in a variety of ways.
Earlier generation of linguists saw linguistic diversity so natural as to acquire no explanation 1. In connection with the idea, Sapir quoted in Neetle (1999:2) conceives language as:
1 Nettle Daniel, 1998 Linguistic diversity ,USA :Oxford University Press, 1999
1 Chapter one : Language Diversity
“a human activity that varies without assignable limits … from social group to social group, because it is purely historical heritage of the group, the product of long-continued social usage .It varies as all creative effort varies - not as consciously perhaps , but none the less as truly as do the religions, the beliefs, the customs ,and the arts of different peoples . Walking is an organic; an instinctive function … speech is non-instinctive, acquired ‘cultural’ function”,
1.2 The Concept of Diversity and its Development
From Terence 2 (185- 159 BC), the Latin comedy poet and an emancipated slave, and the author of the sententious saying " autant d'hommes autant d'opinions" that is “as many men as many minds” revealing the phenomenon of plurality and diversity as well as abundance and opposition to Saint John Perse (1887- 1975), a French poet and diplomat, and the author of " Dieu l'épars nous rejoint dans la diversité ", quoted in Cery (2006: 125) diversity has been twined with variety, and affluence, disorder, and dispersion.
Diversity is appealing and represents a rule of behavior against boredom 3. As regards attitudes, there are those who highly praise diversity as it represents the voice of nature and its boundless generosity to maintain liveliness of the human universe. Honoré de Balzac ‘s 4 "Il ne se rencontre pas plus dans la vie de l'homme deux moments de plaisir semblables, qu'il n'y a deux feuilles exactement pareilles sur un même arbre", Gabriel d'Annunzio’s 5 " louée sois tu, diversité des créations, sirène du monde.", and Segalen Victor’s " Honorez les hommes dans l'homme et le reste dans sa diversité ", quoted in (Giusto 1998 :163) all express fascination.
However, Ramakrishna quoted in (Vermette ,2004 :156) had a quite negative opinion about diversity as it results from ignorance , stating that " La connaîssance conduit à l'unité comme l'ignorance mène à la diversité". Du Bos Charles (1882 - 1939) cited in Gouhier (1951 :43) shared the same opinion believing that diversity is a source of disconfort and avows " Je suis une unité qui va bien ou une diversité qui va mal ".
2 Encarta Professional Ecyclopedia 2004 3 Jean La Fontaine, Œuvres Complètes, Université d’oxford ,1826 :184 4 Encarta Professional Ecyclopedia (op cit) 5 Encarta Professional Ecyclopedia (op cit)
2 Chapter one : Language Diversity
Apparently, diversity is a two-way switch involving either strength and weakness or energy of life. Diversity, which means variety, is also suggested by the terms multiplicity, plurality, profusion, richness, difference, discontinuity, irregularity, and heterogeneity. But as a social phenomenon, it is paired with capital and force or conflict raising and investment. In fact, this phenomenon is omnipresent everywhere, and the world is becoming increasingly diverse. However, focus will be limited to diversity as related to language together with its social, cultural, and political environment.
Reflection on Man and his environment led to the development of scientific disciplines which intend to cover the various social and cultural aspects of human life .The scientific world will see then the birth of sociology around the 1 st half of the 19 th century and gradually branches ramified each having one area of concern and pouring into the quest to disclose the secrecy of the different domains of diversity.
Earlier, human diversity was dealt with according to group specificities. An attempt was made to classify human diversity on the basis of the common characteristics that individuals share. It involves a racial classification on the criteria most immediately apparent: leucoderm (white) melanoderm (black) and xanthoderm (yellow). However; people are different not only according to skin color, which is but a surface discriminating factor, but also to other sound factors related to their practices.
The search for diversity went beyond this point to penetrate the world of languages and cultures, and what they hold, control and transmit. This is what linguistics intends to study and within which the term diversity describes a situation where several intra or extra linguistic groups are in interaction displaying a range of cases among which multiculturalism, plurilingualism, languages in contact, language spread, language maintenance, language death , language revival, and language power.
3 Chapter one : Language Diversity
The concept of diversity was first introduced in the world of science in the 19 th century with specific emphasis on the human geography and biology. In addition, the term diversity has been used both in public and political discourse since 1970 6. But the interest in linguistic diversity as a topic has been growing only over the last few years. 7 , Nettle (1999:1).
In the case of linguistic diversity which is a universal capital for humanity and is at the same time coupled with cultural diversity participates in the constitution and maintenance of the biodiversity .It has also incessantly attracted man’s opinion either as an admirable, exciting and inspiring phenomenon or as a disquieting one. R. Breton has a favorable concept of language diversity as long as it decompartmentalizes thoughts 8. Accordingly, languages do no express the same human experience, that is, as many languages as many civilizations. 9 And so to speak, the preservation of language inheritance constitutes the preservation of the different civilizations and guarantees the continuity of history and serves as a point of reference in the global development.
1.2.1 Linguistic Diversity
Historically, the movement of people, contact of communities and man’s inquisition about his environment to uncover its secrecy has been the main reasons for language spread and development. It still has important linguistic consequences today. “ Language is constantly evolving , taking different colors , shapes and forms by its different users, in a variety of situations , locations and points of time“ , Shohamy (2006:1). Languages are humanity’s most priceless cultural legacy. Each language provides a system of concepts which help us to understand reality, and thus, duty arises for protection through transmission. Thus defending languages and their diversity, particularly against the domination of a single language is more than defending cultures, but it is defending life 10 .
6 Angeline Martel, http://www.uquebecca/diversity,1997:1 7 Nettle Daniel Linguistic diversity ,USA :Oxford University Press,1999:1 8 Breton Roland, Géographie des Langues, Alger : Casbah, 1 998 :21 9 Mounin Georges, les Problèmes Théoriques de la Traduction, Paris : Gallimard ,1963 :59 10Hagége Claude, Halte à la Mort des Langues, Paris : Odile Jacob, 2000
4 Chapter one : Language Diversity
At far epochs, languages were given birth to, and engaged in contact situations. They also developed, diversified, died and might re-energize unremittingly within the societies who adopt them . As Steiner quoted Shohamy (op cit: 1) argues “in analogy of the organic, it (language) undergoes incessant change. Languages live and die. They manifest epochs of enrichment, of acquisition, of political-cultural-literary dominance, and epochs of diminution and decay”. As far as the phenomenon of languages in contact is concerned ,the development of the means of transport, telecommunication services and emigrating movements participate to its acceleration implying shock and diversification of languages in the short , mid and long terms . As Nettle (1999:1) observes ‘’ linguistic diversity is a product of expansions, movements, and organization of human societies through time ’’.
The number of languages existing in the world today amounts to some thousands. Precisely how many we cannot say. For the French Academy, the number of languages all over the world amounted to 2796 in1929. But the twelfth edition of the Ethnologue Magazine of 1992 reveals 6528 11 . The Summer Institute of Linguistics, an organization which struggles for the least known languages, advances a number of languages equal to 6000 and reports that the linguistic inheritance is inequitably distributed 12 . About half of the world population uses daily one of the eight languages most widely spread: Chinese (1, 2 milliard users) English (478 millions), Hindi (437 millions), Spanish (392 millions), Russian (284 millions), Arabic (225 millions), Portuguese (184 millions) and French (125 millions) 13 .
However, Hagége (2000) together with Luca Cavalli-Sforza (1996) and Calvet (1998) reveal respectively 5000 and 4 to 5000 languages in the world. Grimes speaks of 6,809 languages, ( Marti 2005:47) .This mosaic of languages constitutes the subject matter of linguists who poured first in the classification of languages according to parental relationships existing between and among languages motivated by the reconstruction of the ancestor language. Crystal (1985) offers details about the genealogical method of classification.
11 Breton Roland, Géographie des Langues, Alger : Casbah ,1998:115 12 (http://www.unesco.org /courrier/2000_04/ fr / doss0.htm) 13 Millennium Encyclopedia (1998)
5 Chapter one : Language Diversity
Others poured into a classification method based on the structure of languages known as typological classification, a procedure, introduced first by A. Von Schlegel (Crystal 1985:150). Linguists tried to inquire about the way the machine like language works. Within this approach four groups of languages were identified on the principles of being isolating, agglutinating, inflexional or incorporating. In addition, languages are graded according to their level of development ranging from non- written languages (that are locally used and limited to oral tradition) to languages of international communication. Of intermediate developmental levels, linguists identified the vernaculars and national languages. Nettle (1999) distinguishes three types of linguistic diversity: “individual”: it corresponds to the number of languages spoken in the world, “Genetic”: and it refers to the number of linguistic families in the world, and “structural”: and it concerns the degree of variability in the grammatical structure of the world’s languages.
The great diversity of languages the world witnesses has been developing along the human evolution in accordance to the surrounding environment of each group of individuals or communities. Within this context, two hypotheses were put forward to acquire more light about language change and evolution. In the 18 th century, Lebnitz Gottfried Wilhelm (1646- 1716) believed that nature creates neither species nor absolutely distinct kinds: there has always been some intermediary which connects one to the other .As far as language is concerned, this suggests that all languages be they ancient or modern derive from a unique protolanguage on the basis of the monogenesis hypothesis.
Others believe in a plurality of languages and origins. Be it the first or the second: diversity remains a fact and a phenomenon that characterizes languages on the basis of the factor of change, a phenomenon that contributes to ‘’pidginizing’’ or ‘’creolizing’’ of a language as it is the case of modern romance languages. This deconstruction/construction ascertains a language dynamics which is manifested by the emergence of varieties which engaged in a squeezing status game fostering the expressive potential as well as the power of its users who are status promotion revealing.
6 Chapter one : Language Diversity
In the distant past, the linguistic landscape was rather more local. Language difference was not an issue. There was no majority to define minority. But with the rise of the nationalist tendency, which emerged in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in Europe, the idea of national identity began to build up. This was coupled to a growing desire to have access to the Bible in the vernacular, and thus, to a growing awareness of language issues. In addition to the religious factor, the linguistic one was integrated to define the idea of identity within limited borders.
With the state formation process disparate groups found themselves trapped within State boundaries and driven into a welding process for a cohesive nation. Of course, state nation builders elaborated policies preaching state homogeneity and exclusive loyalty. Nation State definition then fell into a geographical, linguistic, and cultural boundary. Among the three factors, the linguistic one happens to be the strongest formula, which serves the nation’s survival while culture becomes an embedded substance in language and a whole that is indivisible.
Furthermore, languages and their respective cultures became the distinctive factors on the basis of which the world partition is conceived nowadays. The terms Anglophone, Francophone and Arabophone are used to refer to the different populations according to language use bearing the idea of development and power. This contributed to the interplay between power and language at the national and international levels and the implications of this on linguistic diversity.
As far as nation state building is concerned, to centralize power over the whole territory, and to control the situation, state builders invested in the choice of an official national language, which happens to be theirs for the construction of the nation state, and the satisfaction of their objectives. This constitutes, on the other hand a dis-investment in the other groups as well as a withdrawal from the whole in a self-categorization process. The era of nationalism thus created the concept of linguistic minority and majority correlating with minor and major languages, and, of course, dominated and dominant groups. This categorization was inevitable to the desire for national cohesion and homogeneity.
7 Chapter one : Language Diversity
The stronger the nationalist ideology develops the greater the concept of linguistic minority intensifies to become a problem and a threat. Consequently, the pattern of power exercise with the notion of elite and prestige form of language varieties builds up and diversity co-existence becomes conflict rising. Thus, strategies to handle diversity become a must. The nation is not only wired to the claim of a political power 14, but its very nature assumes that all the individuals concerned have a lot in common and that all must leave behind, and forget many things, (Renan in Poutignat 1995: 37).
The issue of language diversity, as related to power exercise to prescribe a national identity, heartened governments to elaborate language and planning policies that all poured into the mono-identity construction which bears in itself a hidden recognition of troublesome diverse co-existing identities to which diverse languages correspond. Various overt and covert coercive measures are taken to wear away the diverse identities and restrict the use of the languages in question. In fact, language policy is simply what governments do officially through legislation, court decision, executive actions, and other strategic means such as education, urbanization, industrialization, modernization, and technological penetration to subsidize the selected language at the expense of the others which are driven into the dynamics of “laisser faire”.
The selection of a norm to be used at the national and official level as well as those used both at the official, national and international level show some hegemonic effect on the excluded or minoritized languages. Such effects drive into erosion the whole human capital amassed within these languages and disturbs the inner man in the long run. There is a close bonding between every individual and his language in such a way that language seems to mould the inner man 15 . Mounin (1968:71) in his quest for ‘’what a language communicates’’ believes language to be the sum set of experience we have of the non-linguistic reality at least shared by users of the same language and that this linguistic reality is not conceived in the same manner in the other languages. To each language corresponds to a particular data organizing of the experience requiring a new way of analysis 16.
14 Poutignat, P. et Streiff-Fenart, J, Théories de l’Ethnicité, Paris : PUF ,1995:38 15 Roland Breton Géographie des Langues, Alger : Casbah, 1 998 :22 16 André Martinet, Eléments de Linguistique générale, Paris : Armand Colin ,1961:21
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Language diversity maintenance is equated with diversity of opinion and different world pictures. Substituting a language by another implies formatting the inner individual to inject other values and concepts. This operation constitutes a certain worry even in the case of a foreign language acquisition process. The acquisition of a foreign language implies a new semantic system and hence a new way of thinking and feeling and the greater the differences between the two languages the greater the difference of thought and reasoning 17. This creates some psychological, social, and cultural incidence that build up to constitute a self-rejection phenomenon that is commonly known as ‘’self-hatred’’ or a rebel force which orbits around self-categorization. This is one of the side effects emerging when passing from one language to the other causing a change in the attitudes and conceptions of the inner man’s universe and thus, disturbing his mental files.
Language is conceived as a prism through which users are bound to see the world 18 . The lines of thought developing among psychologists, philosophers, anthropologists and linguists including Crystal’s (1985) coordinates ,that is, (language and thought ) , (language and reality) focus on the question whether there are universals lurking behind language or whether language frames our thinking. Mounin (1968) traced it back to B. L. Whorf who concluded that “we dissect nature along lines laid down by our native languages” and to W.Von Humboldt / Guillaume de Humboldt (1767-1835) who as reported by Crystal (op cit: 151) signaled a linguistic instability justified by “the changing mental power of the users of language.”
17 Bertil Malmberg, Les Nouvelles Tendances de la Linguistique, Paris : PUF, 1966:13 18 Mounin Georges Clefs pour la Linguistique, Paris : Seghers ,1968: 73
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1.2.2 Approaches to Linguistic Diversity
Languages accompany human groups. They either disappear with them, or spread on vast territories according to the group’s size and its readiness to move beyond its place of origin. Thus, language death or ability to develop is intimately related to its users 19 . Languages do have a competition feature to resist death, but this happens accordingly on the basis of dominating and dominated context, and the lack of means dominated ones suffer from to resist the appalling pressure of the dominating ones 20 .
This natural endogenous competition among languages opposing dominant to dominated languages has been the object of a growing interest of both language governmental and non- governmental agencies. Worry seems to be concentrated on the minority languages, which are under the threat of disappearance. It is argued that linguistic diversity is a human resource capital, which is as important as natural resources and contributes to the human welfare. Thus, there is a felt need to protect, support, and promote minority languages. However, the approach to linguistic diversity has taken various orientations depending on the planned goals, which give the issue a complex aspect. Diversity is not approached principally on the basis of language threat only. Any act oriented towards linguistic diversity combines in a varied overlapping manners with communication, power, representation, culture, social identity, geography, and politics. This is because underlying motives feature the concerns.
Language is taken from different optical angles. It can be approached from instrumental, ethnocultural and language rights objectives as well as ecological, political and economic ones. The instrumental approach focuses on the functional aspect of language as it represents a tool for communication and transmission of the cumulated knowledge capital, an identity marker charged with material and /or symbolic values. The angle, from which it is interpreted, depends up on the motivations of language advocates. In fact it is viewed as any tool which requires constant care and development for more efficient and long term use.
19 Hagége Claude, Halte à la Mort des Langues, Paris : Odile Jacob, 2000 :15 20 Hagége Claude (op cit : 27)
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The ethnocultural approach is oriented towards a micro vision representation. It seeks a restricted group identity, which can be taken from exclusive or inclusive perspectives. This is relevant to cases when social changes and political strategies threaten the wearing away of the subcultures which may even develop to an ethic cleansing process giving rise to resisting attitudes against the exogenous domination. The focus on the cultural attributes that maintain the ethnic boundaries becomes an instrument to justify claims of ethnic belonging that frequently develop into conflicts seeking the desire to maintain diversity at the local, national ,or international levels. For such a purpose, strategies are put in place to protect and preserve diversity. Language right approach is seen as a way to allow minority groups to enjoy their rights to practice their language varieties.
Yet, it does not guarantee diversity maintenance. It is as if imposing a “stationary status” upon the minority linguistic group with a museum like role. Enjoying linguistic rights implies promotion, and therefore changes occur on the language status level through short, mid and long term whatever the policy be it planned or not. This leads to consider the ecological approach, which considers language as any living species, which contribute to the balance and maintenance of the eco system or the natural world. The ecological approach struggles for the defense of the universal linguistic capital and the promotion of the various languages threatened by death.
This is partly because the social, economic and political changes of the environment are affecting greatly the ecolinguistic landscape. Languages are involved in a displacement process which drives further back minority languages which undergo register gradual cleansing or obsolete status occurring when inter-generational communication fails its transmission mission. As the environment is constantly undergoing changes, which influence undoubtedly language, diversity maintenance becomes an instrument to protect the universal capital. Thus Minority groups are attributed a maintenance role rather than a prestige one in terms of language use. They represent a kind of language rare resource storage and conservation.
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Language use also relates to the guaranteed services and material gains users benefit from. Indeed, Man is in a constant worry of socioeconomic mobility. Though preserving rights for minority groups for psychological, cognitive and spiritual survival seem paramount, it also maintains exclusion and imposes enclosure within a determined frame of development. Promoting minority groups for a linguistic diversity maintenance mission is rather interpreted as a strategy to clear the stage of competition for the supremacy of the dominant languages. This nourishes the idea of keeping ideal conditions for the stratification and statuses of languages. Dominant languages will be enjoying a kind of intrinsic superiority, which allows the maintenance of the language hierarchy, and, naturally the domination /subordination relation among the social groups, the communities or nations.
This leads to consider the aspect of power lurking behind the approach of global diversity. Whatever the approach, language is a question of policy and power exercise upon smaller or larger social groups from an inter-ethnic, inter-community, national or international point of view. The political response to the issues varies accordingly. Issues of language are never neutral and do not target the masses’ interests. Power is an unavoidable fact. Thus language diversity is rather instrumentalized and conceived from a dominance angle. Diversity itself escapes control. Dominant languages themselves tend to diversify and linguistic diversity activism represents a potential market for power maintenance, and distribution, that is, power chart configuration.
1.2.3 Different Views of Language Diversity
As a symbol, language plays an influential and fundamental role in society, but it happens that this potential is not all the time wholly and equitably acknowledged in the case of all languages at the moment language becomes the subject of decision makers. For purposes of organizing communication among members or groups of a community, decision makers generally favor unity of language of communication rather than diversity. However, outside the issue and the idea behind national language, which supposedly means to smooth the progress of unity of communication and promote a sense of belongingness among the different members and groups that happen to constitute one geographical entity, language can
12 Chapter one : Language Diversity also cause group dislocation. This is because at the moment one variety is retained for national and official communication, the symbolic aspect of language becomes charged with the idea of exclusion. In the majority of cases, the community having a variety of language experiences sees this as a linguistic discrimination. As a result, the homogenous approach faces the heterogeneous one, and very frequently, communities are driven into a situation of language conflict. Consequently, the uniting assets that a diverse community can invest on for purposes of unity are trapped within a climate of resistance and rejection.
In the case of policy makers, it is not usual to consider language as a major instrument in national integration. Rather, for national unity purposes, fractions of a community sharing the same geographical borders need to abandon the idea of having their own language. However, language has a wide role than this and is value laden; its value cannot be reduced to a unifying role and chauvinistic feeling. Language is a resource for a society. Nation – building cannot be barely limited to language communicative function. Language can be viewed from other angles. Using the same language on no account can be a crucial or a unique satisfactory condition for national integration. Wisdom requires that belongingness be promoted when other unity inducing factors are policy centered. Factors such as equity, fairness in the management and distribution of the nation’s resources, respect for the rights of all citizens, opportunity for participation in the system, for social mobility and self- actualization as well as equal access by all the citizens to benefits incoming from the state. These must be guaranteed on the basis of rational and measurable criteria. In fact, the communication service, the knowledge, social and economic gains a language offers influence the individual’s decision of adoption for integration motivation purposes to benefit from these advantages.
Language is also one of the nation’s resources to be used for the nation’s profit and protected for the same purpose. Language needs to be conceived as any material natural resource that a country processes for the health of the nation. C. Baker (1998:283) believes “just as water in a reservoir and oil in the oil-fields are preserved as basic resources and commodities (…) languages are a natural resource that can be exploited for cultural, spiritual and educational growth as well as economic commercial and political gain”. Language choice
13 Chapter one : Language Diversity and planning obeys economic strategies as any other resource in the nation’s economy are planned and consumed. That is, language is that commodity, which is subject to cost benefit analysis and gains. The cost can be both determined according to macro benefits for the nation and micro ones for an individual language user. Some questions can come to mind namely, what does a country gain or lose by adopting any of the indigenous languages or an important language as its national official language? What sacrifice and for what gains is someone or a community ready to make for one language rather than the other, and what importance and place is given to the other languages or varieties, which are not selected. Certainly, the gains must outweigh the cost. Myrjana and Nelson (2003:375-376) argue,
“Social and political conditions could amplify or diminish language’s salience as identity markers. If we admit that giving up an ethnic language can lead to, or is the result of, ethno- cultural dislocation, then we could predict that political conflicts will strengthen the ethnic groups’ desires to maintain separate identity and thus preserve their distinct language(s). At the opposite, peaceful co-existence and social prosperity would probably weaken ethnic barriers and would possibly divest ethnic languages of their identity value”
This led scholars to view language and language diversity from three different angles: as a problem, a right or a resource. In the first case, Language diversity is experienced as conflict rising feeding ethno-cultural and linguistic awareness in which case coercive actions are taken at the national level. In the words of Baker (op cit: 276) “language is sometimes connected with national or regional disunity and intergroup conflict. Language is thus also viewed as causing less integration, less cohesiveness, more antagonism and more conflict in society.” Language as a right orientation focuses on the right of minorities to enjoy their human rights in using their respective language varieties. As regards Baker, this trend argues, “that language prejudices and discrimination need to be eradicated in a democratic society.” Baker (op cit: 277)
14 Chapter one : Language Diversity
An alternative orientation to language as a problem and as a right is the idea of Language as a personal or national resource. An impressive and steady leap forward has been made in the field of linguistics. Recent development in cognitive sciences , developmental psychology, behavioural sciences have enlightened further the understanding of language related problems, improved tremendously language learning and acquisition and impacted positively in reshaping the attitudes towards the acceptance of linguistic concerns formulated by language variationists .
These breakthroughs in sociolinguistics inquiry have also had a powerful impact on the attitudes of decision–makers towards linguistic diversity. Henceforth linguistic diversity is no longer perceived as a societal pathology or deficit but as invaluable resource upon which nations can draw profitability socially, culturally, and economically. For Haugen (1987:1) it is “a resource of novel delights and subtle experience, a blessing”, or as “an invaluable linguistic capital”, Bourdieu (1991).
In fact, language as a resource was introduced by Ruiz (1984). 21 Languages are regarded as resources rather than deficits. Language is a very important social construct used for interpersonal communication, community identity, and cultural solidarity. The centrality of language and its importance are stressed also by Lo Bianco (1987:1).one of the architects of language policy in Australia. He argues:
“As the primary means of interpreting reality, language becomes a basic code to cultural evolution and change, and therefore becomes a code for the unique experience of different cultural groups. Language is a resource of group and cultural identity … Languages is the product of cultural, artistic, economic and intellectual endeavours as well as the tools of them”.
As such, languages are valuable resources that require systematic organization, intelligent protection and coherent planning. In addition, other relatively recent sociolinguistic studies have focused upon languages as “natural resources” out of which nations can draw positively
21 When linguistic diversity is viewed as a resource policy planning would be geared towards the development, preservation and use of as many languages as possible. In J.Norman J Ørgensen (2003:29)
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( Kaplan and Baldauf 1997) . Therefore if it is admitted that languages are resources that may be equated with other natural resources, then they deserve intelligent and methodical planning for their preservation, development and enrichment through clearly designed rational and coherent language policies.
The recognition of language diversity as a resource serves as a friendly linguistic landscape to implement language policies. As Baker and Prys ( 1998:283) has noted,
“Within the language as a resource orientation, lies the assumption that linguistic diversity does not cause separation nor less integration in society. Rather it is possible that national unity and linguistic diversity can co-exist. Unity and diversity are not necessarily incompatible. Tolerance and co-operation between groups may be as possible with linguistic diversity as they would be unlikely when such linguistic diversity is respected.”
It is within this perspective that the French language policy adopted a flexible policy towards the other varieties since coercive measures towards the varieties rather caused resistance to the French language national policy. “Languages may be viewed not only in terms of their economic bridge-building potentials but also be supported for their ability to build social bridges across different groups, bridges for cross –fertilization between cultures.”, Baker and Prys (op cit:283). Nation building used to be conceived through uniformity obscuring thus diversity. Policy makers conceived diversity as a disturbing factor rather than a supportive one, and believed assimilation, which tends to cast everyone into the same linguistic mould, a solution, however has liberated its own germs of disturbance.
1.2.4 Politics and Linguistic Diversity
Language is a potentially powerful political instrument, which is alone capable of deciding the fate of politicians and political parties. It also serves as cement for communities in search for autonomy and independence. It can also be used as an issue among groups because some policies require disturbance to be realized. Linguistic emotions can be harnessed to divert people’s attention from more fundamental economic and political issues.
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In addition, language policy ideals are usually associated with geopolitical visions. Nationalists support national languages; regionalists support regional languages while cosmopolitan ethics hopes for a universal language. Similarly, diversity ethics wants all languages to get equal status. This cannot be the case since the desired language future corresponds to the desired geopolitical future.
The issue wheeling around language diversity is not related to the phenomenon of language pluralism but rather to a socio-political and cultural recognition. Different languages with their corresponding diverse forms are what feature the language universe. But the problem is the homogenizing human action from the time social groups acquired power over other social groups and engaged in some practices, policies and later strategies to maintain the assets associated with power exercise. Underlying such a political context or along its expansion rose the phenomenon of diversity in search for recognition challenging the homogenizing tendencies . The international scene offers cases where the political power makes use of the linguistic weapon to impose itself.
The case of Albania as far as the linguistic situation is concerned under the communist régime illustrates the use of language as a means to control society and shows that the social revolution passes inevitably by a language revolution 22 . The Tosque language was promoted to displace the Guègue during the very first years. As early as the year 1945, S. Maleshova forbade edition in the guègue language and ordered the teaching of the Tosque language in the North where the guègue language was used. The objective consisted to promote a language policy meant to spread power over the whole territory including the North of Albania, that is, the north conquest through language.
For normalization, and standardization purposes, the government designed specialized language agencies intended to bring about a linguistic cleansing in favor of the Tosque language using Stalin’s theory. It states that when two languages are in confrontation, one of them is victorious at the expense of the other driving it to decline. 23 It should be noted, on the other hand, that the Albanese language played an important role in the history of the Albanese nation which was culturally and religiously diverse during the Ottoman domination. Language
22 Odile Daniel ‘ l’unification linguistique en Albanie’ in S Chaker (ed) Langues et pouvoir ,1998 :102 23 Odile Daniel (op cit : 101).
17 Chapter one : Language Diversity served then, as the only asset they clinged on to conquer independence 24. Accordingly , language and culture constitute the very existence of a community , and its means of assertion for self categorization
Turkey illustrates another case. Two major objectives motivate the language policy: a return to the Turkish etymological sources giving force and stamina to the rising nationalism and a divorce from the Islamic civilization 25 . Bozdémir (1998:147) uses the terms “invention linguistique”. To homogenize and sever Turkey from the Muslim world, Kamel Ataturk adopted the Latin alphabet and decided to purify the Turkish language from oriental vocabulary.
To bring such a decision to satisfaction , Kamel Ataturk not only bequeathed his own funds in his will to bring to satisfaction the process and created “la Société d’Etude de la langue Turque” in 1932 to purify the Turkish language but organized a commercial language operation in a form of an invitation of tender. A national inquiry was launched to provide the Turkish language with equivalents to the foreign words. These measures are considered to be a linguistic policy engaging a civilization shutdown for which Bozdémir (op cit: 141) uses the expression “une coupure civilisationnelle” which is interpreted as an insertion strategy in Europe.
Czechoslovakia offers another case of language strategy. This country, which used to be considered linguistically homogenous, has recently been subdivided into different nation states with their corresponding languages. This instantaneous linguistic disintegration shows that the Serbo-Croatian language was simply an erroneous belief 26 . The different speech communities regained their languages as soon as the split occurred: The Serb for Serbia and Montenegro, the Croatian for Croatia, and the Bosnian for the Bosnie-Herzégovine. In view
24 Daniel Odile (idem) 25 Bozdémir .M d’une langue impériale à une langue nationale in S Chaker (ed) langue et Pouvoir 1998:147 26 Paul Louis Thomas ‘La dislocation Linguistique comme Instrument de Pouvoir :l’exemple de l’ex- Yougoslavie’ in Chaker, S (1998)
18 Chapter one : Language Diversity of this, language is not only an instrument of communication but also a significant political stake 27 . Similarly, this applies to the case of the Bosnian Serb Republika Spraker in 1996. The adoption of the Cyrillic script as the official script instead of Latin script was resorted to as it capitalized on linguistic links with Serbia to establish linguistic distinctiveness between Bosnian Serbs and Bosnian Croat and Muslims who used Latin script 28 .
1.3 Language and Population in North Africa
When the Phoenicians settled in Africa, during the third millennium preceding the Christian era, they found Asian populations who were Africanized through a long period, which amounts to several centuries or millenniums. These Levantine immigrants who came from Mesopotamia, Transcaucasia, Phoenicia, the south of the Arabic peninsula, and Egypt had settled as a superposed human entity or had rather been substituted to the previous one who was of Negro characteristics. Taking the autochthonous status in the area, they all used Arabian languages. Overall, their customs and their religions were not so different from those used in the Asian regions or in the Nile valley 29 .
The fusion gave birth to Liby-Phoenicians or Berbers that mingled into one language and religious community that the Roman and Byzantine conquest could not assimilate because of the language and customs boundaries as well as the social policy used by both towards the autochthonous population . The Punic language and Carthage’s imprints were kept within the ashes during the Roman Empire, the Vandal era and Byzantine domination: Carthage joined anew Islam, the indelible oriental germ, ready to blossom again 30 .
27 Michel Bozdémir (op cit) 28 Liddicoat J. Anthony ‘Corpus Planning: Syllabus and Materials Development’. In Eli Hinkel (ed) Handbook of Research in Second Language Teaching and Learning, London: Routledge 2005 :997 29 Benatia, A. Ibérie et Berbérie : De la Colonisation Arabique au Colonialisme Romain, Alger : Imprim-Fast, 2008 30 Gautier E .F. Du Passé de l’Afrique du Nord, Paris: Payot, (1952 :135
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The immigrants who settled in North Africa and came from the Arabian-Asian regions and African ones (Nile valley) used some languages springing from the same base language, and that - Tamazight (or Berber) which Lebon believes probably to be of a Phoenician origin - had a kinship relation with the South Arabian language which has a Phoenician (Cananéen) origin. 31 This relation led M. Cohen to suggest, in 1924, to include Berber within the Chamito Semitic family 32 According to Benatia (2008) all these languages looked like Egyptian and formed the Chamitic family. Thus, the pre-Phoenician Berber was submitted to the influence of the different regions becoming the Liby-Phoenician, the Punic or the liby-carthagian 33 . Salluste testified the use of a language called “sidonian” by the inhabitants of Numidia, that is, the Phoenician. 34
Procope not only confirmed the assertion but mentioned the use of the Punic by the indigenous population 35 . Gautier (1952) noted that A “patois form” of the Punic language was used in the rural area when the Byzantines arrived. Furthermore, St Augustin testified that the Punic language or Liby-Phoenician was used during his time in Berberie i.e., North Africa 36 . Elimam (2003:20) distinguishes two languages namely the Punic, on the one hand, traced back to Carthage and the Libyc used by the Berber communities were used until the advent of Islam in the area.
Chaker claims that the Punic was mostly the language used in writing, and the official language of the different Berber kingdoms when Carthage was destroyed (146 B.C) 37 . Ch. A. Julien states that the influence of the Punic language, which took several centuries, reached Tebessa, Guelma, Constantine, and the region of Annaba 38 . This form, which degenerated into patois forms as E. F. Gautier (1952) observed, managed to be maintained in the open country.
31 Benatia A (op cit: 122-123), 32 Camps Gabriel, Les Berbères Mémoire et identité, Paris : Errance ,1987:38 33 Benatia A (2008) 34 Benatia A (op cit: 121). 35 Gautier E .F. Du Passé de l’Afrique du Nord, Paris : Payot, (1952 :129) 36 Gautier E .F (op cit) 37 Elimam, Abdou, Le Maghribi : Langue trois fois millénaire, Rouïba : ANEP ,1997 38 Elimam Abdou (op cit)
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The Liby-Phoenicians used an aggregate form, which embraced several Arabian languages in contact in the region. However, the geographical natural framing of the area, the unstable aspect of some small social groups together with the distance separating the East African area, Libya nowadays, and the West Atlantic one i.e., Morocco, as well as, the time factor which amounts to several millenniums caused undoubtedly this form to vary from one region to the other 39. A. Benatia (2002:124) enumerates actually several Berber languages with an underlying common substratum namely the libyc (Djebel Nefoussa ) in Libya, the Djerbien (Djerba Island ) in Tunisia , the Chaoui (Aurès mounts) , the kabyle (Djurdjura region ), the Chenoui (Chenoua mounts), the Wancherissi (Ouarsenis mounts ) , the Zènète (Gourara and Touat), and the M’zabite ( in some oasis in the central region of the country ) in Algeria, the Rifi (Rif area), and the Chleuh (south Morocco) in Morocco, and finally the touareg varieties namely (Tamachek and Tamahak ) in the sub Sahara area including Algeria, Mali, and Niger and the Guanche (Canaries islands) . For G. Mercier the Berber language varieties amount to 42 distinct languages (Benatia, op cit).
However, Islam contributed to the linguistic Arabization of the Maghreb. Some Maghreb cities, those mainly situated on the littoral, were characterized by a fairly classical form brought by the Andalusian population which was but composed of Arabized Berbers who left Spain during the 15 th century. This form, which was used in cities and mingled with Berber, gave birth to a popular variety, which originates from a Bedouin form introduced by Ibn Hillal tribes who, in fact, contributed greatly to the Arabization of the Berber community 40 .
According to Brett and Fentress, because Arabic came to serve as the primary language of trade and commerce, it gradually became the lingua franca, supplanting Berber in the main parts of the region Goodman (2005:6). But, before the Hilalian advent, the country, North Africa, maintained its Berber language and customs .When the Bedouins arrived, they brought their language which was easily distinguishable from the urban dialects they inherited from the first Moslem conquerors. From this Bedouin Arabic derive the majority of the rural Arabic dialects used in North Africa nowadays 41 .
39 Benatia , A. (op cit:123) 40 Camps, Gabriel (op cit: 138) 41Charles, .A. Julien (op cit : 74)
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In addition, the Arabs’ Advent in the area submitted the Liby-Phoenician (i.e., Liby- Carthage or Berber) and Arabic to a process of a co-influence the evidence of which can be noticed respectively in both languages. Arabic influenced Berber while Berber influenced the spoken varieties of Arabic in the Maghreb 42 . Since then, two languages linguistically characterize the Maghreb: the Arabic language and its sacred form, and Tamazight or Berber (a language that derived from the Liby-Phoenician or Punic 43 .
The Berber varieties and neo-Punic ones were attributed different names in the Maghreb as a result of the Arabic language influence displacing them to the ranks of dialectal Arabic forms. To the “ez-zezjjel” form known in Andalusia to which correspond a literary form known as “malhoun”; “el-âmmi”, “el-hawzi”, “el-hawfi”, for which the French use the term “Arabe literal” or dialectal Arabic, generally known as “ed-derja” as a distinction from “Arabe literaire” 44 . It should be noted that the issue of language did not constitute an identification worry. Identification criteria were rather related to the tribe, the region, social status or religion.
1.3.1 Linguistic Diversity in Algeria
The linguistic landscape in Algeria is characterized by the Arabic language and it varieties as well as the Berber language and its corresponding varieties. Institutionally, the high form of Arabic, the “learned form”, that I term the “school language” is attributed a national and official status while its respective varieties are oral. These varieties are stained with a certain number of lexical items belonging to other languages namely Berber, Spanish, Turkish, Greek, Latin, Italian – all population, which settled in the Maghreb left their
42Benatia , A. op cit: 125) 43Benatia, A. (2000:295). 44Elimam, Abdou, El Maghribi Alias “ed-darija”, La langue sensuelle du Maghreb, Oran : Dar El gharb ,2003: 21
22 Chapter one : Language Diversity language imprints to varying degrees –. In the case of Berber varieties in Algeria, there are different varieties corresponding roughly to different regions: Kabylia, Aures, Mzab, and Ahaggar-Ajjer ones. In fact, Berber has been attributed the status of a national language since April 2002. And along the language battle initiated long ago some Berber advocators are activating for the elaboration of written Berber.
It should be noted that the great majority of the population, including Berber speakers (except monolingual Berber users composed mainly of old illiterate people and pre-school aged children) shares Algerian Arabic, which is but an Arabic dialect. R. Sebaa (2002) attests that Algeria is characterized by a quadrilingual social structure: conventional Arabic / French Algerian Arabic / Tamazight and that the boundaries between them are neither geographically nor linguistically established formally. Likewise, Elimam (2004) identifies two broad sets of languages in Algeria: the Algerian nation’s languages used for effective communication namely the “Maghribi” and Berber; and the other supranational and super structural languages, that is, modern Arabic and French. Elimam (op cit) believes the linguistic situation of independent Algeria relatively simple and displays as follows:
- The nation’s languages a two-multi thousand years old linguistic areas representing a major Mediterranean Semitic area or Maghribi and the Chamito- Semitic or Berber area with geographically marked concentrations. - Languages of international communication including modern Arabic (classical or literary) enjoying the status of the official language and French maintained for wider communication. - The other languages, a group, composed of contemporary Egyptian, Lebanese, Spanish, and Italian.
If the Arabic language is promoted as the official language in independent Algeria, such a selection is not justified because of its international communicational potential. Moreover, potentially the Arabic language does not occupy the same hierarchy. The selection is attributed to centuries ago since an important fraction of the autochthonous population adapted the language together with religion in a non-conflicting process. Such is not the case of French. On no account can the French language be admitted among the Algerian language diversity. French is a foreign language strongly present in independent Algeria because of
23 Chapter one : Language Diversity some privileges it enjoys within a historical and development context. The presence of French is a result of the Algerian global policy of development after independence.
If French enjoys a certain status, it is simply because it is the language widely used in work domains both in the primary and tertiary domains, which do not equally welcome the Arabic language. Concerning the other languages, i.e., Egyptian and Lebanese, they are but a contact phenomenon through the media process and of a negligible notice with both Spanish and Italian within the language situation in Algeria. The language diversity offered by Elimam (opcit) corresponds roughly to that of Charles (1978) for whom the language diversity corresponds roughly to the different races. At the advent of the French, Charles (op cit) could distinguish different codes. The Turkish language used as the official language of the naval and military aristocracy, dialectal Arabic which enjoyed an important place and was used by the ancient urban inhabitants , Spanish used by immigrants, the kabyle and M’zab dialects, and a lingua franca composed of Arabic, Spanish, Turkish, Italian, and Portuguese together with a Provincial form. 45
Gautier (1952:72) distinguishes three different ethno-linguistic groups the “chaouia”, the “Kabyle”, and the “Arab”. Actually, the Algerian situation is simpler than that. It can be reduced to the Arabic language and its corresponding dialectal forms, the Berber language and its dialectal forms, and French as a foreign language having a potential hierarchy status in some domains. Politically speaking, the Arabic language does not display any conflict with its dialectal forms, but each is attributed a different status. The Arabic Language “school tongue” is promoted a national official one used in formal speech situations and domains while dialectal Arabic is limited to oral use.
Though the history of Algeria is marked by the presence of the Greeks, the Phoenicians, the Romans, and recently the Turkish and the Western Europeans, the region remains deeply rooted in the Berber and Arabo - Muslim historical context . Generally, the Berber population, principally those living in isolated geographical areas, adopted Islam but maintained the Berber language. The settlement of the Arabic language and Islam was carried out through the mosques. Those living in the cities were arabized as a result of adopting progressively the Arabic language as a sacred form.
45 Charles .A. Julien (op cit : 264)
24 Chapter one : Language Diversity
This adoption happened on a free choice style. Cheikh El Bachir El Ibrahimi argues that the Arab missionaries brought to the area Islam and its justice, language and its science. On the one hand, it is this element of justice, which encouraged a brotherly submission of the Berber population to the Arabs. On the other, it is the scientific countenance of Islam, which offered a natural climate of language shift from the Berber language to the Arabic one, evolving on the basis of student submission to his teacher model rather than a slave constrained to submit to his boss. He further revealed that the spiritual contribution of Islam and the beauty of the Arabic language deeply rooted Islam in the area and above else the Arabic language as its idiom admitting no other rival 46 . The Berber sociolinguistic situation is enriched with a non-conflicting language, which spread approximately all over the area (See map1: 26) However, the language situation in its communicational practices is linguistically stained with the different tides of languages, which passed through the area. The phenomenon of language in contact continuum though it is noticeable in Berber and dialectal Arabic giving respectively birth to different dialectal forms remains limited. The different varieties of both languages did not lose their “identity”.
Layout of Arabic and Berber languages
46 Madi, M. ‘Langue et identité : De la Marginalisation à la Résistance’ in Elites et Question Identitaires, Alger : Casbah. 1997 :126
25 Chapter one : Language Diversity
Map 1 source : www.tlfq.ula val.ca
1.3.1.1The Arabic Language
The Arabic language belongs to the South Central Semitic branch of the Semito-Hamitic family. Modern Standard literary Arabic (al fusha) is the official language of some 20 ountries, ranging from Morocco on the Atlantic seaboard of Africa to the Persian Gulf States (see map2).
26 Chapter one : Language Diversity
Map (2) Source: The Arabic language: the free encyclopedia
Modern Standard literary Arabic it is used in the press, and other Media, and is the language of diplomacy and official communication between Arab states. This literary standard form is the language of the Qur’an and the Hadith, lexically enriched from Arabic’s own generative resources. Modernisms abound, but they are additions to a core structure, which has hardly changed in a thousand of years. Colloquial Arabic exists in various dialectal forms. An estimated 150 million people speak it as a mother tongue. As the canonical language of Islam, many millions of people understand Arabic up to a point, wherever the Koran is taught - in Iran, Pakistan, Indonesia, East and West Africa. Finally, one should mention the thousands of Arabic words that were borrowed by Iranian, Turkish, Indian and African languages with little or no reciprocal borrowing from Arabic 47 .
Its vernacular form which includes loan words resulting from the impact of Numidia’s language (Elimam ,1999) as well as from Greek , Latin , Spanish , Turkish and recently French (within a colonial context) constitutes what is known as Algerian Arabic , or dialectal Arabic , or “Darija”. However, it has accordingly some regional features that Elimam (2004) rounds up in one form he terms the Maghribi. Thus, Classical Arabic and its corresponding varieties characterize the Arabic language diversity.
47 Campbell L. G, Compendium of the World’s Languages, London: Routeldge, 1995:24
27 Chapter one : Language Diversity
Benrabah, (2007:53) consider Algeria as a complex multilingual society presenting at least two H varieties ,i.e., Standard Arabic and French, several L forms which include both rural and urban varieties of Arabic and an intermediate set of M (or mid) varieties . Algerian Arabic represents the M form of Arabic shared by the majority of the Algerian population. In addition to CA, the Koran form, Queffélec (2002:34-35) identifies Modern Arabic and dialectal Arabic which includes rural and urban varieties of Arabic. Among the dialectal varieties Queffélec (op cit) notes four broad speech varieties namely, “Oran variety” stretching from the Algéro-Morroccan borders to Tenes, “Algiers variety” occupying the central part of Algeria till Bejaia , an “eastern “one from Sétif to the Algero-Tunisian borders, and a Sahara variety. Though the dialectal forms display some phonetic and lexical differences there are no clearly identified boundaries.
When it comes to use, two broad forms are identified: Classical Arabic and dialectal Arabic. The term Classical Arabic (henceforth CA) is used here to mean the superimposed form of Arabic, which is written and used in books, newspapers, magazines and taught at school. It is also the variety to which various labels have been given on the basis of the different linguistic investigations, which sought for a methodological approach to describe it. Ferguson (1959), for instance, refers to it as a "high" variety while Monteil (1960) introduces the term " l’Arabe Moderne". Meiseles (1980:123) retains "Literary (or Standard Arabic" implying the standard language, a variety that Meiseles distinguishes from the ancient language.
Similarly, Beeston (1970:15) uses the term "Standard Arabic" to identify the form, which "… is in its main features modelled on the language of the Golden Age". Marçais, W. (1930:401) (in Monteil, 1960: 69) suggests the terms " Ecrit …ou Régulier, ou Littéral ou Classique …" In fact, this form which has developed is not isolated from the ancient language
which is also known as Classical Arabic. In addition to the religious domain, for which CA is used, and is referred to as the sacred language, CA has been used in other domains of life, and thus has been open to deviation, and cultivation.
This renders it flexible, receptive and of some conductance in accordance with what it has been used for. In other words, I do not use the term Classical Arabic to mean the sacred language. What is referred to as sacred language is simply the sacred or religious register. CA
28 Chapter one : Language Diversity espoused increasingly the social function of a language of science all over the vast Arabian Islamic empire. Dogmar and Reuschel (1992: 85) refer to it as the as “the Latin of the East’’. Chejne (1969:13) reveals that Arabic developed considerably its expressive scientific potential:
“From a humble beginning, Arabic evolved as a literary language in the Muslim empire and became the national language of the Muslim state … with the rise of the so-called ‘Arabic foreign sciences’ in the nineteenth and tenth centuries, which were accompanied by an enormous literary output, the language acquired a universal character. As the medium of intellectual expression, it had a general appeal among devout Muslims and non-Muslims as well. Arabic and Islam constituted a unifying factor among the various religions and ethnic groups…the language became itself an object of general acclaim”.
As regards CA and Modern Standard Arabic (henceforth MSA), Dogmar and Reuschel (1992:72) stress that the distance between the two forms is “only a small one”. They argue “the student learning MSA in order to read newspapers or listen to the Arabic radio requires at the same time (…) the knowledge of the language which qualifies him to read the texts in CA”. In the case of the dialectal varieties, linguists identify two broad groups: one featuring the Maghreb area and the other corresponding to the Machrek based on influential historical events. On the same line of thought but stressing the relationship between CA and its dialectal forms ,and unlike Classical and Medieval Latin which experienced a gap widening in post-renaissance period as a result of purification , the gap between standard and spoken varieties in the Arab speaking countries was rather slowly lessening in the 19 th and 20 th centuries. This occurred as a result of the spread of literacy and the tendency of the language to simplify grammatically and stylistically. Anderson (1991) argues “while the widening gap between the two forms of Latin in the renaissance period created a space which the vernacular could communicatively fill, the shrinking gap between the standard and the local ,at least at the level of reception made this less of a possibility for Arabic, (in Suleiman 2003:36). Hommond (2007:54) considers the battle to Arabize to persist nowadays in the same manner and swiftness as it always has done since the time of the conquest. He believes that much of the anxiety of the intellectuals and academics over the deterioration of the classical language - and the vitality of the dialects and inroads of foreign tongues – is misplaced. The reality is that the language, in all its forms, is unifying the region, as it never has done before. Modern communications, entertainment, media, polity, and business have facilitated more linguistic
29 Chapter one : Language Diversity
unity and mutual understanding than ever in the past. Arabic dialects are being standardized within individual Arab countries, based on prestigious dialects of their capital cities. And these national dialects are in turn being affected by other dialects and formal Arabic through the unifying power of mass media and communications. Even dialects from the Maghreb, which have always been receivers of linguistic culture from the Mashreq, are now better understood in the Arab East. Both formal and colloquial Arabic are interacting in popular culture and politics in the Arab world today in a manner critical to the final victory of the Arabs over the world they called ‘Arab’. This brought him to assert that a process of homogenization or rather leveling is underway between Arab East and Arab west in formal and everyday speech, Ammon (op cit: 60).
On a diametrically opposed line of thought http: // fr. Wikipedia.org/wiki/arabe identifies a wide range of dialectal Arabic varieties, and surprising as it may be four Algerian varieties corresponding respectively to Oran, Algiers, Constantine and Djijel are identified. It should be noted however that the source venting the information through the internet does neither indicate the data collecting procedure nor offer the data sheet on the basis of which such identification was made in the case of Algeria .Thus the Algerian authorities and the Arab world in general must verse great worry to how foreign studies are deploying their studies as regards linguistic diversity in the Arab world. These studies distort truth to the future generation. Home studies must be launched as early as possible by Arab linguists as a reaction to foreign studies. Some appearing on the table have no speech community at all.(See table 1:31)
Table 1: Arabic language varieties
Arabe Ibérique † Andalou Marocain • Algérien (Oranais • Algérois • Maghrébin Arabe occidental Constantinois • Jijelien ) • Tunisien Italo-maltais † Siculo-arabe • Maltais Bédouin Libyen • Saharien • Hassaniyya
30 Chapter one : Language Diversity
du Nil Égyptien • Saïdi • Soudanais • Tchadien Syro-libano-palestinien (Libanais • Syrien central • Syrien septentrional • palestinien Levantin urbain ) • Jordano-palestinien • Palestinien bédouin • Chypriote Arabe oriental Irakien (gilit • qeltu ) • Anatolien • Khouzistani • Mésopotamien Tadjiki • Ouzbéki du Golfe • du Nejd • du Hedjaz • Yéménite (de Arabique Sanaa • de Ta'izz et d'Aden • du Hadramaout ) • Omanais • Baharna • Dhofari • Shihhi
Variétés Arabe littéral • Arabe dialectal diglossiques Judéo-marocain • Judéo-tunisien • Judéo-tripolitain • Judéo-yéménite • Judéo-arabe Judéo-irakien Créoles arabes Créole soudanais • Nubi • Babalia Source : http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/arabe )
1.3.1 .2 The Berber Language
Nobody can question the Amazigh (Berber) as being the indigenous inhabitants of Northern Africa before the Islamic conquest of the Arabs, and Tamazight being the language. In fact, Tamazight language used to be written using the Tifinah alphabet, but this tradition displaced to be reduced mostly to oral use except in the case of the Touareg . Berber belongs to the Afro-asiatic (Semitic-Hamitic) family. Its use stretches originally along a string of North African territory from the Atlantic coast to the borders of Egypt. Berber speaking populations spread beyond its original habitat. According to Campbell (1995:75) “two or three hundred Berber dialects are spoken in a bit of a dozen African countries namely Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, Mauritania, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, Chad. The total number of Berber speakers is put to 12 million. The principal dialects are Shluh, Tamazight, and Riff in Morocco, Kabyle, Shawia in Algeria, Tamahaq (Tamashek) or Tuareg in several Saharan countries”.
These constitute a group of more or less closely related languages generally used in Morocco and Algeria concentrated in some areas and sparse in others (see map3). According to Aikhenwald (1990, 1995) “these varieties show variation not only in the lexicon, but also in their morphology” Expressed in figures, the number of Amazigh languages range from one to more than a hundred (in Brenzinger 2007). and some even like
31 Chapter one : Language Diversity
Irvin (1994) mention as many as five thousand local forms according to Brenzinger (op cit :124 ).
Map 3: Distribution of the Amazigh varieties
██ Chleuh ██ Braber ██ Rifain ██ Chenoui ██ Kabyle ██ Chaoui ██ Touareg ██ Sahariens
Source: In http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/ber%
Greenberg (1971:130) reports that Berber, formerly spoken in all of North Africa except in Egypt and in the Canary Islands, now survives mainly in the western part of the area and among the Touareg of the Sahara. Ancient Berber inscriptions are found in an alphabet, which is probably of Carthaginian origin, a system of writing still in use among the contemporary Touareg. Recently some attempts have been made to adapt either the Arabic or the Latin alphabets.
As regards the different Berber regions, Goodman (2005:6) locates the Berber speakers primarily in the high mountains of north-central Algeria and Morocco and in the southernmost regions of the Sahara Desert. The Berber community in Algeria includes the Kabyles of the Djurdjura mountains, the Shawiya of the Aures mountains, and the Ibadites of the Oases of the M’zab, as well as several groups such as Shenwa in Algeria’s western
32 Chapter one : Language Diversity
Mediterranean coast and the Gourara of the desert city Timimoun. In Morocco, they inhabit the mountainous region of the Rif and the Middle Atlas in the north and center, and the High Atlas and Anti-Atlas mountains as well as the Sus valley in the South. Another large group of Berber speakers is comprised of the Tuareg populations in the Saharan regions of Niger, Mali, southern Algeria and Burkina Faso .
The Berber languages used in Morocco are the Tarifit , the Tamazight, and the tashelhit communities while the Kabyle, the Chaoui, and the M’zab ones are broadly identified in Algeria. According to the1986 consensus, the Kabylian population amounts to the two-thirds from the total number of the Algeria Berber speakers (4.5 million from the total population which amounted to 22 million). The Chaoui speakers amount to between 500,000 and 1,000,000 while the M’zab approximates 100,000. In addition some other dispersed residual Berber groups not exceeding one thousand each in Ourgla , Ngousa, Gourara, and Timimoum , in the south of Oran ( in Ain Sefra oasis and Bechar), in Djebel Bissa (near Ténes ) and in Chenoua. At the same time, Chaker (1990) makes a hint to the Berber speakers who migrated to the most important Algerian cities as a result of rural exodus. Another Berber variety corresponds to the Touareg community, which is located in the Ahaggar and Ajjer regions 48 .
Knaus (1987:3) distinguishes Algeria’s kabylian Berbers, those from the Kabylian mountainous region east of Algiers constituting the larger group of Algeria’s Berber population. The second the Chaouias, from the Aures Mountains further eastward, south of Constantine. The two remaining groups are significant in national terms: The Mozabit in the south around Ghardaia, and the Touareg nomads of the deep Algerian Desert . Another
48 Chaker, S ‘Langue Berber : Une Planification Linguistique Extra-Institutionnelle’.Jochen Pleines (ed) In La Linguistique au Maghreb, Rabat : Okad ,1990:238
33 Chapter one : Language Diversity distribution offered by J. Leclerc displays the major groups including the Kabyle, the Chaoui, and the Berber of the Tell, the Touareg, and the Berbers of the oasis. (See Map 4 below)
Map 4: The distribution of the Berber communities
Source : www.tlfq.ulaval.ca/axl/afraac.htm )
1.3.2 The Side Effects of Diversity
No doubt that each individual within larger groups or smaller ones constitutes a complex sum of diverse aspects operating constantly in attracting - repelling manners or reduced to a
34 Chapter one : Language Diversity latent state according to the medium within which he evolves, seeks or knits relations. The slightest incitement or spark is enough to explore them in one manner or the other when the individual interacts with members of his group, community or society. The interaction may highlight the difference along an opposing or conflicting line leaving within the inner man traces that take refuge in the past or awaken to be projected into the present and the future.
These diverse aspects constitute a coherent unity as far as the individual is concerned, but such a unity is deconstructed or disturbed at the moment it shifts to join the group. And because man is social by nature the sum set of the whole diverse aspects of the group are automatically submitted to a chain reaction creating a hierarchy of bindings from the undesirable to the least and most desirable ones that either favor or disfavor group coherence and motivation. At this particular interaction, differences rise and power within the group sneaks covertly or intervenes overtly to oppose the unwanted characteristics which most of the time generate resisting attitudes that can develop to a conflict. Furthermore, the promotion of the individual’s cultural level as well as the rising of the national or ethnic consciousness intervenes also in the upthrust of differentiating-uniting assets, which nourish conflicts. In the case of language diversity, Breton (1998) believes it to be a potential factor of conflict within states.
Indeed the linguistic factor is sufficient to ignite a conflict at the intra or extra level. Arabic and Berber, French and Flemish, for example, offer a case of a language conflict developing into a political one opposing two speech communities respectively. Hartig (1985:67) notes in the case of Belgium, which seems to have solved the linguistic problem, “occasional protests along the language frontiers.”
William 1st restored the Dutch language as the official language in the country in 182349 , but after the independence of Belgium from the Netherlands in 1830, the French language was promoted the language of Belgium as a reaction against the Dutch and their language. The French-speaking Belgium government succeeded in removing the Dutch language from all
49 Deprez. K Le Néerlandais en Belgique in Maurais, J (ed). Politique et Aménagement guistiqus, paris : Le Robert, 1987:62
35 Chapter one : Language Diversity levels of government giving way to the French language spread. During the first decades of independence (1830), though the majority of the population of Belgium was Flemish, there was neither an ethno-linguistic consciousness nor any political maturity 50 . Politically speaking, the linguistic differences were of negligible importance. There was no politico-linguistic awareness as people in the pre-industrial Belgium society still identified to their corresponding village, region, social class or religion but never to their linguistic community in 1830 51 . Gubin attributes this to the fact that people were rather in search for a material survival unaware about the linguistic uncertainty 52 . However; the linguistic problem emerged, though not overtly, at the dawn of independence from the time the French language conquered the administrative domain, period at which the Flemish community found itself disfavored in comparison to the Francophone.
The Flemish movement started to take shape when some intellectual voices in the Flemish provinces emerged advancing language grievances, which were firstly linguistic and literary, but steadily the grievances stretched to broader aspects of social life 53. Consequently the language policy evolved gradually from “laisser-faire” to language planning policy under the Flemish pressure. Since then, different claims were expressed for linguistic legislation. The revival of the Flemish was stimulated by Hendrik Conscience in his book The Lion of Flanders , published in 1838, in which he demonstrated that Flemish would be a powerful literary language 54 .
The Flemish began to call for recognition of the Dutch language and Flemish culture in Belgium. This movement, which is known as the Flemish Movement, has nourished the ill feelings between Flemings and francophone and has strengthened the grip on the linguistic factor of the Belgian society. The first unsuccessful attempt for language legislation in favor of Flemish happened in 1840. It was renewed in the fifties because of the demographic reasons. Later, certain laws were adopted in favor of the Flanders; namely those of 1873, 1878, 1883,1932,1935,1938, and 1960. As a result of the conflict, the linguistic borders were
50 Deprez, K (op cit : 67). 51 Deprez, K (idem) 52 Deprez, K (op cit: 64). 53 Liesbet Hooghe ‘Belgium from Regionalism to Federalism. In John Coakley (ed) The Territorial management of ethnic conflit, (pp73-98), London: Routledge, 2003:78 54 Pateman Robert and Elliot Mark ,Belgium, Belgium: Marshall Cavendish,2006:82
36 Chapter one : Language Diversity finally drawn up in 1962. Brussels became an autonomous and bilingual region while Flanders and Walloons remained monolingual regions.
In addition, a facility approach allowing both of the French speaking and Dutch speaking minorities incrusted within the each of the communities to use their corresponding birth language. However, The Flemish considered the measure as integration to another language as opposed to viewing it as recognition of a permanent linguistic minority. The 1970 and 1980 state reforms then put an end to the unitary state and adopted the recognition of four linguistic areas namely the Flanders, the Walloons, the German, and Brussels ones, and three cultural communities : the Flemish, the French, and the German . However, the conflict is not yet solved. Extremely troublesome negotiations between Flemish and Walloon parties occur for further state reforms motivated by the linguistic clash 55 . Furthermore, it should be noted that the two communities Walloons and Flanders went respectively through favorable and unfavorable economic conditions attributed to the shift of the economic heart, the problem of wealth distribution and the share of developmental interest given to each region. This resulted in a social discomfort and a feeling of exclusion manifested by periods of conflicts opposing the two speech communities, and, thus, the socio- economic problems intervene to raise the linguistic problem.
Though, the Belgium authorities decided to form French, Flemish and German communities (see map5:38) to resolve the never-ending linguistic problem so that they run the language and cultural affairs apart, the language issue remains a major matter in Belgium today. According to Liebset (2003:83), “some people even think the language question could eventually split the nation into two”. The Flemish daily newspaper “De Standaard” has predicted, “It may take a decade, or a generation, but the Belgium state is dissolving itself” (Liebset op cit). Recently, the linguistic conflict has reappeared to take a political aspect,
55 Deprez, k (op cit:78).
37 Chapter one : Language Diversity which manifests a linguistic problem wheeling around the Flemish group, which feels the threat of marginalization and loss of political power. Thus, any disequilibrium in the handling of the different groups’ interests is declined into a conflict and a threat for linguistic dislocation and separation perspective. Linguistic communities in Belgium
Map 5: Source : www.tlfq.ulaval.ca/axl/afraac.htm
38 Chapter one : Language Diversity
1.4 Conclusion The problems that language diversity engendered in different parts of the world heartened the Algerian liberation movement group to adopt a choice, which would maintain the geographical oneness of the Algerian nation and the Arab-Muslim belongingness. Thus, the geographical together with the religious and language factors were retained as the strong uniting candidates to fight colonialism and oppose the western world and its civilization. The fact that the Algerian elite who framed the national movement of liberation was of Arabic and Berber language background suggests that the choice of the Arabic language as a candidate for independence assertion was not a case of majority and minority. It was rather a sound choice which sprung from a common accord to slash the policy of ‘’divide and rule’’ the French colonial authorities sought in order to sever the Berber community from the Arab community. If the consensus around the Arabic language during the colonial period was concluded to bring to satisfaction independence, which constituted a shared and cherished purpose goal and outcome, the goals of independent Algeria were manifold. The language agenda unveiled social, economic and political power perspectives. An elite clash as related to the approach to language policy broke up for fear that the Arab educated elite would detain the monopoly over the national affairs, and consequently subordinate and drain the Berber ethnic component. A feeling of mistrust developed among the influential members of the two elites affecting greatly not only decision taking but implementation of the policy as well. The authorities failed to see within the unifying language policy, the other facet of the coin that shelters forces of support and opposition the cultivation of which depends on how far equity is being observed at the different levels to generate social, economic and political stability. Kaplan and Baldauf (1997:164) state, “While language maybe misused as an ideological weapon for power and dominance, it may also be a force for generating employment, development and ethnic harmony”. Skutnabb-Kangas (1995:70) holds that if the rights of minorities are respected, there is less likelihood of conflict. Quoting him “linguistic diversity is in no way causally related to conflicts , though of course language is a major mobilizing factor in contexts where an ethic group feels itself threatened , and /or where ethnic and linguistic boundaries coincide with other borders along which access to power and resources is unequally distributed” in Martin Pùtz (2004 :68 ).
39 Chapter two : Colonial Language Planning
2.1 Introduction
of a The present chapter intends to deal with the tricky controversy related to the origin of the Berber question and to understand the reasons and conditions of its surfacing. The idea behind the “Kabyle myth” was even prior to the French occupation and the discovery of the Kabyle community. This question incessantly concerned its advocators from 1830 to 1960. On the whole, the term “Kabyle myth” was coined between 1840 and 1857, and was consciously reinforced between the 1860 and 1870 to be largely used then for political controversies. It did not spring either from the national movement of liberation nor from the language planning policy after independence 56
The question was brought to notice by l’Abbé Raynal dating back to 1826 and resumed by the colonial authorities. 57 Chaulet argued that the “kabyle myth” which was enlightened in the 1840 and 1857 was consciously reinforced along the years 1860 and 1870 for contentious political ends. 58 The Berber question seems to offer certain gains for colonial policy implementation.
Any language, in any community, is tightly associated to social , economic, political, and educational foundations. For this reason, the actual sociolinguistic situation in Algeria cannot be fully accounted for without having an idea about the global policy. However, in the case of Algeria the lines of thought of the global policy elaborated after independence depended on the state of affairs inherited from the colonial policy. To tackle the language problems with all due precautions, the actual Algerian linguistic situation needs to be analyzed on the basis of the colonial language planning policy which was conducted through the autochthonous human resources neglect as G. Prévost puts it , “la mal-vie”, la “mal-bouffe” se decline en “mal-language” ( Benguerna and A. Kadri 2001:132) .
56 Ageron Charles-Robert, Les Algériens Musulmans et la France 1871-1919 Tome I , France : Bouchene, ,2005:267 57 Mahé Alain, Histoire de la Grande Kabylie XIX e-XX siècles Anthropologie historique du Lien Social Dans les communautés Villageoises, France : Bouchene ,2001 :149. 58 M. Madi, op cit : 116
40 Chapter two : Colonial Language Planning
In fact, the French colonial policy operated on at least four broad levels. On one front, the policy worried about the new settlers who would constitute the leading class of Algeria. E .Sabatier suggested a new people intimately allied to France serving as a substitute to the metropolitan population and supplying the necessary services to add force to the French sovereignty 59 . On the second level, it focused on the social disruption of the autochthonous population by attacking the socially empowered assets underlying the social cohesion of the collective identity and investing on the loose unscrambling factors. On the third one, efforts were oriented towards the economic insolvency setting in motion a process of dispossessing the indigenous population from the very means that stimulate growth-draining wealth away for the benefit of the settlers and the metropolitan country. The fourth one concentrated on language issue in Algeria - the focus of the present work – and consisted to drive the indigenous population into ignorance to hinder development as a whole.
The 1874 Commission of Inquiry whose President was Alexi de Tocqueville unveils the motives behind the colonial policy. The commission discloses that they laid hands on the income sources (those coming from the religious foundations used for charity and public education) that Schools were destroyed, and seminars were dispersed. That darkness prevails around … i.e., the Moslem society was rendered much more (…) ignorant and barbaric than it had been before the French arrival. 60 .A whole generation then was deprived of Koranic education. Within the same thought Captain Richard and other French officers of “the Arab bureaux” claimed willingly that when the Koranic schools 61 would collapse and the Arab people would be driven back into ignorance, only then would it be possible to teach them some of the things. 62
59 . Taouti, S. La Formation des Cadres pour le Développement, Alger: OPU, 1971: 44 60 Ageron, C.R. op cit : 318 61 Koranic school: a Muslim primary traditional school. 62 Ageron C.R, idem
41 Chapter two : Colonial Language Planning
Charles Richard suggests '' civilization through vacuum.'' He warns the French in case they spread to all Arabs the benefits of their Charter and legislation and finds no harm if the Arab schools and mosques were brought down and the Arab people were driven anew into ignorance. He believes this to be a pre- condition so that the French can lead them to submission. 63 The vacuum policy sought the cleansing of all the factors that alone feed national consciousness that the colonial authorities were determined to fight vigorously. Education and language then, became within the briefs of the domination policy to bring to satisfaction the formatting of the indigenous world view. Combating the indigenous language constitute a facilitator of domination. .Mazrui (1998:53) regards language “as a reservoir of culture which controls human thought and behavior and sets the boundaries of the world view of its users”. In the case of Ngugi wa Thion’o “the domination people’s languages of the colonizing nations was crucial to the domination of the mental universe of the colonized”, (in Mazrui, 1998:54). This manifests the power of language for domination purposes and orientation of people’s thought and perception of reality. As regards the assimilation and transformational role of language, using Mwaura’s words:
“Language influences the way, in which we perceive reality, evaluate it and conduct ourselves with respect to it .Speakers of different languages and cultures see the universe differently, evaluate it differently, and behave towards its reality differently. Language controls thought and action and speakers of different language do not have the same worldview or perceive the same reality unless they have a similar culture or background.”( Mazrui, 1998:53)
63 Lacheraf , M. Algérie Nation et Société, Paris : François Maspero, 1974: 25
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2.2 Education before 1830
When the French arrived, Great interest was given to the educational situation to decide upon the policy to be adopted. A kind of field statistical analysis was initiated to gather data for this purpose. The French authorities acknowledged the fact that the autochthonous population highly scaled child education. The chief administration officer, Carette, gives a valuable account of the interest given to education, and testified that the indigenous people living in Bougie requested an audience not to complain about their conditions of life, but rather asked for the restoration of the mosques, required a decent school for their children and a symbolic salary for the instructor they were unable to pay 64 . General Daumas estimated in one of his reports that primary education was much more widespread in Algeria than believed it to be in general. He declared that the three provinces i.e., Oran, Algiers, and Constantine displayed a male literacy schooling rate at least equal to the one revealed by the departmental statistical data concerning the French population living in the countryside. He furthermore reveals that each tribe and each urban district had its own school. The same reports estimated the number of students following a secondary education to amount to two or three thousand for each province and six to eight hundred for those registered in law and theology. 65 Ismail Urbain confirms the efforts of schooling, before the French arrival, revealing that Primary education was in 1830 much more widespread in Algeria. The average rate concerning male literacy was at least equal to that of the French population in the countryside in 1845. 66 The number of schools in some of the most important regions as indicated by Harbart amounted respectively to a hundred for Algiers, eighty-six for Constantine, and fifty for Tlemcen. There were ten ’’universities’’ such as Kala, and Mazouna spread out throughout the Algerian territory. 67 According to Turin (1971) public instruction was spread to all tribes and urban quarters before the French occupation.
64 Taouti, S (op cit, 1971: 36) 65 Colonna, F. Les Instituteurs Algériens1883-1939, Alger : OPU, 1975 : 30 66 Ageron, C. R ,2005:318 67 Taouti, S. op cit: 35
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Likewise, the officer Lamoricière states that Tlemcen had three colleges and fifty schools. Its province had thirty more or less well known zaouias 68 and a Koranic school for each douar 69 . Two thousand students followed a secondary education and six hundred followed a higher one. Each medersa 70 had its library. Some French officers’ testimonies indicated that primary education was as widespread as in France in 1830 71 he French General Valzé unveils the practical mastery of reading and writing by all the Arabs in 1834. 72 Furthermore, Pelissier de Saint Arnaud’s testimony of 1836 confirmed that the rate of primary education was as high as that of France in 1830. 73 There existed schools where writing and reading could be taught in almost all villages and douars. Gordon (1978) puts levels of Arabic literacy in Algeria at the onset of colonialism at 40 to 50%, Holt (1994:27).
As regards use, the Arabic language was the language of teaching in all regions of the country including Berber ones. It was the language of teaching in all of the zaouias and medersas existing in the Algerian towns and villages. 74 In the light of this, the colonial authorities could not remain spectators knowing the importance of these two factors in the life of communities. Colonizers looked scornfully to the colonized educational tradition. Malcoln Payne (2008:59) argues that educational colonialism claims that the colonizer’s universal knowledge is superior, devaluating and marginalizing the characteristics of the colonized civilization.
68 Zaouia : a Muslim traditional secondary school. 69 Douar : a small group of inhabitants in the countryside 70 Medersa : a Muslim traditional high school 71Turin, Y. Affrontements Culturels dans l’Algérie Coloniale Ecoles, Médecines et Religions, Paris : France Maspero ,1971:131 72 Ageron, C.R, idem 73 Collot, C.Les Institutions de l’Algérie durant la Période Coloniale (1830 –1962).Paris / Alger : CNRS/ OPU 1987:133. 74 Madi, M. op cit: 109
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2.3 The Colonial Education Policy Project
School was among the agenda of the French authorities to realize the conquest. Alfred Rambaud displays the different phases of the French conquest among which the educational system which projects among the many objectives a linguistic reshaping. For Alfred Rambaud, the first conquest of Algeria was brought to satisfaction in 1871 by means of armed efforts, the second one consisted in imposing upon the indigenous population the French administration and justice, and the third would be the task of school. It had to guarantee the supremacy of the French language over the local idioms in Algeria and fix to the Muslims the idea the French themselves had about France and the role it played in the world, and to substitute to ignorance and fanatic prejudices precise elementary notions of the European science. 75 The colonial powers were aware of the influence of the Arabic language and deployed coercive measures to replace it with their own. They also attempted to develop colloquial and regional dialects, hoping thereby to stamp out classical Arabic.
Alfred Rambaud placed emphasis on the colonial school duty to carry out the moral conquest through language displacement process in favor of the French language. This unveils the motives behind the colonial education which targeted the sociolinguistic reshaping applying what a Hungarian saying brings to light “c’est de sa langue que vit lanation” Hagégé (1992 :265). By extension education had to be framed to realize the task. Ashcroft et al state:
“Education … is a massive cannon in the artillery of empire’… education is perhaps the most insidious and in some ways the most cryptic of colonial survivals, older systems, now passing, sometimes imperceptibly into neo-colonialist configurations” (in. Payne and Askaland, 2008:59)
75 Colonna, F. op cit: 40
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Thus, formatting the indigenous population for domination purposes and conquest completion was a mission of education. Maurice Whal, who was in favor of the French cultural influence, acknowledged the fact that the French started first by destroying the “m’cids”, the zaouias, the madersas and other Muslim schools existing before 1830. It was only then that muddled attempts were conducted and which gave poor results and sometimes negative ones 76 . In his work related to education, culture and development, Benoune (2000:151) concluded that school was considered as an instrument for “the moral conquest of the Algerians”.
In practice, the colonial educational policy was marked by a controversy opposing the French authorities to the settlers. The French schooling policy in Algeria appeared to operate on two diametrically opposed visions: one in support of the policy of assimilation and destruction, the settlers used for utilitarian purposes to uphold their domination or on the opposite as a means for the liberal republicans in favor of the indigenous population to soothe the settler’s domination 77 .
2.3.1 The French Authorities’ Position
Generally, education the French authorities offered to the indigenous population was elementary, oriented towards the preparation of an indigenous manpower to serve the needs of the colonial political and economic endeavors. The theoretical part of primary teaching in the Indigenous schools were considerably reduced to become occupational. 78 Likewise, the General Governor Lepine favored the idea that the indigenous schooling should have a special and practical character, i.e. everything for practice and through practice. 79 This approach sought to restrict language skill development, which provides learners and users with language registers that are potentially thought promoters for future perspectives. Masqueray relied a lot on the role of school. For him, if twenty years ago, a minister were thoughtful enough to institute for the indigenous population 700 professional schools, this would supply 3,000,000 associates speaking the French language, knowledgeable of the French laws, accustomed to all the tricks of trade, and thus converted into citizens. In case of
76 Lacheraf, M, 1965:187 77 Colonna F, op cit : 37 78 Ageron, C.R. Les Algériens Musulmans et la France (1871-1919) Tome I, Paris : PUF 1968:924 79 Ageron, C.R idem
46 Chapter two : Colonial Language Planning excess, thousands of kabyliand and Chaouia workers will replace the Italians and Spanish in France. 80 Among other objectives, the French also sought to create an intelligentsia among the indigenous population to upkeep the ''ideal image'' they wanted to establish about themselves within the History of Algeria. Pierre Foncin, a responsible for overseas education in 1910, expounded this attitude. Quoting him, the aim of the specifically designed education for the indigenous population was to “…attach them to the metropolis by a very solid psychological bond, against the day when their progressive emancipation ends in a form of federation, as is possible …that they be, and they remain, French in language, thought and spirit”. Phillipson (1992:114) Studies of curriculum in classical colonial settings undertaken in Africa, Asia, and Latin America showed that the school curriculum in French colonies was modeled after non-elite elementary schools in France. This meant that students would be exposed primarily to lower status knowledge and would likely be presented with ideologies that not only legitimated French colonial rule but also prepared students for subordinate roles within francophone African societies. Moreover, since French administration and teachers controlled what they learnt, students encountered in the hidden curriculum a message of the legitimacy –or at least the normalcy of French rules (Ginsburg, and Clayton. 2002: 390). As Ginsburg, and Clayton, (op cit: 387) have noted, “Attention has been given to the role played in dependent or peripheral nations by elites, whose collaboration or mediation helps to re-produce their own nation’s subordination".
Ageron remains convinced about the colonial educational objective, which aims to convert a young indigenous population to the French morals, practices, and language but disagrees with the creation of the indigenous school as it keeps the French separated from the Arabs they wanted to accommodate to their daily practices. 81 In the same way, Hardy believed school to have the specific mission,
80 Ageron ,C.R ,2005:290 81 Benoune, M. Education Culture et Développement en Algérie, Marinor : ENAG, 2000:155
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“to transform the primitive people in our colonies, to render them as devoted as possible to our cause and useful to our commerce … the safest method is to take the native in childhood, bring him to our assiduous contact with us and subject him to our intellectual and moral habits for many years in succession, in a word to open schools for him where his mind can be shaped at our will”. (In Phillipson (1992:114)
Conversely, the educational outcome did not square with the expectancy. J. Desparet has a quite negative point of view. He considers the efforts made but a failure as the inner man they wanted to erase regained vitality. 82 Similarly, an inspector of education expressed his dissatisfaction in 1888 about the education offered to the indigenous child and noticed that it was of a two edge negative outcome. In fact, The French School not only contributed to sever the child from his native environment, but it failed the civilization objective, which initially meant integration of the school product, which he observed, was rather recaptured by barbarism. 83
On the part of the Algerian population, such a colonial policy was not welcomed. Muslims showed no interest in the French school in general and adhered strongly to the Koranic schools. They damned the “Roumis School”, i.e., the French School which projected to cut them off from their language and religion. 84 In spite of the destructive / constructive efforts of the French authority and power exercise to paste the French Revolution principles to the Muslims, the latter remained convinced of the intrusive and wicked aspects of the mission. Lamoriciere reveals the negative services of the French Revolution towards the Algerian society. While the French “civilizing mission” claimed to allow the Arabs (Algerians) to share the benefits of the French Revolution, unfortunately, the Muslims perceived it only as an attack against the Muslims and their religion. In fact, the settlers’ representatives converted the Muslim school infrastructure into stores, barracks for soldiers or stables
82 Benoune, M , op cit:196 83 Ageron, C.R ,2005 :341 84 Ageron, C.R, op cit : 542
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Drawing a parallel between the French and the British educational policies, R. Phillipson (1992.128) observes that ‘’education has had a similar structural role in both the French and British empires, namely of producing a limited elite with Europeanized values and skills’’. Both shared some tactics, which promoted the control of the uncertainty worry preparing thus, the postcolonial strategy. According to R. Phillipson(1992), there was a common advocacy of:
- Low status of dominated languages, whether these were ignored or used in education - A very small proportion of the population in formal education, especially after the lowest classes - Local traditions and educational practice being ignored - Unsuitable education being given to Africans - An explicit policy of ‘civilizing the natives - The master language being attributed civilization properties ( Phillipson ,op cit)
The noticeable presence of French and English languages within the sociolinguistic situation in independent African countries and their impact on language decision taking and /or implementation reveal the colonial procreative and deliberate procedure to supersede territorial expansion incentives by linguistic ones which are, compared to colonial effects potentially much more durable and quite destabilizing the national unity. According to Phillipson (1992:128), this constitutes
“(…) a legacy of linguicism in which the colonized people have internalized the language and many of the attitudes of the master, in particular their attitude to the dominant language and the dominated language. This linguicist legacy was the foundation on which French and English linguistic imperialism were to build the neo-colonial phase of imperialism”.
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2.3.2 The Settlers’ Position
The settlers’ representatives consider the indigenous schooling as the mostly anti-French procedure that has ever been committed since the French conquest. 85 A newspaper article in AL’Akhbar considered the indigenous school a place supplying future traitors committed to perpetuate the principles of the Arab feudalism and revolt sustaining. 86 General Ducrot believed the indigenous moral and material dispossession a must to pave the way to peace achievement in Algeria .He defended the need to supply all the necessary means to nourish, and develop the spirit of the settlers’ military organization. 87 In the eyes of the delegate Rivaille, education of the indigenous population was undesirable as it upsets gradually the existing social hierarchy between the conquerors and the conquered given the chances of promotion school may grant. 88
Furthermore, the fact of providing the indigenous population with schools constitutes according to the delegate Delphin, a foreseeable absorption of the French by the autochthonous. 89 The newspaper, El Mountakheb, (22 10 1882) reacted to Maurice Whal‘s dissatisfaction in terms of the low rate of the Muslim schooling in 1882, and his criticism towards the interest the French authorities showed for the kabyle area specially. It revealed the administrative decision to stop providing school for the kabyle area since the kabyle children displayed a high capacity of learning and thus, represented a future threat when growing adult. 90 Thomson, the budget commission spokesman holding the Europeans’ grievances expressed the Europeans refusal to finance schools in the kabyle area and suggested that schooling must be limited to an elementary level using the available infrastructure and the indigenous teaching staff. 91
The schooling policy did not motivate the indigenous population to adhere. Very few Algerians could join the French schools and pretend for higher education. The French policy
85 Benoune, M, 2000:154 86 Benoune, M, idem 87 Benoune , M, op cit: 144 88 Benoune, M , op cit: 164 89 Benoune, M idem 90 Benoune, M, op cit: 159 91 Ageron., C.R , 2005:336
50 Chapter two : Colonial Language Planning was rather to deprive the Algerians from any factor that favors social, economic, and intellectual promotion. Consequently, the French authorities imposed serious political constraints on the local education, which was designed for the indigenous population. Piveteau noted that school destruction reached a point of no return 92 .This policy disrupted the indigenous forces, marginalized their cultural system, deprived the Algerian society of the opportunity of independent development, and engendered a negative self-evaluation to the extent of “self hatred”. It also engulfed the Algerian society into illiteracy, and, therefore, backwardness was among the uppermost objectives given their long-term everlasting shock wave transmission. It even constituted the ideal strategy to bring to a successful realization their policy of colonization and post colonization in a form of preventive–predictive way. With regard to the educational policy, Malinowski‘s advice on the curriculum was that “it should not develop in the African, the hope that through education he can become the white’s man “ brother” and his economic and political equal”, Phillipson (1992:117)
2.4 The Implementation of the Colonial Policy
The alarming rate of illiteracy handed down to Algeria, in 1962, reached 85% according to Lacheraf (1974), 90% according to Aouragh (1996:267) and Hassan (1996: 73). El-Kenz (1989) who reveals that less than 14% could read and write in 1954 among which a quarter was competent in Classical Arabic. This provides a clear picture about the French aims and objectives. Phillipson (1992:112) reports that the rate of literacy in urban Algeria was 40% far higher than that of France at the time of the French arrival, but it decreased around 10 and 15 % after 130 years of occupation. At the dawn of independence less than 4% of the population whose age was equal to or greater than ten was literate in Arabic (1.6 bilinguals and 2.1 in Arabic only) and more than nine tenth were illiterate in both languages 93 .
92 Taouti, S ,1971:28 93 Kateb, K. Ecole population et société en Algérie, Paris : L’ Harmattan, 2005 :55
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In addition to the limitation of the indigenous education, the French adopted a strategy to deconstruct and reconstruct the language situation by encouraging the French to learn the Arabic vernaculars, Kabyle, and Berber dialects to have a direct contact with the masses. In support of this as early as 1882, a special allowance was issued to actively encourage the French civil servants to learn the Kabyle language (27 th April 1883 order). In addition, a Chair of Berber Dialects was instituted in Algiers Art School, which issued a degree of the Kabyle language giving access to an annual allowance in1885. Another decree was also issued for Berber dialects with the corresponding allowance (27 th December 1887 order). 94
These measures confined the local population within the oral tradition, which was limited to the use of the vernaculars, a strategy that maintains language diversity and was destined to widen the gap between CA and the Arabic vernaculars. This gap was intensified by the indigenous upward accommodation to the language of the colonizers because of the vernaculars low potential of communication. Furthermore, French was officially the only medium of instruction. This entangled the diglossic situation to develop through a “laisser faire” option. This option was fulfilled by the severe control of the Koranic schools and the restriction of CA teaching for CA and Islam were considered as factors that alone feed national consciousness that the colonial authorities were resolute to fight vigorously.
However, these impenetrable factors were soon adopted by the national liberation movement for unity and self-categorization. It is not haphazardly that Koranic schools happened to be one of the major targets. Indeed, it is school together with its medium of teaching which reproduces society and generates its means of development. This leads to argue that the language situation could have been otherwise if the French colonialism did not occur to interrupt the process. In addition, traditional education would neither have been the
94 Ageron, CR, 2005
52 Chapter two : Colonial Language Planning concern of some French personalities nor would the French authorities have fought against it if it had not represented a threat for the French settlement. Though the French authorities passed laws to allow indigenous Arab schools as a substitute to Koranic ones, such schools were almost unoperational as CA was taught through rhetorics and theology. These Arab schools represented a serious challenge opposing two cultures: a local culture to an imported culture.
Along the battle launched against CA, attempts were made to introduce SA (Spoken Arabic) or Vulgar Arabic at school. Colonial language activism which developed as early as the first decade of settlement placing emphasis on dialectal varieties of Arabic termed, vulgar Arabic, shows to what extent language was important within the colonial agenda. It was with the permission of the Minister of War, and at the suggestion of Genty de Bussey, senior member of the Council of State, in 1834, that J. Honorat Delaporte was allowed to publish his book (J. Honorat Delaporte, 1836: 5). The acknowledgement expressed officially by the Minister of war towards J. Honorat Delaporte (op cit) and J.F.de Braine (1846:i) is evocative as well. By way of illustration the works of J. Honorat Delaporte (1836, 1839), Jean Joseph Marcel (1837), Theodore Roland de Bussy (1838, 1843, 1847), J. F. Bled de Braine (1846) and Antoine Paulin Piham (1851) may be cited.
Studies conducted by J. F. Bled de Braine (1846: i) permitted him to assert strongly that Arabic is the easiest language of all languages revealing how successful were students who used his book and how excellent were their results. Jean Joseph Marcel (1837: x) in his turn found the learning of Arabic urgent and necessary for everybody. The studies he conducted allowed him to demonstrate that it did not take much to learn Arabic, and that it would be wrong to assume that learning Arabic is much more spiked with difficulties than the European languages. He reinforced this point arguing that Arabic is simple, methodic, and easy, having a regular system, and mathematically organized. Once acquired, which is a matter of a few
53 Chapter two : Colonial Language Planning days and a bit of reasoning (given the very few exceptions to the rules) certainly, the mastery of the language would be resolved”. 95 For Marcel (op cit: viii) “He who masters Arabic (…) will do without interpreters (…) He will not have any problem in Mogador, in Tangier, as well as in Astrakhan; with the ‘Marabouts’ in Algiers and the Muslims in Bengal. Within all these regions, so distant from each other, there exists a common tie: knowledge and use of Arabic, being either the indigenous language for some or the acquired code via the sacred form”. 96 .
As regards Spoken Arabic henceforth SA, it was instituted in 1836 in the College of Algiers, while CA was down graded as a foreign one in 1875. 97 Its teaching was first set up on an optional basis to become later obligatory for the French pupils of primary schools following the decision of June 18 th , 1904. 98 In addition, the Arabic language certificate was easy to obtain because the SA coefficient was doubled. The Decree of March 5 th , 1904 specified that '' regular '' Arabic was obligatory in the written exam, while "vulgar" as used by Ageron (op cit.) meaning SA (dialectal) in the oral one. This measure of grading ''vulgar'' Arabic higher than the ''regular'' one fits within the policy which encourages the learning of SA. Given the importance of teaching for language promotion such a policy was meant to maintain the diglossic situation in favor of the vernaculars, and by the same token to increase the distance between the indigenous population and CA incrusting an alien community within the pan Arab entity.
95 Jean Joseph Marcel (1837: x) « apprenez donc l’arabe ,voyageurs, commerçants de nos ports ,diplomates ,soldats de notre brave armée d’Afrique, administrateurs, employés ,agents ,colons, négociants de l’Algérie et de nos établissements dans l’Inde et le Sénégal, navigateurs ,explorateurs qui auraient parcouru ou les cotes d’Afrique septentrionale ,ou ses rivages occidentaux ,ou les parages de cette mer indienne ,si riche en dialectes divers, mais à travers lesquels l’idiome arabe a eu le pouvoir de se maintenir une place . Et ne croyez pas que l’étude de cette langue soit chose longue, pénible, obscure, ardue, hérissé de plus de difficultés que celles de nos langues européennes. La langue arabe est simple, méthodique, facile, son système est d’une régularité, d’une conséquence véritablement mathématique : une fois saisi, ce qui est l’affaire de peu de jours et quelques raisonnements (tant les principes ont peu d’exceptions) une fois saisi, je, on tient la langue entière (…) » 96 Jean Joseph Marcel (op cit: viii) , « (…) Celui qui possédera bien l’arabe , et surtout l’arabe vulgaire , n’aura ,soit qu’il commerce ,soit qu’il voyage , nul besoin d’interprète auprès des maures du Sénégal , comme parmi les peuplades éparses dans les vastes steppes de l’ancienne Tranxosiane : il entendra et comprendra ,il sera entendu et compris à Mogador ,à Tanger, comme à l’Astrakhan : chez les Marabouts d’Alger, comme chez les musulmans du Bengale ; entre toute ces contrées ,si éloigné l’une de l’autre ,il existe un lien commun, la connaissance et l’usage de l’Arabe ,chez les uns langage indigène, chez les autres idiomes, naturalisé par le Koran sacré. » 97 Marouf, N. et Carpentier, C. Langues, Ecoles et Identités, Paris : L’Harmattan ,1997: 81 98 Ageron, C.R, 1968
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The Decree of March 8 th 1938 Ageron (op cit.) also came to reinforce the French policy by giving CA a status of a foreign language and assimilating the Medersa to the French primary school for the purpose of control. In parallel, the French aim was to assimilate the indigenous population by imposing French as the medium of instruction. However, the extent to which assimilation was fulfilled did not seem to be the focus of the French authorities. It was rather a hideous way to dispossess the indigenous from the linguistic tool to disrupt the membership continuum to the Arabo-Muslim root and engraft a culture of dependence.
The policy consisted to inject a potentially disturbing language situation. .Cohen projected the total and brutal displacement of the Arabic language use in favor of the French one from a generation to the other under the influence of primary and secondary education. 99 Gautier (op cit: 410) noticed a shift concerning the new generations who abandoned Arabic as a language of learning they considered burdensome and useless. Yet, they did not abandon Algerian Arabic, a patois form that provides them with important expressive services.
Education, as a whole, was not academic but rather oriented towards the realization of the French policy in Algeria disregarding the social and intellectual promotion of the Algerian society. As conceived by the French, such an education was unwanted by the local population as it correlated with the occupier's culture and domination. In addition, this education found little welcome and appreciation as the local population confronted very bad social conditions. People were still faced with the primary needs of life. Such a policy was a kind of language planning elaborated for the Algerian population who mostly reacted in an anticlockwise manner putting shields to the French penetration into the hearts of the language assets be it Arabic and even Berber. Belqacem Ben Sedira reported that the kabyle population was afraid to see their children converted into “roumis” and soldiers and declared in case this would come true to “put out to sea for suicide”. 100
99 Gautier, E. F, 1952:140 100 Ageron, C.R ,2005:275
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2.5 The Language Policy of “divide and rule ”
As Holt reports a policy of ‘divide and rule’ was installed, allowing education in French schools only and closing all Koranic ones. Some even went as far as to justify this by claiming the kabylians to be descendents of the Gauls Suleiman (1994:28). The colonial authorities gave interest to the distribution of the Arab and Berber population targeting the ethnic division of the Algerian population. In addition to the 1860 and 1910 inquiries conducted respectively by Hanoteau, Douté, and Gautier , two other census were also carried out in 1948 and 1954 wheeling around the ethnic origin on the basis of the spoken languages to inquire about the berber speaking proportion (See annex:260 ) . The policy implied to homogenize the Kabyle community. Mathieu expressed it clearly when proposing to ‘berberize’ the Arab minority living among the tribes of a kabyle majority. He meant to reinstate all aspects of life of the Kabyle community among which the national language to teach them the history of their race which used to be free, flourishing, and of Christian faith, and to tie them up to France through the respect of their traditions. This would distance the kabylian community from the Moslem conquerors. 101 As Djebali (2002:146) notes, the linguistic division of North African populations was,
“An attractive colonial strategy … the French developed and defended a set of negative ideas about the Arabs, portraying them as ruthless, savage and blood thirsty nomads. Without portraying a totally positive image of the Berbers, the French portrayed them as a victimized group forced to embrace Islam and pushed into mountainous areas by the Arab aggressors. These blatantly opposed images (bad Arab versus good Berber) constructed by the French were translated into a series of oppositions such as between ignoble and noble, sedentary and nomad, Semitic and Nordic, tyrannical and democratic, subjugation of women and freedom, religious fanaticism and religious tolerance.”
101 Ageron, C.R 2005: 482
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Along the same thought, Evans, and Phillips(2008:35) observe,
“within Algeria, The French authorities operated a ‘divide and rule’ policy, making judgments, based upon ethnography and anthropology, as to what parts of the population were more open to French culture (…) the French set out to court the largest Berber group, the Kabyle. The essence of what became known as the Kabyle myth was that Berbers were Indo-Europeans in origin and their mountain culture, based as it was on independence and hard work ,made them much more akin to the peasants of the Auvergne than were the Arabs . Crucially too, the authorities claimed that the Kabyle people’s attachment to Islam was much more superficial (…).”
2.6 The Framing of the Sociolinguistic Situation
Philipson (1992) shows how the colonial authorities attempted to engage a postcolonial cultural imperialism basis by promoting their languages through a process of economic, social, and cultural destruction, which engulfed the indigenous population together with its language(s) in a total poverty. In the case of Algeria, the French colonial authorities pursued a language policy which aimed at destroying the Arabic language and establishing the supremacy of the French language for the explicit purpose of controlling the worldview of the colonized. This view asserts that our view of the world, the ways we can categorize our experience and conceptualize our environment is function of our language, which applies a hegemonic pressure on our world design. This hegemonic power of language the French adopted has its origin in the Sapir –Whorf hypothesis in linguistics. According to Edward Sapir,
“Human beings do not live in the objective world alone, nor alone in the world of social activity as ordinarily understood, but are very much at the mercy of the particular language which has become the medium of expression for their society. It is quite an illusion to imagine that one adjusts to reality essentially without the use of language and that language is merely an incidental means of solving specific problems of communication or reflection. The fact of the matter is that the ‘real world’ is to a large extent unconsciously built up on the language habits of the group… We see and hear and otherwise experience very largely as we do because the language habits of our community predispose certain choices of interpretation.” Corder (1973:75)
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The colonial authorities projected to substitute the French language world view to the Arabic language one. Obviously, the French language was attributed the task of displacing the reality the Arabic language conveys as no two languages are ever sufficiently similar to be considered representing the same reality. But as we dissect the world along lines laid down by our native language first, the mission appears rather to be converted into one that would rather produce a blurred vision of the world for which any attempt to put it on its feet again is pricy and time consuming. In addition to the worldview, a language incrusts in the mind of the individual. Hagége (2000:16) acknowledges the power of language to allow the individual’s insertion in a society. Yet policy can intervene to command this natural function of language. Describing the Maghreb language situation,. Mazrui (1998:15) has concluded,
“The French tried to strengthen two rivals to Arabic: the French language itself and the indigenous Berber. French language policy tried to foster a triple heritage of verbal communication in the Maghreb: Arabic, Berber and French. It was part of France’s policy of ‘divide and rule’ , which had more success than it deserved, at least until the 1940s and the 1950s when North African nationalism tried to transcend ethnic and linguistic differentiation”.
The motivations behind the French language were clearly defined by the official primary school educational program destined to the indigenous population in Algeria in 1898. Colonna (1975:208) unveils the objectives of the plan, which imposes the teaching of the French language to which all the other school subjects are submitted. In addition to the role school is meant to play as an educational institution, the French language is attributed the role to lighten relations between the French and their subjects. Yet, the school mission on no account must initiate the young indigenous population neither to the French language literary beauties and its scientific capital nor to its specific industrial and commercial specific registers not even to the grammar skills and linguistic talents. The plan as a whole confines the objective to the ordinary language teaching which fits but elementary knowledge acquisition. (See annex:261 )
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This shows the place attributed to language to carry out the policy of domination. The key language domains allowing the individual’s promotion and higher levels of knowledge acquisition that stimulate development remain within the possession of the occupier , and hence reducing both of the indigenous population and the indigenous elite as mere spectators upon the world of modernism and development. That was another phase of domination, which intended to deprive the colonized from the tools of efficient expression and thought production. The French authorities made great efforts in favor of the Kabyle language at the expense of the Arabic language. The teaching of the Kabyle language was instituted on the basis of the 27 th April order. Another language measure was adopted in 1885 in favor of Berber dialects to be taught at the level of the Art School in Algiers which delivered a degree in Berber dialects. In parallel, the teaching of SA was instituted in the Algiers Ecole Normale in 1865. 102 However, the kabyle policy did not inspire the Berber community nor stimulated the colonizers to defend its implementation. But it remains an attempt engaged but interrupted and left in a dormant stage.
2.6.1 Motivations behind Arabic Language Status Devaluation
Some French officers’ testimonies made Taouti (1971:36) to assume that education was largely spread with no delay as to children education. Before the 1830s, Algeria had its proper educational and economic organizational policy with a religiously united population and an educational system functioning in the Koran language. Marçais‘earlier account about the Maghreb, during the 7 th century, empowers Taouti’s opinion. Marçais (1961:171) reported that the Berber country broke off incontrovertibly with the western world in the 7 th century to join conclusively the East peacefully. This is because the Arabs did not exercise power directly over the population, but, on the other hand, they managed to arabise it so satisfactorily that the Maghreb is considered but a province of the Arab world. The Arabs
102 Ageron, C.R, 2005
59 Chapter two : Colonial Language Planning succeeded admirably their mission in the Maghreb . Gautier (1952:233) was filled with wonder when appreciating the degree at which the Arabs overwhelmingly arabized and islamized the area. The Arabic language constituted that cement which consolidated the unity of the different communities. In spite of the inexpiable hatred they showed towards each other and the different ways of life, the communities shared a strong feeling of brotherhood, used the same language and felt unintelligibly to belong to the same race. 103
The scholarly interest, which was versed to inquire about the state of art concerning the Arabic language played and important role to motivate the colonial fight against the language situation in Algeria. As regards the Arabic Language, its use was maintained throughout the 11 th and even the 14 th centuries. The Maghreb cities spoke a form of Arabic known as literary Arabic, that is, the language of the conquest -the koranic form. School, literature ,and writing participated in maintaining this form which, it should be mentioned, did not develop from vulgar Arabic, i.e., the popular form because the population spoke Berber at that time. In fact, Vulgar Arabic was brought during the 11 th century by bedouins who were the first Arab population appearing in the Maghreb. 104
Following the adoption of Arabic by Islam, a great philological effort developed. Grammarians, lexicographers, and collectors of ancient poetry contributed in a language cultivation objective, which was conducted with such a loving care that no other language has ever known. At the time, the modern time’s languages were still at their stage of infancy; the Arabic language was well ahead of with a literary production expressed in a meticulously stipulated language. 105 This witnesses how successful the Arabs were to bring into play the real and great cultural capacities of the Arabic language when taking over the efforts from the ancient civilizations. The Arabic prose conquered an important place in the Arab world during the first three Hegira centuries. Everywhere, its appearance coincided with the Arabs’ intellectual progress and scientific research. It was an abundant and varied form of Arabic, which could be adapted to thought expression necessities. Due to the laborious efforts of two
103 Gautier, E.F. 1952: 418 104 Gautier, E.F. op cit : 395 105 Marçais, W. Articles et conférences, Paris : Adrien – Maisonneuve, 1961
60 Chapter two : Colonial Language Planning generations of writers, the Arabic prose acquired a manageable, clearer and modernized feature becoming liable to serve as an instrument to express a modern civilization and to produce masterpieces to enrich again the spiritual treasure of humanity 106 . Stetkevych (2006), a masterful scholar of the Arabic language, highlights the strength of the Arabic language and demonstrates how the Arabic language has triumphed over the corrosive forces of time and reenergized to meet the requirements of the twentieth century life owing to its mathematical like aspect 107 .
Chejne (1969) reports the extent to which Arabic was highly praised among Arab- Muslims and non-Arab Muslims. He reveals that the great thinker and scientist Al-Biruni, (died in 1048), not an Arab himself, had learnt the Arabic language and found it superior to his own mother tongue, and his acquired Persian. He expressed his admiration of Arabic in glowing terms by pointing out the intimate relationship that binds the Arabs and Muslims under the support of Arabic and the culture contained therein. On the same line of thought, Benoune (2000:16) emphasized Al-Burini’s admiration as regards the expressive power of the Arabic language that no other language could equate. For Marçais (1961:17), the Arabic language was a language bearing a culture and one that expressed administrative, technical and law domains.
In support of the use of the Arabic language as a fundamental vehicle of knowledge transmission, Lacheraf revealed that forty years after the Arabs’ eviction from Granada in 1492, the Arabic language still enjoyed its prestige. This is clearly apparent in the bishop of Cordova’s deploration. The fact that the talented young Christians knew unfortunately only the Arabic language and the Arabic literature, that the celebrated physicist and chemist Arnaldo Villanueva successfully translated a whole lot of books about medicine from Arabic,
106 Marçais, W. op cit: 236-237. 107 It is a privileged language .it has lived for one millennium and a half essentially unchanged, usually gaining , never completely losing , Venus like, it was born in a perfect state of beauty, and it has preserved that beauty in spite of all the hazards of history… it has known austerity, holy ecstasy and voluptuousness, bloom and decadence . It exuberated in time of splendour and persisted trough times of adversity in a state of near- hibernation. But when it woke again, it was the same language .the fact that Arabic long survived and still had the vitality to burgeon anew might be due to religious and social factors, but the quantitative ability to expand and the qualitative capacity to attain perfection and to maintain its essential characteristics are the merits of the language exclusively… the first experience with Arabic suggests an idea of almost mathematical abstraction. The perfect system of the three radical consonants, the derived verbal forms with their basic meanings, the precise formation of the verbal noun, of the participle – everything is clarity, logic, system and abstraction. The language is like a mathematical formula.
61 Chapter two : Colonial Language Planning and that Arabs supplied all the Europeans universities with handbooks for a period of three centuries was unacceptable. 108 Within this respect it is worth mentioning that Bologna, an Italian university, one of the most ancient and prestigious western universities, used to teach anatomy in the Arabic language. 109
In the case of dialectal Arabic, people in most parts of the Maghreb used a form, which closely resembles the Arabic language, and showed an eastern style of dressing, thinking and flavor for approximately three millenniums. 110 This needs to measure up the challenge. And so to speak, it is within this line of thought that the French sought to elaborate a policy which would serve to exorcise the inner Arabo - Muslim man from the outer one, an objective, which heartened the French authorities to target the focal factors of degeneration among which language with the absolutely competitive services of school. Holt (1994:27) notes that in the early years of French colonialism more attention was paid to “suppressing indigenous culture than to inculcating the indigenous with a new French one”.
2.6.2 The French Schooling Policy
Schooling was the other major scene the French had to exploit to distance the kabylians from Arabs. Several berberophiles in the government estimated education as an instrument through which kabylians could be assimilated into the French policy. Goodman (2005:9) attests that French schools were built in the kabylian region a generation earlier than elsewhere in Algeria, with the first school opening in the early 1880. He sees the fact of promoting kabylian political and legal institutions, on the one hand, and the search to incalculate kabylians with a republican education, on the other hand a contradictory approach. However, both initiatives shared the goal of developing what the French perceived as a latent
108 Bennoune, M. (2000:14) 109 Bennoune, M. (op cit) 110 Gautier, E.F (1952:144).
62 Chapter two : Colonial Language Planning secularism in the Kabylian society. Schooling was unevenly distributed in the three departments: Oran, Algiers, and Constantine. Even more, schooling was highly discriminating within the same department because of the linguistic and geographical area. In the case of the departments of Algiers and Constantine for example, Tizi-Ouzou (Greater kabylie) and Bougie, which constitute together the region of, “lesser kabylie”, benefitted respectively from a higher rate of schooling. 111 (See annex: 259 ).The schooling efforts were also discriminating on the basis of the Berber speech varieties. Such is the case of Guelma and Batna, which are of a chaouia language background. This shows the interest given to the Berber community concerning the schooling rate and its use for cultural and linguistic deconstruction/construction strategy. “Greater and Lesser Kabylie” were selected as potential areas to conduct the policy objectives. As reported by The director of the Bouzareah School who admitted that the aim behind giving advantage of schooling opportunities to the kabylian population is determined by the French utmost interests suggesting the idea of instrumentalization for authority and influence. 112 Here again appears the widely adopted policy of ‘divide and rule’ on the basis of an ethnolinguistic geopolitical objective. Colonna (1975:46) admits that rural areas clearly served to apply Jeannaire and Combes’ objective which consisted of giving priority of schooling to areas of high population concentration, and which shockingly happens to fall sharply within the Berber areas. The importance given to the place of the “kabyle myth” in the republican schooling policy and in the colonial policy as a whole was so obvious that it did not require any proof to demonstrate that implementation imperatives went hand in hand with political project, and that schooling was equated with the political imperatives. 113 The Berber policy, i.e., the exceptional “over schooling” in the Berber regions, was short-lived, but it constituted the political will which engendered long-lasting effects represented by the creation of a local political elite of a French language background and of a local cultural character to develop assimilation ideas that square with the French objective. 114 Mahé, (2001:156) on his turn estimates that the Berber policy initiative produced unexpected results: nationalism in the case of Morocco and unity of the Arab and the Berber communities in the case of Algeria to fight for the same cause.
111 Colonna, F ,1975:46 112 Madi, M, 1997:115 113 Colonna, F, Idem 114 Mahé, A, 2001:153
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2.6.3 The Search for Policy Incentives
In addition to the school services, population diversity was also targeted to serve the colonial interests. Masqueray believes diversity to be of great help. For him, the lack of population homogeneity represents a tactical support to carry out the secularization task and engage in dispersing the indigenous cohesion by a methodic disbanding of the essential institutions from which they derive cohesion. 115 For Leroy Beaulieu, the lack of homogeneity in Algeria represents an opportunity to seize. The kabylian community offers a field for the colonial policy triumph. While religion is the only tie the kabylian community has with the Arabs, it remains the only factor, which separates the kabylian people from the Europeans. 116 Weitzman (2002: 165) notes “the French colonial power sought to play the Berber card against the Arabs to strengthen their rule and active participation in the national struggle for independence”. Bibesco (1865: 562) asserts that all the distinctive aspects that separated the Kabyle from the Arab are considered to be the ones that tied the Kabyle people to the French, and consequently the Kabyle people are liable to assimilation and perfection. Thus, whatever efforts done for material and moral development would not only satisfy their inclination, but also permit our domination. 117
If General Daumas and Captain Fabar were convinced about the existence of two distinct races: the Arab race and the Kabyle one 118 , Franck-Chauveau on the other hand, defended the existence of two distinct communities on the basis of a colonial approach analysis. For him, the Kabyle community constitutes the autochthonous population while the Arabs, the colonizers who imposed their institutions upon the Kabyle community.This option was favored by senator Guichard as it fits C.Sabatier’s Kabyle policy and suggested to colonize Algeria by the Kabylians. 119 C. Sabatier distinguishes three races: Arab, Kabyle and Chaouia. In fact, it is C. Sabatier who put forward the theory of the three races in Algeria: the Arab race, having a degenerated lineage with the Kabyle, or Berber race and the Chaouia race, a
115 Ageron, C.R. 2005:276 116 Ageron, C.R, 2005:239 117 Bibesco .Nicolas « Les Kabyles du Djurdjura : la société kabyle avant la conquête ». In Revue des deux Mondes xxxv année- seconde période 1865 tome 56, université de Harvard, 1865:569 . 118 Ageron, C.R 2005:269 119 Ageron, C.R op cit : 482
64 Chapter two : Colonial Language Planning mixed one, known as being worse, shrewd and false-hearted 120 . This explains the reason for which, Senator Pauliat suggested to Jules Ferry as many races as many policies. 121 In support for this, administrative reforms in the Kabyle region were designed to maintain the local specific system . De Gueydon held up the idea that the Kabyle people should constitute a special department which would include the Berber speaking population living on the littoral. 122
This suggests an ethnolinguistic goal known as the Berber colonial policy which projects to excavate the Berber non-conflicting fossils that the autochthonous population still holds. In so doing , the French authorities intended to separate the fraction of the population who maintained its Berber or Amazigh characteristics from the arabized Berbers considered by the French to constitute a separate ethnic community . On becoming a deputy in 1885, C. Sabatier , one of the influential Kabyle policy advocators succeeded to pass the Law deposited on July 12 th 1889 to speed up his policy. The law constituted a thorough constitution allowing a financial autonomy and intended to form a colonial council with two indigenous advisory councils: A Berber and an Arab one. In 1891, C. Sabatier thought it was necessary to provide the two Algerian communities distinct representations within the French assemblies for fear that a common representation would encourage contact between the two communities. 123 As regards the Berber policy motivations, the advocators tried to sieve and crop up again the Berber element from the Arab one. Gautier (1952) explains how the Berber identity was brought again to notice. He admits that the Arab invasion succeeded to achieve both of the material and moral conquest, but it is worth noting that the Berber race remained untouched regarding blood ties and language use insofar as the term Berber can be used to name a multitude of related dialects . The Arabic language was in fact used as a regular literary form in the Maghreb but among the Bourgeois class. However, Berber patois forms were the only popular language used from the deepest country until the city borders. As a result, the Berber people regained consciousness about their identity and attributed themselves the term Berber that appeared with the Arab invasion but did not survive in the Middle Ages.
120 Ageron, C.R idem 121 Ageron, C.R, idem 122 Ageron, C.R. op cit : 276 123 Ageron, C.R op cit : 292
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In the eyes of the colonial authorities, the kabylian people are considered to belong to the big Berber family, which used to have the control of North Africa. Its origin and history provide evidence for being anterior to the Arab’s presence in Algeria. Accordingly, they constituted a distinct race having distinct language. Geographically, they were established in mountains situated in the Tell and in the Sahara oasis representing approximately the third of the French Africa. Colonial authorities claimed that the kabylian people underwent the Arabs’ influence, but they did not completely lose awareness about their origin. And so to speak, the colonial authorities believed the kabylian people would appreciate regaining the traditions of their true race. 124 This is what the French were determined to revive. To distinguish a community based on a language and its linguistic kinship relation implies a geographical definition of a group with its corresponding identity. Obviously, the colonial authorities practiced a policy destined to construct a homogenous group in accordance to the equation one language equals one nation putting into questions the bonds of belonging to the larger group i.e., the Arabo - Muslim one and raising “the who am I question”. This compartmentalizes users of a language according to a socio-discursive ground propagating difference and split. This also serves to prompt the construction of different and opposed groups, which would question a non- conflicting used to be reality and awaken drives that are self-recognition causing the whole to fall apart. To say it otherwise, to attribute a name is alone a powerful means, which carries geographical, cultural and political incentives to stir up the communication network. From the moment a language is given a name, it gains homogeneity and becomes subject to a linguistic and educational policy, which represent the battle stake of a nation state building. Europe offers an example of nation building based on language promoting process. To cancel out Latin, the Latin-speaking world was fragmented into several independent states and Europe witnessed during the 16 and the 17 th centuries a process of language making and homogenizing aiming at national unification.
124 Revue des Deux Mondes, op cit : 563
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In the case of France, all regional languages and varieties were displaced in the profit of the French candidate. One language equals one nation and community, i.e., one ethnic group. In this case, naming a language constitutes a strategy, which projects to build an ethnically homogenous nation, which falls within the scope of the colonial policy. Correspondingly, the disintegration of the Arabo-Muslim nation required the fragmentation of the Arab world by encouraging the dialectal form(s) and dissociating the Muslim world by enhancing all the features of each community namely language. In the case of Algeria, the Berber colonial policy fits the language planning colonial policy to hinder the elaboration of a wider collective community and slash off nationalism.
2.6.4 Berber Policy Advocators
The Berber question or Amazigh identity was brought to notice recently. This is perhaps unexpected, in view of the fact that the Maghreb’s beberophone population has exited along side the arabophone population for centuries. There was no significant distinction between Arabs and Berbers. The population was divided linguistically but with no very social, political distinction. However, there was an attempt of the colonial authorities in the nineteenth century to emphasize deliberately the difference between Arabs and Berbers in the Maghreb and serve the strategy of “divide and rule”. The French believed the linguistic factor in the region strong enough to insulate the Berbers from the Arabs, but it soon became a myth when both Arabs and Berbers participated in the framing of the national movement of liberation.
The interest in the Berber culture dates to the period of the French colonialism in Algeria (1830-1962). According to Goodmam (2005:4), “the French looked at Algeria with a lens of dual vision. Whereas they viewed Arabs through a lens of religion, they saw Berbers through a lens of culture”. Ageron (2005:270) notes that the Kabyle myth was used skillfully to fight against the Arab kingdom. Masqueray, a fervent defender of a pro-kabyle and anti Muslim policy, was convinced about the French duty to combat Islam and descried in the Kabyle laws an extremely interesting outlook as they differ and diverge from the Muslim ones. A Kabyle law was an attention-grabbing instrument. The greater its use, the greater the gap between the
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Muslim Arabs and their conquered would be 125 . Furthermore, Weitzman (2001) quoted in Berrabeh (2007:33) has revealed,
“The kabylians are unique in that they have been involved in major developments throughout Algerian history, since the time of the French conquest –from their fierce resistance to the French rule, to being the subjects of sustained attention in an effort to wean them away from Algeria’s Arab Muslims”.
On another front, other voices preached rather a tactical way to dominate Berbers through alliance. Within this scope , Adamson (1998:175-176) reports that a scientific commission was in place and engaged in collecting data on the Algerian society and the security risks posed by different population elements to decide who would be most likely to cooperate with the colonial authority . Lorcin (1999:151) referring to Pascal Duprat’s work ‘race and the kabylians in the 1840s’, reported that the study led him to conclude that Berbers were a “great” and “immortal” race as they managed to resist the different conquests suggesting,
“An alliance with the Berbers, for the past had shown that the dominating powers that had established themselves in North Africa those that had created alliances with the Libyan or Berber race had prospered, while those that had opposed them had been bedeviled with misfortune and disaster”.
Within this line, an important colonial political literary effort echoed with the Berber colonial policy. Advocators tried to bring evidence about the real indigenous Algerian population represented by the kabylian Berber community they assumed to be closer to the French supplying support and impetus for Camille Sabatier’s policy. Camille’s “Essai sur les Berbères” (1882), Warnier‘s “La Kabylie-pays Berbères” (1876), E. Masqueray’s “la Formation des Cités chez les Populations Sédentaires d’Algérie” (1886) and “la Kabylie et les Coutumes Kabyles” written by Hanoteau and Letourneux and a host of other scholars all shore up the kabyle policy in Algeria. J. Scheele (2007:155) reports that forty volumes of
125 Ageron, C.R, 2005:276
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French ethnography were produced on the Kabylians. These were written mainly by French military officers. Another factor selected to carry out the policy was the demographic one. Though according to standard practice ethnic or linguistic census are not welcomed, as they appear rather to be conflict breeding and represent a threat for the collective identity. But the census can also be used as a tool for policy planning. Countries characterized by a conflicting ethnic and language diversity have no interest in conducting a population census, which would feed conflicts. Belgium, for instance, abandoned all thought relative to language census for fear to reveal any rate of assimilation concerning the co-existing Belgium linguistic communities. In other cases, the ethnic and language census may be conducted as a planning strategy to upgrade the major group over the minor group but may turn to be delicate as it may lead a minority group to emerge. In some other cases, ethnic and language census are purposefully conducted to feed fraction and friction among the targeted population. And so, was the French authorities’ aim. The Arab and Berber communities became subject to a statistical approach analysis that French administrative officers conducted to furnish necessarily some invaluable elements for their colonial objectives and future perspectives.
Other efforts were directed towards bringing some evidence raising the problem of Kabyle majority versus Arab minority so as to motivate a shift from an Arab policy to a Kabyle one. Warnier estimated the Arab community to be mostly of a Berber origin, which was arabized as a result of the Arab invasion. According to a previous statistical data advanced by Carette and Hanoteau, Warnier estimated the number of arabophone Berbers to 1,200,000, that of the berberophone Berbers to 1,000,000 and that of the Arabs to 500,000. Carette, however, advanced 1, 279,450 Arabs and 1,390, 960 Berbers in 1853. While a statistical inquiry conducted by Hanoteau in 1860 revealed 855,159 Berbers. Jules Duval estimated the Berber population to 700,000 and the Arab one to 2,000,000. The 1865 estimation revealed a Kabylian population of 978,179, a Berber one of 209,515 and an Arab of 1,131,599 while the total indigenous population amounted to 2, 732,851 in 1861 126.
126 Ageron, C.R. les Algériens Musulmans et la France (1871-1919), France : Bouchene, Tome I (2005:271-272)
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Abbé Raynal was undoubtedly the first to deal with the Kabyle myth in one of his works in 1826. His work discloses the particular Berber characteristics among which their language, their way of life and their Nordic origin 127 . But it was in 1845 that Bodichon conceived a Berber policy which sought to make the most of the existing hatred between the Arab and the Berber communities projecting a fusion with the latter and the suppression of the former. Both of colonel Daumas and captain Fabar were convinced by the possibility of a fusion with the Kabyle race as they showed peaceable and industrious tendencies, and regretted the fact the two races were treated alike and were determined to collect evidence for the Germanic origin and Christian background 128 . The steadiness of the kabylians and their love for work also constituted the strong mainspring of the policy 129 . In the eyes of Warnier, the Berber community constitutes the real indigenous population the French authorities had to help to recover power over their territory.
Warnier, a fervent advocator of the annexation policy for a trans-Mediterranean France showed a strong opposition towards Napoleon III policy concerning the respect of the Arab nationality by the colonizers - a respect he viewed incompatible with the western civilization - and wished that Napoleon were thoughtful to sustain the Berber rightful claim of nationality. He believed that progress was as difficult with the Arabs or even impossible, as it is easy by grafting the French civilization to the Berber tradition. 130 While E. Masqueray considered the kabyle policy a way to take revenge on the Arabs and liberate Berbers who were downtrodden by the Turkish and forced to hold back by the Arabs. 131
Senator Pomel dealt with the race phenomenon in Algeria in his book les races indigenes de l’Algerie in which he defended clearly his indigenous policy focusing on the fact that the Berber people are of a Celt rigin and that colonization will exercise justice for them
127 Ageron, C.R. op cit : 268 128 Ageron, C.R. op cit : 269 129 Ageron, C.R, idem 130 Ageron, C.R op cit : 270 131 Ageron, C.R, op cit : 276
70 Chapter two : Colonial Language Planning by driving the Arabs towards the Sahara. 132 The French authorities were not the only ones to bring to doubt the Berber origin. The idea that the Berbers were closer to a Latin origin rather than to a Semitic one was also a path that both Cherif Benhabyles and Belkacem Ibazizen were versed to evidence. 133 Renoux, Maurice Varnier, and senator Clamageran, in their study conducted in 1883, Leroy-Beaulieu and his classical book L’Algerie et la Tunisie ( 1887), Paul Bert and his work Lettres de Kabylie (1885) and Camille Sabatier, one of the great theorizing of the kabyle policy, all tried to put into practice the ideas of the theory that E. Masqueray considered as a “sociology game” that he developed in one of his article published by Littré magazine in 1877. 134
The policy was oriented towards the fusion of the Berber community with the European one as a strategy to modify the behaviour of the Berber indigenous population and a way to interrupt the Arabo-Muslim affinity. In terms of the social transformation, P.Richard suggested the economic, intellectual and moral change. He found it urgent to change the kabylian economic behavior and believed the intellectual and moral change to come through a totally different style of life, which is beyond the academic role of school. Schooling was meant to facilitate the progress of marriage with the Europeans and engage the fusion of the two races to save the inferior race from collapse 135 . Gastu, a deputy, perceived the existing likeness between the Kabyle and European practices to bring about fusion as well 136 .
Lord Aucapitaine sought to establish a kinship relation between the French and the kabylian customs and characteristics. According to him, the Kabylian constitution was republican, and their way of governing democratic like the French one. Furthermore, and from an architectural and cultural point of view, the kabyle villages with their red roofs which resembled the French ones, and the cross posture practice for tattooing as well as the consideration of Sunday as a day off, were essentials to be well thought-out for assimilation to be satisfactorily conducted in approximately one hundred years. 137 The Kabyle community
132 Ageron, C.R, 2005:274 133 Madi, M, op cit : 115 134 Ageron, R.C, op cit : 274,285 135 Ageron, R.C, op cit : 285 136 Ageron, R.C op cit : 274 137 .Ageron C.R, 2005:270
71 Chapter two : Colonial Language Planning seems as if it holds the secrets of the French success in Algeria. To clear the way to the French “mission civilisatrice”, the French authorities showed interest in terms of the assimilation of the Kabylian community to the Europeans and the vanishing of the Arabs. Powerfully, Topinard suggested that the kabylians could be “civilized” and moulded to French colonial needs in a way the burnt -out Arab could not; in short, they were perfectible. (in Lorcin 1999: 158)
The administration officer de Gueydon was convinced that the future laid within the strategy of assimilating the Kabyle community, and not in any other policy. 138 Similarly, Lavigerie was thoroughly convinced about the fact that both the Kabyle and French shared the same blood, the same roman origin, the same Christian background that created providential ties. The Kabyle area constituted the African Lebanon, A Lebanon that Europe deserted. Lavigerie intended, by creating a new environment with new men ,”the Whites fathers” to regain the apostle of the future Maronites, and believed if he were let to do so, the kabyle area would become again Christian. 139 For Captain Carette, it is a must to convert the Kabylian community in very few years into smart efficacious associates to fit the French missions. 140 The colonial novelist Louis Bertrand considered colonization legitimate as it simply consists of a mission to recover the Latin Heritage. 141 Bertrand Louis valorized the Berbers among the indigenous populations and culture, and considered the cultural legitimacy of the groups that had dominated Algeria since the Arrival of Islam as alien to the area and population. 142 (Salhi, 2003:19)
138 Ageron C.R, op cit: 273 139 Ageron C.R, op cit: 273-274 140 Ageron C.R, op cit: 269 141 Leonar, R. K “Colonial Culture as Francophone? The Case of Late Nineteenth-Century Algeria” .In Salhi, K. (ed.) Francophone colonial Cultures: critical Essays, UK: Lexington Books (pp17-27). « Nous sommes venu reprendre l’œuvre de Rome en ce pays, que leur constitution géographique, leur voisinage et leur passé semble placer naturellement sous l’hégémonie Latine ». : 19 142 . Leonar R K (op cit) [d]u plaque, du postiche, du raporté, si vous voulez-mais c’est tout. Ici le fond est Latin, ou mieux hélléno-Latin, mais oriental, jamais ».
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However, there were also some French officials among whom Jules Cambon, Charveriat, Felix Déssoliers, and de Gueydon who expressed a feeling of danger as to any exceptional interest to the kabyle community as it was liable to cause some social and cultural pathologies that would impulse resistance to colonization and restore the historical consciousness of the Berber population. This rose against a long-lasting influence on the Algerian scene. Within this line of thought, Marçais suggested rather a linguistic policy to shift from the Berber language to the French one so that Berbers are brought to evolve within the western civilization. 143
2.6.5 Policy Objectives
In the search to distinguish the Berber from the Arab as well as the Kabyle from the Berber communities, the colonial authorities tried to raise the feeling of difference, of uncommon nature or unity, which was essential to the recognition of one’s identity. They deployed great efforts to awaken the Kabyle self, and develop the feeling of the “negative identity” which brings to notice the existing differences between the two communities the “three communities”. During the year 1873 a commission in charge of Algeria at the “Societé d’Anthropologie de Paris” founded in 1859, period at which the interest in the kabyles as a race acquired a new dimension , Topinard, one of its members, summed up the difference between the Kabyle and the Arab in the following terms :
“The Kabyle has a fixed abode. His communal administration is highly liberal. He is active, hard working, honest, dignified, open- minded honest and good humoured. He has elevated sentiments of equality, honour, human dignity and justice. He is courageous and attacks his enemy frontally. The exact opposite of the points enumerated in the summary correspond to the physiological type of the Arab.” (in Lorcin 1999: 157).
143 .Hermassi, M. S, 2004:74
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The French adopted different attitudes as regards the Arabs and Berbers. While the former were downgraded, the latter were positively thought out. This stimulated scholars to investigate about the Berber origin and in particular the Kabylian one. Patricia Lorcin (1995:1) has noted that the French resorted to sociological differences and religious disparities between the two as they wanted,
“…to create an image of the kabyle which was good and one of the Arab which was bad and, from this, to extrapolate that the former was more suited to assimilation than the latter. The myth was an assimilation one in so far as it provided an ideological basis for absorbing the Kabyle into the French colonial society to the detriment of the Arabs. It was also a racial myth, for the intellectual concepts of this ideology were essentially one of race”.
Within this perception, Mucchielli (1986) talks about a case in which the individual develops a positive identity opposed to the other’s negative identity. The latter would include all the features and qualities he rejects. Consequently, the individual would oscillate between membership to the collective group with which bonding is loosened (the primary group to which he effectively and physically belongs), and the reference group to which he does not belong , but to which he more or less unconsciously relates his opinions, values, principles and goals
Jules Ferry showed his opposition to the senatorial commission when he suggested to abandon the Kabyle policy and to adopt a schooling policy through the French language in support of the assimilation aim (Ageron 2005). Ideally speaking, assimilation is positively experienced when the host culture admits elements of the target culture inducing a mutual change, Ogien (1995:84). Such was not the case as it occurred in a domination context. Assimilation rather concerned the domains that get in the way of social assimilation. For Lorcin (1999: 172)
“The measures adopted to assimilate the administrative organization and the political and cultural institutions of the Algerian colony to those of France inexorably led to the exclusion of the indigenous population from position of power and to their alienation due to their unfamiliarity with the system”.
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Paku (1996:172) notes that the relics of colonialism lie deeper in African societies (in Rassool 2007:16). Every thing was purposefully organized so as the colonized can not make any move and admit that the fewest granted privileges represented but a no through road implying that assimilation is impossible 144 and a so distant prospect never fully achieved thus, becoming a pipe dream. This frustration traced to the inability to advance beyond a certain point creates a crisis of belongingness. They feel neither attached to their traditional milieu nor to the colonizers’ society which rather fosters in them devaluation of one’s past, traditions, and roots becoming thus degrading and nourishing ’self-hatred’. Quite in line with this issue of assimilation, the very few Algerians who enjoyed it, and who constituted the évolués, “were fit only for assimilation into the French society that refused to accept them” Moore (1985:572). There is not the least doubt that France, as Chaker (1990:62) puts it, could construct linguistically homogenous areas corresponding to ethnolinguistic divisions in the country. But that would work in favor of homogeneity which contrasts with the French objectives as it feeds Berber national consciousness. Sensibly, the Kabyle policy of the French did not bring about any noticeable promotion gains to the Kabyle community as such, but it seems that the French authorities deliberately engaged in an instrumentalizing process of ethnic feature raising to disturb the not yet conflicting collective identity. In addition, the policy could, on no account target the promotion of the autochthonous population as long as it sought domination. France used the Kabyle myth to instrumentalize and ethnisize groups, which have been living thus far in relatively peaceful community spirit. 145 The colonial policy was rather heterogeneity seeking among the indigenous population. Efforts were made to awaken the dormant dynamics of the cultural and linguistic symbols. When the French authorities engaged to replace Arab proper names instead of Berber ones, it was considered as an anti Berber policy which meant to stir up the Kabyle identity, and, consequently, sustain the heterogeneity approach which brings to notice the differences interrupting thus the feeling of common future and common cause of struggle.
144 Memmi A, Portrait du Colonisé, Alger: ANEP, 2006: 128 145 Ait Kaki. M, De la Question Berbère au Dilemme Kabyle à l’Aube du XXIème siècle, Paris, l’harmattan. 2004:39
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2.5 Conclusion
In fact, the colonial policy of berberism and the anti Arab- Muslim drives are traced back to far epochs. The Arab conquest of North Africa is, in the eyes of the western civilization, experienced as a defeat and a collapse, which are conflict-raising markers. Ever since, the Western world witnesses the elaboration of strategies to cry out for revenge. The strategies take overt and covert forms and become the subject matter of all policies and policy makers. For this purpose, historical, social, anthropological, linguistic, demographic and cultural studies were conducted by the Western world for strategy designing which will help in dealing with the transformation or the disintegration process meant to upset the world reading balance in their favor. The colonial project , known as the “dahir berbere”,which was initiated in Morocco to promote Berber customary courts , Lapidus ( 2002:607) , Kaye and Zoubir (1990) , and A Simpson , (2008:11), had gone through a long period of gestation before it was brought to satisfaction on the September 11 th 1914. Suleiman (1999:147) reveals that a decree was initiated in 1930 recognizing for the first time in history the Berber language and culture as distinct from those represented by Arabs, but it was opposed as it came from the colonizers and was considered as a ploy to divide and weaken Moroccan Muslim Brothers. It meant eliminating the Arabic language together with Islam through a process of submitting the Berber tribes to the Berber traditional justice. This was thought to preserve a Berber autonomy over the Berber areas, a field that nowadays is considered as one of a state’s sovereignty domains. This policy as a whole aimed to separate the Berber community from the Arab community implying their integration or assimilation to the colonizers knowing that some of the problems may not fall within the competency of the traditional justice thus giving room to the French one . But the stamina of unity took the winds out of the French sails. the motivation for the Berber element ,which was a tactical way concerning the promotion of an elite known as “the evolués” , was meant to serve as an alien body among the Algerian whole and to disrupt any attempt of social cohesion to the Algerian national cause. However, this formula turned rather to help unity during colonial times.
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Although historical studies attest that the autochthonous population is of a Berber origin the majority of which was arabized (a large literature on the subject is available), an important scholarly concerns was versed in the excavation or in the weaving of a patch work proves so as to bring to notice the existence of two ethnic communities with their respective historicity, culture and language. This was to fit the European model on the basis of which the nations were constructed according to an identity check-list among which language, traditions, folklore, and ancestors for the sake of an identity repertoire which would distinguish a nation from another (Thiesse ,1999). When it comes to the Berber –Arab issue, A. Taleb Ibrahimi stresses the Berber-Arab blending which is further than being a plain juxtaposition that can serve up colonial separation incentives. Referring to the French scholarly concern about Arabs and Berbers, Taleb Ibrahimi unveils that “a real process of undermining was organized in order to divide the Algerian people… From an ethnical standpoint, Algeria is not a juxtaposition of Arabs and Berbers.” quoted in Malley (1996:148)
This vision inspired a French Berber policy in Algeria. In practice, the policy did not hearten the colonial power to fully sustain it and did not find room within the majority of the Berber population, but it remains an abandoned attempt rooted in the Algerian memory. Taken in the actual context, the policy takes the form of a planned remote control justified by ‘’an uncertainty motivation policy” that maintains the tutelary power of the ex colonizer and keeps a close and constant watch over. The Berber policy released an unexpected result as it caused the rise of nationalism, which tied up the different fraction of the indigenous population. 146 For Lorcin (1995:1) “it was a myth that never became a policy in Algeria, for no pro-kabyle colonial legislation was even passed. Nonetheless, its impact is undeniable”. The obstinate focus on the Kabyle community contributed “unwillingly” to the rise of a Berber consciousness which developed into a Berber movement in contemporary Algeria. 147
146 Ageron, C.R, Politiques Coloniales Au Maghreb, Paris : PUF ,1972: 148 147 Mahé, A 2001:157
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After a certain period of colonial practices along which anti-colonial voices and liberation movements, which were inevitable consequences, started to squeeze and force the hands to the colonial powers, the colonial policy engaged in a strategy to fix up its sprawling fashion to the international circumstances. Policy making whether implicitly or explicitly conceived appear, for interest safeguarding, as a rational process in which the colonial powers adopt policies to prepare the way for decolonization, and to maintain their pressure and spheres of influence after eventual political independence through imperial relationships.
Furthermore, as regards the term Kabyle, the French authorities versed in the issue and coined it differently as Kabyle, cabyle and kabaile. This term belongs to the Arabic language ‘qabila’ with its plural form ‘qabail’ used to designate any small human groupings on the basis of blood ties , a tem which has never been used in Arabic to name a territory. The term Kabylie coined on the Arabic term for a limited territory then is purely a recent colonial construction. This is reinforced by General Lamoriciere’s attempt to explain to the members of the assembly, during which the representatives had to decide upon the kabylia expedition, the significance of the terms ‘’ la petite and la grande kabylie’’. He stated,
“I should point out that no African map not even the language of the country attest the existence of a territory known as the Lesser or Greater Kabylie; these terms were coined a couple of years ago in view of the circumstances, and I won’t say any special thing by adding that a great number of people in the country perhaps even in this assembly do not know what these expressions are used to mean”. (Société Oriental de France, 1851:130)
It is impossible to say what would have been the sociolinguistic layout of contemporary Algeria had colonial rule never taken place. However, the language situation inherited at the dawn of independence bears the shortcomings of the colonial policy which was fashioned to accommodate to the colonial needs and perspectives. Furthermore, in disrupting pre-colonial models and imposing alien ones, colonialism laid the seeds of social, cultural and political crisis. With the triumph of the liberation movement, Algeria is at the same time tottering on its feet close to collapse. This is the reason why the nationalists see the independence gained from the withdrawing colonial powers as only partial liberation. Full or real one is attained
78 Chapter two : Colonial Language Planning with cultural and economic independence, which represented a postcolonial challenge for which a global planning policy was a must and within which the language planning policy retained the utmost priority given its relation to the educational sector which supplies the necessary human resources to stimulate the cultural and industrial revolution necessary for development.
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3.1 Introduction
The need of a language planning policy in Algeria stems from a historical as well as a nation state building worry and the language situation Algeria inherited as a result of colonization. During the colonial period, the language issue occupied an important interest in the agenda of struggle against the ruling colonial power in Algeria because of the colonial policy of promoting French over Arabic. As Suleiman (2003:11) observed, “the fight for Arabic was endowed with the symbolism of noble resistance. It was also considered as an integral part of mass political action against the colonial power”. But no sooner had independence been attained that the linguistic problem cropped up to blur the future perspectives and disrupt the social capital that glued the Algerian community. Suleiman (2003) has argued,
“At the dawn of independence, the challenge for Arabic in North Africa was further complicated by the existence of another indigenous language, Berber. The Berber speaking population in Algeria and Morocco supported Arabic against French during the nationalist struggle for independence (…) but the situation changed after independence. Berber speakers started to assert their own identity through an increased emphasis on their language, this curtailing the resort to Arabic as a marker of an inter-ethnic national identity”. (Y. Suleiman, op cit).
As a process, the principal objective of planning focuses on edifying a collective identity, which works in favor of the nation state building that the nationalist trend intends to promote. This trend believes in the progressive changing feature of society. As a political program, it emerged within a social context complex in its sociolinguistic situation and has accordingly to engage in and value the inter-group social dynamics to adjust the social differences according to psycho-social mechanisms meant to bring the individual to internalize new values and develop new attitudes necessary for group synergy.
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It pretends to value and cultivate the individual's feeling of belonging to the collective community and to promote his potential to make bondings with the various components of the social environment. In fact, the relation of a person to language, culture and society equates the relation of the atom to the constitution of matter and its potential to make chemical bondings with various atoms to produce other compounds. On the basis of such an analogy, the community, the society and the nation then would be the sum set of the differently shaped pieces of the puzzle which assemble to construct the different elements of a painting. Since the approach is social capital based, and so that the individual is brought to participate in such an edifice, the official authorities as well the concerned agencies are required to offer the necessary means of stimulation by investing principally on the different sectors relative to the human resources development. As a result, the inter-group social dynamics will cause the social differences through a mere spontaneous inter-group exchange of the cultural capital to mingle with one another to the extent that everyone can identify him/herself to the supra larger community and of course show loyalty to the collective community. However, before dealing with the way planning was conceived in Algeria, it is necessary to get into the concept of planning.
3.2 Planning: Definition
Put in plain words, Planning is everywhere and is an absolute necessity. It is a forward- looking management process, which intends to control the future through present decision taking. As a future forecasting strategy, it relies to a large extent upon the present and the past. But as the future is uncertain, planning represents the will to predict it. Planning is defined as the designing of the desired future and the required means necessary for realization. 148 In fact, it concerns all walks of life and aims at creating a new potential to prepare the human and material environment so as to satisfy the planning policy objectives. However, it does not excrete all the risks or the future uncertainty.
148 J.P.Helfer and J.Orsoni , 1990: 103
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Planning in organization and public policy implies not only the organizational practice of elaborating and carrying out a plan, but also the psychological course of activities required to achieve the desired goals to some extent. Indeed, it constitutes intelligent behavior, which is essential to the enhancement of a plan within the larger scale of development. Although planning is linear and sequential, the planner needs to be ready to suit new conditions, lenient and receptive to the fact that there may be a good reason to go back and review a prior step while the plan is unfolding. In support, it also requires the necessary procedures to bring the plan to satisfaction depending on the domain to which planning is destined. Though planning is the way through growth, it does not guarantee success. Dale (1969:18) defines planning as,
“the process of setting objectives to be accomplished by an organization during a future time period and deciding on the methods of reaching them… planning is a never ending activity …It is just as important when things are going well as when current difficulties and problems abound”.
Further more , any planning obeys to some basics namely identification of the targets, their feasibility, measurement in relation to past experience , funding , a scale of priorities , length, strategies of implementation evaluation of possible shortcomings and human resources . The chapter is concerned with language planning and special attention will be paid to language planning in the Algerian context.
3.3 Language Planning
Though the concept and practice of finding solutions to, and taking decisions on language problems accompanied man’s worry about the use of language a long time ago, linguists agree that the term language planning did come into use in sociolinguistic literature with Haugen ‘s work on the Norwegian language in 1959. “its early years are most strongly associated, however, with decolonization and the language problems of newly emergentstates”, Gibson (2006:1). It carried the idea of development and was conceived as efficacious means to accomplish modernization and to implement successful programs of literacy, alphabetization and standardization However, this view is no longer seen as the devising and implementation process of planning activities aimed at the progress of society. It is rather a “discourse on language and society, containing ideological assumptions of various
82 Chapter three : Language Planning in Independent Algeria kinds and evolving in a particular socio-historical and political context” Blommaert (1996:200). This leads to consider language planning as a complex job. Whether it will be successful or not is usually determined by various factors, such as political, economic, and socio-cultural factors, (Davis, 1999: 88).
Language planning then becomes government and official organization affairs, which are versed in the selection and promotion of a language or languages and calls for an efficient participation from the parts of individuals, groups, or organizations to influence language use and /or development. Because it is a multidisciplinary issue, it has been approached on different levels according to the language domain targeted. As regards the pedagogical and international communication, language planning aims at reducing language diversity in order to simplify language use and learning. Some linguists thought that the “manufacture” of an artificial language could serve to control this phenomenon at an international level. They intended to put all speech communities on equal footing as far as language learning and the share of knowledge are concerned. Planning then, takes rather a pedagogical concern to simplify language use and learning.
Attempts were made to construct artificial languages among which Esperanto (1887) a proposed solution to the world communication problem meant to promote world peace through a one-language planning. It seeks to provide all world citizens having different native languages with an international language void of cultural and symbolic charges, and, therefore an equal access to international knowledge with no group having particular advantage. The Universala Esperanto Asocio, located in Rotterdam seeks as defined by Joan Rubin “to promote and spread the use of the international auxiliary language, Esperanto, worldwide and thereby advance friendly relations among the peoples of the world”, Nahir (1984:313). However, Dezso Kosztolanyi does not adhere to the idea of an auxiliary language . The
83 Chapter three : Language Planning in Independent Algeria artificial languages,those designed in the “laboratories of logic” are depleted from the human genius, flavor and dynamism. Though, auxiliary languages are durable in the sense that they are of a distortion resistant nature, unlike the natural languages, which are constantly undergoing changes ensuing the vicissitudes of their speakers; in fact, are void of life. They on no account can develop that magnetic appeal the natural languages derive from the human aspect they acquired as a result of the generations who deposited the prints of their experience and still continue to do so 149 .
Moreover, the non-linguistic factors particular to the world’s communities will certainly affect the worldwide attempt. However perfectible any artificial language would be, its adoption does not guarantee that the phenomenon of modification of language will be stopped. There would exist all over the world varieties of the artificial language. In other words, as long as the individual is making use of, the latter will creolize in an endless movement. The phenomenon of formation and development characterizing language under whatever form or nature , be it natural or artificial, does not stop, and is at the same time a phenomenon that pictures the expression of the human nature and culture. A language is constantly constructed, deconstructed, and reconstructed by the different interventions of those who speak, read, and teach it. 150 The adoption of English or French namely as a first language by non- native speakers generated a number of “allolanguages” to the extent that an important literature is developing to deal with the phenomenon known as world Englishes while the French introduced the phenomenon of polynomy.
149 Hagége Claude , Halte à la Mor t des Langues, Paris :Odile Jacob,2000:20 150 Cellart, J. La vie du langage, Paris : Le Robert, 1979:7
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Parallel to the structured elaboration of an artificial colorless language void of any cultural value, anthropologists were engaged in a search to define the concept of culture and inquired about the phenomenon of cultural contacts and the resulting effects. J.X. Powel, an American anthropologist, introduced the term “acculturation” in 1880. He defined it as a set of phenomena resulting from a continuous and direct contact between groups of individuals of different cultures causing changes in the cultural patterns of one or both 151 . This worry about language and culture co-influence is conceived in a context of domination and subordination within which the process of acculturation is triggered.
This unidirectional dynamism happens through a psychological mechanism in which extreme opposing reactions are confronted giving rise to resisting movements to acculturation whereby culture and language conflicts. It should be noted that acculturation is one of two facets. It can be a spontaneous natural process of internalization of new cultural values due to contact, in which case it is not even questioned, or an organized and imposed assimilating one in favor of one group causing the dominated one to dissolve within the dominant. This case is a planned acculturation, which falls within the objectives of language planning policies which are multifarious because of their approach to language problems.
The approach of language diversity together with all its connotations and objective oriented usage developed different solution like approaches, namely language planning, language management or language globalization. The three terms wheel around the same objective that of power over the others and annexation of the others. It is a pure issue of strategy. As far as language planning is concerned official and unofficial institutions dealing with this concept have not yet agreed upon what the approach is really about and have not yet controlled what “ the notion” of language planning is.
151 Denys .C, La notion de culture dans les sciences sociales, Alger : Casbah, 1998: 54.
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Haugen (1959-66) is often mentioned as the one who introduced the concept to describe the process of elaborating a new standard national language in Norway following its independence from Danemark. The mainstream tradition of language planning originates from the European model which views language as an instrument that “could be shaped and wielded by the state to promote national unity and efficient communication within its borders”, Fettes (1997: 13). The success of the model in Europe motivated the newly independent nations to adapt it in their struggle for nation building. In most of the cases if not all, the modal has been approached in a pure transplant operation with no prior analysis of the environment to which it was applied. This is perhaps the reason why most if not all newly independent nations have not succeeded to get their communities acclimatized to the process. Neither those who adopted the model together with the convenient European language nor those who adapted the model to their own language have managed to realize similar gains made by Europe. The newly independent countries are still in search for national unity consolidation and in search for efficiency in communication.
In its practicability, language planning requires two types of interventions: Corpus planning which consists of defining and developing a national standard language, and status planning, which is rather a selective approach, as it aims to encourage its use in preference to other language varieties 152 (fettes, op cit). The term language planning is used by Haugen Einar to designate the working out of a normative orthography, grammar, and a dictionary to regulate written and oral use in a heterogeneous linguistic community, Maurais (1987:8). In such a perspective, Language planning and language planners worry about the degeneracy of language as a result of use and attempt a prescriptive preservation solution to control the course of language development and the undesirable changes.
152 Fettes, M. “Language Planning and Education". in Wodak, R and Corson .D (ed) Language Policy and Political Issues in Education, vol 1,Netherlands: Springer,1997
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Another case requiring language planning option is when different language alternatives coexist within the same territorial limits. Language planning is a case of “an explicit choice among alternatives. This, in turn, implies that there has been an evaluation of alternatives with the one that is chosen having been evaluated as the best’’ Fasold, (1984:246). Yet not all alternatives are in the same way liable targets for language planning because planning concerns language use in official or public domains rather than in everyday use, which depends on the socio-psychological factors governing the situation users are confronted to. Thus, planning objectives may be actual legislation to determine which language to use for which domains and functions.
In the main, policy decisions relate to the symbolic value of language as a unifying or separatist force in a community as well as to the needs of communication potential. Yet, political, social, and economic concerns do prevail over linguistic considerations in language planning. Language problems that entail language planning interest vary from the naming of a national language to the selection of a language that allows access to modernism and advanced science and technology. Whatever the problem, language planning requires the making of well thought choice(s) based on a sound analysis of the existing situation. Though the concept of planning is mainly applied sociolinguistics, the sociopolitical concerns remain in the forefront of language planning. However, planning attempts vary as widely as the services the selected candidate offers. In the case of Algeria, the decision was particularly an insightful one. Policy makers felt it was important to grant Arabic official status, in view of the fact that it is a language, which has a high symbolic importance to the people, even though it was not a language of wider use. This meant that efforts were required to be made to develop the functions, which Arabic could fill and fit, so that its position as an official language would not remain first and foremost symbolic.
Choosing to revive a language not in wide use is another form of planning, one, which then naturally requires further consideration of how to make the language fully functional. J. Das Gupta (1973:157) cited in Cooper (1989:30) considers language planning as “a set of deliberate activities systematically designed to organize and develop the language resources
87 Chapter three : Language Planning in Independent Algeria of the community in an ordered schedule of time”, Chritian (1989: 196). In the view of Gorman, “The term language planning is most appropriately used to refer to coordinated measures taken to select , codify ,and, in some cases , to elaborate orthographic, grammatical, lexical, or semantic features of a language and disseminate the corpus agreed upon” (in Robert Leon Cooper,1989:30 )
Christian (1989:197) reveals some key features of language planning which is a matter of intervention, explicitness, goal orientation, systematization, choice between alternatives, and institutionalization. Intervention is a process of “intervening in the normal course of events to influence future language use or usage.” As an operation, it seeks to induce a “deliberate language change” as Rubin puts it. The explicit feature deals with ”the conscious and deliberate attempts to manipulate language use and usage (…), implying necessarily some deliberate effort to structure the course of progress on a conscious level” , Christian ( op cit). In such a view, language activism appears as a defense which requires constant evaluation to catch possible difficulties before they take a hotheaded line of development stretching or threatening stage.
Furthermore, Language planning is a question of goal oriented issue, that is, “the motivation for language planning attempts must be clearly understood and kept in mind throughout the process (…). Political, social, and economic concerns are most often responsible for decisions to undertake language planning, and the goals are typically seen as progress in those areas” Christian (op cit). It is also systematic. “Language planning takes an approach to problems which are systematic and based on the accumulated experiences of the field. It requires a careful analysis of the existing situation and desired outcomes to design and coordinate a sequence of activities that will address the problem”, Christian (op cit). As far as choice is concerned, language planning is also a case of selection among alternatives that obey sociopolitical contextualization and exhaustive investigation. Finally, in terms of institutionalization,
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“Language planning refers primarily to institutionally organized efforts involving public policy. This is often national, but may extend to provincial, state, or local Jurisdiction. Furthermore, many individuals may play a role in language planning, but the results will be effective only if those with authority to implement decisions take part, that is, the policy makers”. Christian (op cit)
On the basis of these key features, Christian (op cit) defines language planning “as an explicit and systematic effort to resolve language problems and achieve related goals through institutionally organized intervention in the use and usage of languages”. Haugen‘s worry focuses on the contribution of professional agencies knowledgeable and well-versed in language affairs to scrutinize the behavior of language(s) so as to constrain and determine how language cultivation can be overpowered. Within this respect, “language planning is the normative work of language academies and committees, all forms of what is commonly known as language cultivation … and all proposals for language reform or standardization” , Haugen (1972: 287). Similarly, for Rubin and Jernudd,
“Language planning is deliberate language change, that is changes in the systems of language code or speaking or both that are planned by organizations that are established for such purposes or given mandate to fulfill such purposes. As such, language planning is focused on problem solving and is characterized by the formulation and evaluation of alternatives for solving language problems to fit the best (or optimal, most efficient) decision”. (in Cooper, 1989:30)
Furthermore, Jernudd and Das Gupta consider language planning not “as an idealistic and exclusively linguistic activity, but as a political and administrative activity for solving language problems’’ (Robert Leon Cooper 1989:30). Planning then, becomes within the brief of legislation, which intends to orient deliberately but not necessarily overtly the organization of linguistic changes at a societal level. J.A. Fishman conceives language planning as “the organized pursuit of solutions to language problems, typically at the national level.” Loubier (2008:26)
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The idea of language planning develops and unveils the underlying objectives which seek to lead different coexisting speech communities towards a supra-national solution. Among other views of language planning is the case where interest focuses on the control of linguistic innovation. It may be thought of as the management of innovation to improve and regulate the linguistic registers of a language. In other cases language planning is coupled with the idea to get the others assimilated to one’s language codes implying “deliberate efforts to influence the behavior of others with respect to the acquisition , structure [ corpus] or functional allocation [status] of their language codes”, Cooper (1989:45).
In reaction to the conventional approaches to the issue of language planning implying conscious efforts to affect the structure or function of language varieties and language policy which is conducted by governments, Tollefson (1991) cited in Bamgbose (2000:16) argues that language planning policy may be seen as the institutionalization of language as a basis for distinctions among social groups. The strategy unveils clearly the pursuit to select a variety among others with the support of laws and those occupying power to operate and maintain the advantages for an elite closure perspectives.
Viewed as a process, which deals with language problems, E Haugen (1983:275) offers a description of language planning process in which he distinguishes between two broad domains of language problems those related to form and function namely selection of norm and codification of norm on the one hand, and implementation of function and elaboration of function on the other respectively represented as follows:
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Einar Haugen’s model
Form Function (policy planning) (language cultivation)
Society 1. Selection 3. Implementation (status planning) (decision procedures) (educational spread) a. identification of problem a. correction procedures b. allocation of norms b. evaluation
Language 2. Codification 4. Elaboration (corpus planning) (standardization procedures) (functional development) a. graphization a. terminology modernization b. grammatication b. stylistic development c. lexication
Source: Haugen (1983:275)
The model indicates that language planning activities take the form of a process which targets either a societal or a language focus. The societal focus known as “status planning” wheels around the decisions a society must make about language selection and implementation to choose and disseminate the favored language(s). For Lo Bianco (2005:258), “status planning involves the allocation of status hierarchies to different languages, dialects, or speech forms in a given society or institution. The language focus termed “corpus planning” relates to the linguistic decisions which need to be made to work out the language(s) /candidate(s). It is a more linguistically centered practice than status planning, more technical in content undertaken more often than status planning by formally trained language specialists Joseph Lo Bianco (op cit:259) .
These two constitute the overall activities, which are involved in the language planning process. As represented, the model can be approached from a form or policy planning angle, emphasizing on language and policy decisions and the implementation or on function or language cultivation having objectives of language teaching, development, and use. While
91 Chapter three : Language Planning in Independent Algeria these activities can be applied to any language planning case, not all necessarily pass by exactly the same steps as displayed in the model. This is partly because there are no similar situations as long as the process is tuned with goals. Agencies concerned with language planning are not constrained to follow them exactly. But Haugen’s model offers an overview of the planning process in an idealized sense. To these four points delineating the objective of language planning, Rubin introduces the idea of “policy evaluation” (in Daoust and Maurais, 1987: 9). As the term evaluation suggests, the identification of the domains and their concerns must be accompanied with a constant evaluation revision operation to assess the strategies and the outcomes. It also allows to judge how successful the plan has been and whether other strategies are called for or not and to see how far the non-linguistic domains namely the political, social, and economic domains respond to the operation.
Neustupny opted rather for macrolinguistic and microlinguistic approaches respectively termed “policy approach” and “cultivation approach” to handle linguistic problems. The first fits the scope of national language choice, standardization, orthography issues while the second deals with the problems of norm with a quality worry oncoming to style and the need to adapt language to the various communicational needs (Daoust and Maurais 1987: 9). Neustupny (op cit) believes the first approach to be the concern of developing countries while the second is particular to technologically advanced societies. Furthermore, both Neustupny and Jernudd suggest widening the concept of language planning and offer the term language treatment that Rubin and Jernudd as well adapted to embrace all activities destined to deal with linguistic problems (Daoust and Maurais 1987:10). Within the same line of thought with a focus on language problem solving, Karam (1974)language planning is “the activity which attempts to solve a language problem, usually on a national scale, and which focuses on either language form or language use or both” (in Cooper,1989:30).
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Weinstein emphasizes the leading role of the government’s agencies defining language planning as a “government authorized long term sustained and conscious effort to alter a language itself or to change a language‘s functions in a society for the purpose of solving communication problems” ,(in Cooper,1989:30). These communicational or linguistic problems in the eyes of Jernudd and Das Gupta result from “the socio-economic or sociopolitical changes but not from the linguistic ones” (Daoust and Maurais 1987:11).
Language planning then is an attempt to solve social, economic and political problems by acting upon language. Neustupny defines language planning as “that treatment which is systematic, based on theory, and rational” (in Cooper 1989:40). Another definition focuses on a purely applied approach of language planning which according to Practor is language policy-making involving “decisions concerning the teaching and the use of language ,and the careful formulation by those empowered to do so, for the guidance of others’’ (in Cooper 1989:40). Kloss restricts the concept of language planning to the planned changes meant to affect the nature of a language namely either the introduction of new technical terms, changes concerning orthography or the use of a new alphabet, Daoust and Maurais (1987: 9).
As regards to the load of meaning the term language planning carries, linguists adopted and adapted it in various ways. As a result, different terminologies more or less converging towards the same goal of language problems have been introduced. Within this respect, Kloss suggests the term “corpus planning” when the planned changes target the nature of the language, and “status planning” when the social status of language is concerned, (in Daoust and Maurais 1987:9). This case applies to the objective of promoting one language among others, .i.e., in a diverse case. Given the ‘’negative meaning’’ the French word ‘’planification’’ is loaded with ,that is, implying direct state intervention, Corbeil argues in favor of a soft easy going term “amenagement linguistique’’, i.e., linguistic adjustment, (in Daoust and Maurais 1987:11) The term is used to convey mid and long-term efforts, which seek to take advantage from (a) collective source(s) according to the nation’s needs and interests on the basis of a flexible plan causing society to develop without roughness in
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Search rather for adherence and participation. Aracil suggested the term “normalisation linguistique”, i.e., standardization, which consists of reorganizing the linguistic functions of the society so as to readapt the social functions of the language to the changing external conditions (Daoust and Maurais (1987:11). Language planning process has also been coupled with the idea of goal seeking which may vary accordingly. For Nahir (1984:294), language planning may be defined as “deliberate, institutionally organized attempts at affecting the linguistic or sociolinguistic status or development of language”. While admitting that much of the theoretical work has been conducted by linguists, he suggests that it should be empowered by what he terms “language planning goals” that he views as follows:
“A summary of the totality of language–related communication, political, economic, religious, and other needs and aspirations, existing or perceived to date, and the resulting Language planning activities or what language planning is actually about”.
In so doing, he distinguishes between language planning processes and language planning functions or goals. This distinction backs up Kloss’ model (1969) “corpus planning” versus “status planning”, and Neustupny’s “policy approach” versus “cultivation approach”. M. Nahir (1984) argues for a clear distinction between language planning activities and language planning goals. According to Nahir (1984: 297)
“Language planning activities are involved in carrying out specific functions or seeking specific goals, and language planning goals themselves; identical activities may lead to different goals and vice versa.”
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A similar type of organized language activity may target different goals, and different activities seek the same goal. For Nahir (op cit), a French or English language training to public servants may seek language spread, revival or maintenance while a stylistic simplification may require accordingly legislation, textbook preparation or course introduction. Certainly, the task of language planning seeks also to control, assess, and organize/reorganize the normalization of the linguistic usages, and their unification. This should constitute the supreme objective of any language planning process, yet language cultivation remains one of the most important aspects to be given great interest
The different approaches to language problems selected above wheel around language activities focusing either on a language itself and / or the promotion of a language to a national and /or official status. Broadly speaking, scholarly interests distinguish two large language planning activities, namely Kloss’ “status planning” and “corpus planning” (in Maurais op cit: 9), or “language determination” and “language development” according to Jernudd (in Nahir: 309). “Status planning”or “language determination” is the one having connection with language choice(s) for specific purpose(s), for example, a selection for official use and or educational one. Corpus planning or language development is in the quest to select and promote variants within a language.
The applicable relevant activities may deal with reforming, adopting a new script, and coining new terms. .Fasold (1984:250) identified two approaches: the first is instrumental and regards language fundamentally as a tool. Languages are used or learned depending on their purpose suitability. Some languages are inherently well thought-out than others. The second is socio-linguistic and gives priority to the symbolic value of language. However, linguists dealt with the concepts in different ways. Ferguson (1968: 28) for example, considered three dimensions relevant for measuring language development. “Graphization” which means an adoption of a writing system, “standardization” which means the development of a norm which overrides regional and social dialects, and “modernization” which means the development of inter-translatability with other languages in a range of topics and forms of discourse which characterize industrial secularized structurally differentiated “modern societies.”
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From a standard practice approach to language planning, theorists have associated language planning policy to Third World countries as a kind of machinery focusing on status planning worry to establish a national language(s) as part of modernization and nation state. Yet, it can also be conducted on local levels, and whatever the case, it is a three way approach including “status planning”, “corpus planning” and “acquisition planning", to say it otherwise the language planning policy cannot fully conduct its goals. In practice, it operates on an equidistant relation with an acquisition language planning process, a corpus planning, and status planning activities depending on the sociolinguistic case. (See figure1 below)
Language planning policy approach
Acquisition planning
language planning policy
Corpus Status planning planning
Figure (1)
“Corpus planning” is an intervention which concerns language itself and operates at the central and / or peripheral systems of the target language as delimited by Hocket (1989, 137- 138). It intends to develop the expressive potential of the language to become a medium that fits modern topics and different forms of discourse, while “status planning” intends to encourage the target language to develop other functions to conquer new domains of uses so that it is elevated to a prestige form. Undoubtedly, both “corpus and status planning” purposes
96 Chapter three : Language Planning in Independent Algeria must be declined into an “acquisition planning” which may be considered as an accompaniment planning and / or and additional “language planning”. However, language in education planning has often been limited to language policy planning activity giving a shy interest to language cultivation. Kaplan and Baldauf (1997) “have suggested that language – in-education planning should be an outcome of national language planning (i.e., status planning and corpus planning) with prestige planning contributing as a motivational factor. School as an institution has rather placed emphasis on the demographic factor of language dissemination which turned to nourish popular disengagement to the cause of language neglecting corpus planning and prestige planning side of the policy especially when they are not educationally and economically rewarding.
Neustupny argues that language policy implementation varies according to the sociolinguistic situation of the society. He believes “corpus planning” to feature technologically advanced societies while “status planning” is the concern of developing societies which falls within the scope of nationalism or nationism (in Maurais 1987:9). “Status planning” is an established fact in the case of advanced societies, and “corpus planning” remains a constant worry which is postponed in the case of the developing ones. This is perhaps the reason why recent status promoted languages cannot compete with the international languages, which happen to coincide with advanced nations. “Status planning”, “corpus planning”, “prestige planning”, and “education planning” can on no account, be dissociated in the process of language planning, otherwise status promoted languages will permanently subcontract with corpus promoted languages. Baker (2006:221) rather favors a target language planning option. According to him,
“It is important in language policy making and language planning to have clear aims and priorities. But broad aims can be the ruination of the best of intentions … Language planning aims can sometimes be well-intentioned wishes and hopes…but they may result in a lack of effective and cost efficient policies and practices … To remedy these shortcomings, the concept of target language planning has come into vogue”.
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Acquisition-planning target may for example target a planned increase concerning the number of learners for a specific academic level during a specified period according to needs analysis. Language planning target directs attention to vocational training and the corresponding number of working places operating in the targeted linguistic domain. Corpus planning target may concern the elaboration of a specialized terminology dictionary targeting a specific domain. Status planning target seeks to increase the number of public institution using the language
3.4 Language Planning and Nationalism
Language was indeed used for inspirational purposes during the war of liberation and was allocated the power to endorse independence; that is why it has been sustained by a planning policy as early as independence. As Kaplan and Baldauf (1997: 7) has noted,
“Africa got involved in language planning almost at the moment of independence (…) Colonial boundaries and practices had left them with a legacy of a linguistically heterogeneous population, a population with a limited literacy base which was in general also under-educated and the wide spread use of a foreign language –the language of the former colonial power for administrative purposes. The newly independent countries needed to select a language or languages that could serve the needs of the national unification, that could be used to enhance the myth of historical identity , that was spoken by some significant segment of the population and was acceptable to other population segments”.
This role attributed to language falls among the defining assets nationalism targets. M. Guibernau (1996: 43) cited in Davidson (2000:16-17) points out:
“Nationalism is a sentiment that has to do with attachment to a homeland, a common language, ideas, values and traditions, and also with the identification of a group with symbols … which define it as ‘different’ from others. The attachment to all these signs creates an identity; and the appeal to that identity has had in the past, and still has today, the power to mobilize people’’.
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Regarding the objectives behind language use, Fishman (1968:41) distinguishes nationalism from nationism and defines nationalism as the “process of transformation from fragmentary and tradition-bound ethnicity to unifying and ideologized nationality” The role of language in nationalism serves as a link to the glorious past and militates in favor of authenticity while nationism orbits around the role of language in expanding the horizons of knowledge, and social relations. According to Blommaert (1996:215) cited in Center for Research and Dcumentation on World Language Problems ,“language planning carries implicit assumptions about what a ‘good’ society is, about what is best for the people, about the way in which language and communication fit into that picture, and about how language planning can also contribute to social and political progress”. From this viewpoint, then, language planning is an ideological discourse of government policy, and, as such, it should address larger social and political matters within which language change, use and development, and indeed language planning itself, is entrenched.The process of language planning evolves within a complex environment that includes the various forces that impact on the success in what it is endeavored. As is observed by Tollefson (1991, Vii) ,
“How possible is it [...] to characterize the language planning decisions in any state or institution without appeal to the historical and political identity of that system, and moreover, to the identities of the forces struggling within it? There is no sense in which language planning can be undertaken, or its effects evaluated, within some social vacuum. We need [...] an understanding of these as a prerequisite for explanation.’
As a macro-social option, language planning crops up in reply to sociopolitical needs. Taken from an instrumental point of view, it is a key communicational leveling project for a population composed of groups having different or varied linguistic repertoires to fully operate at the macro-social level and benefit from the macro-social services. In so doing, the promotion of a language for a supra-national function in a diverse case intends to nourish a sense of unity.
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When dealing with the issue of language Haugen (1966:103) favors the promotion of a national language but warns about some predictable problems. He believes that “every self- respecting nation has to have a language, not just a medium of communication, a ‘vernacular’ or a ‘dialect’ but a fully developed language. Anything less marks it as underdeveloped.” Haugen (op cit) even considers the fact of using more than one language as a “potential handicap for a nation”. On the other side, the choice of a norm among others implies allocating prestige to the selected speech community which becomes, using Haugen’s terms a “norm-bearer” and serves as a “headstart” in the search for social mobility.
In such a case, the existing micro linguistic groups will accordingly manifest resistance which, quoting Haugen (op cit: 109), “is likely to be the strongest the greater the language distance”. Among the other problems that rose following the selection of a language for the macro-social communicational services in support to nationalism, which intends to encourage external distinction, is the international contact. This, according to Haugen (op cit: 104) “automatically secludes the population from other populations, who might otherwise undermine its loyalty. Here the urge for separatism has come into sharp conflict with international contact and for the advantages accruing both to individual and nation from contact.” One noticeable remark is that language has unifying and reinforcing attributes as well as separating and enclosing ones.
The significance of language as a unifying means, and as an affirmation of national and cultural identity leads Kelman to assert, "Language is a uniquely powerful instrument in unifying a diverse population and involving individuals and subgroups in the national system."(in Nahir, 1984: 304). The question of language develops into a more heated matter, which is no more a linguistic act, but indeed an act of identity. In the case of the dominated populations, language represents an impetus for struggle. As Hagégé (1992:13) puts it, “Languages constitute the dominated peoples’ badges. They represent their aspiration bearers and their means of struggle against the yoke of foreigners”.
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3.4.1 Language and State Building
A Nation state is defined as a political unit consisting of an autonomous state inhabited mostly by a people sharing a common culture, history, and language. As Marti (2005: 24) notes:
“The idea that political units and states should be inhabited by a culturally and linguistically homogenous population is an idea that developed during the French Revolution. Before this event speakers of many languages (Occitan, Catalan, Flemish, Alamanic, Basque, and French were spoken in France and the concept of a French community was defined by shared laws, shared religion and a common ruler’’.
It was indeed in the account of language planning policies, which were often coercive that the European nation state was constructed. Even though the linguistic factor is not a sine qua non condition to the construction of the national state, it remains one of the decisive fundamentals. The rapid increase in the number of independent European nation-states in the past hundred years or so has therefore been paralleled by a rapid growth in the number of autonomous, national, and official languages. Nahir (1984) dealt with the importance of language in relation to nation state building that resulted from the linguistic instability that Europe witnessed. Nahir (op cit : 304) reports that in the late 19 th C and the early 20 th C the number of national languages grew from sixteen in 1800 to thirty in 1900 and to thirty five in 1935 paralleled with a growth in the number of states from fifteen in1871 to twenty-one in 1914 and to twenty-nine in 1937
Number of national languages number of states
1800 16 1871 15 1900 30 1914 21 1935 35 1937 29
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Europe served then as an impetus for the search of the factors for state building proclamation. Accordingly, the nationalist movement, and the concept of nation state appeared in the Western culture by the end of the 18 th century during and after the French revolution of 1789, because of the feeling of displeasure towards the established socio- political order. 153 Nationalism meant the expression of the obvious social needs particular to the western world namely territorial unity of a nation, its economic success, its self- government, and its geopolitical and historical identity. 154
The German philosopher, Hegel, held the fact that a people articulated its national identity implied prior definitions of the economic, political, social, and cultural conditions crucial to its well-being, giving thus primacy to the nation-state and its sovereignty as a whole 155 . However, it is noticed that neither the cultural policy of these nations-states’ peoples nor their ethnic diversity permitted to satisfy the national objectives on a consensus fashion-like. The historical reality was fashioned by the political decisions of a privileged minority, i.e., the bourgeois class who put into place political institutions to ensure its long- term political and social ambitions. 156
In the case of non-western movements, nationalism has a popular base and manifests a traditional political culture. The struggle for a political independence offered a popular basis to nationalism sustained by a social and cultural traditional background. In fact, nationalism is the product of the social changes caused by the western world and the imposition of its culture. Boahen (1990:240) has noted,
153 Taliadoros G. A, La Culture Politique Arabo –Islamique et la Naissance du Nationalisme Algérien (1830- 1962), Alger : ENAL, 1985:5 154 Taliadoros G. A, (op cit:7) 155 Taliadoros G. A, (idem) 156 Taliadoros G. A, (op cit: 8)
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“Nationalism in Europe has been the expression of the desire of communities which were culturally identical and shared a common historical past for an independent sovereign existence in political organizations (states) of their own. The struggle was to ensure that the cultural nation and the state became the same. While in Africa, the expression of nationalism was a desire of these different communities or cultural nations to forge new identities that would serve them in their struggle against the atrocities and shortcomings of the new colonial administrations”
3.4.2 The Case of Algeria
The national movement that rose within the colonial situation was a strategy of self – categorization on a supra-national level in relation to the occupier. During this period, the Algerians shared the same social conditions that were sufficient enough to unite them for a change that was mainly political and independence oriented. Nationalism resulted from the sense of anger, frustration, and humiliation caused by the oppressive and exploitative measures introduced by the colonial rulers. It was also founded on territorial, religious and language factors. It should be noted, however, that language rose into the line of battle because of its symbolic charge. Language as a means of education and a medium of knowledge acquisition was not a matter deserving interest given the Algerian war circumstances.
The drive was political rather than academic. The Arabic language, i.e. CA, was assigned a symbolic value and one of self-expression to confront the colonizers who were preaching assimilation and annexation ''Arabophony'', became an almost impregnable shelter against all negations Algeria suffered from. During the long period of struggle, it was unthinkable to compare objectively the respective merits of the two languages in question: assertion and opposition were the only motives. 157 That was a planned strategy for the management of the colonial policy and the socio-political situation. In a way, it was a purely adhoc political strategy.
157 Mazouni, .A. Culture et Enseignement en Algérie et au Maghreb, Paris : François Maspero. 1969: 59
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If the French authorities adopted a strategy of fragmentation among the indigenous population breaking loose any unifying attempt; the Algerian anti strategy focused on the essential religious, cultural, and material assets shared by the Algerians as well as the social conditions they faced. Agreement upon the assets was itself an advantage . To exercise power over the Algerian population, the colonial administration had to dislocate the Arab people and to dissolve the cohesion of the tribes. The principal goal was the disintegration of the tribe, the delimitation of the territory, the fragmentation of each tribe of the Tell and the other agricultural areas, and the establishment of the douars 158 . The Algerians, using Durkheim’s term, opted for a “mechanical solidarity” that Durkheim quoted in Raymond (1980:21) sees as “solidarity of resemblance”. It implies that the society is coherent because the individuals are not yet differentiated and, similarly share “the same emotions, cherish the same values, and hold the same things sacred.”
Decolonization had not led to the liberation of all spheres of political, economic, and cultural life. And thus, to put Algeria on its feet, a post–independence political motivation to maintain and reinforce the factors that wheel around the nation state building process rose. If the political project against the French was successful, the post-independence one was a challenge and has to enhance it with an economic, cultural, and social development meant to bring independence to completion and to have impact on the social framing of Algeria. The economic challenge has to promote the social wealth and health as well as the promotion of the industrial sector, which plays an important role in the industrial assimilation of the individual while the cultural one is meant to stimulate the cultural blending of the whole symbols and values of the Algerian society.
158 . Bennoune, M 1998: 26
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As far as the cultural blending is concerned, which is one of the concerns of this work, it is mainly language oriented given the power language plays in society and in terms of the socialization process. Consequently, a language planning policy was elaborated selecting (CA) as a candidate to be promoted as an official national language and thus presenting Algeria linguistically and culturally homogenous and homogenizing. Nationalism often favors linguistic assimilation, implying that all members of the broader collective community use the dominant language whatever their first language, Cobarrubias (1983, 63-64)
3.4.3 Language Selection
Standard practice of language use ranks languages according to a hierarchy of potential of use and prestige. This is why it has been common practice to exclude “minor languages” from the language scene of “major languages” It was also believed that linguistic adherence of the population was sought-after in the governance of states. As early as independent some immediately identifiable problems that required urgent solutions emerged immediately after independence. A state must have a language(s) in which it can communicate with the citizens and, subsequently, it must select one or more languages for official purposes. Thus, a need for decision taking has arisen. The decision to promote an indigenous language for nation state building is traced back to western formula on the basis of which European states were constructed. Quite in line with this, Simpson (2008:4) observes:
“… western thinking suggested that newly independent states in Africa should ideally identify and promote a single indigenous language in the function of a ‘national language’ as a linguistic means to help draw their population together and build a sense of belonging to a single people united in a sovereign territory and cooperating in the goal of developing a better future for all”
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In the case of Algeria, decision concerning language was formulated before independence. The recovery of the Arabic language has been the concern of the Algerian political parties during the colonial period. Since its creation, the Etoile Nord Africaine Party (ENA) manifested its support to the Arabic language and included it among its battleground agenda, in addition to the national independence claim. The party‘s claims were: the access to the Arabic language at the different levels of education, the promotion of the Arabic language to an official status and its imposition at all levels. 159 On similar lines, the AEMAN (North African Muslim Student Association) claimed during its fourth congress held in Tlemcen in 1935 to assign the Arabic language an official status. 160
Though some newly independent countries adopted the colonial language since it provides access to the external world and allows modernization, it was, in the case of Algeria, regarded as a symbol of oppression by large segments of the population. Thus, such a choice did not have any room within the decision process of independent Algeria. Though various criteria are proposed for language choice among which political neutrality, dominance, prestige and great tradition of affinity, the choice of a national official language is normally calculated to create the least possible disruption within the community. This suggests that decision makers should have basic social and linguistic knowledge about the language situation. Issues such as what language(s) are used by the population, what domains they control, and what resources and material are available must be evaluated. But selection can also be made on the basis of the emotional attitudes towards language.
While the choice of a language constitutes a difficult problem, policy makers need at some point to make a choice. Felix Marti (2005: xiii) argues that linguistic issues have a very fundamental effect on human identity at an individual and a collective level, and that it is not easy to deal with linguistic pluralism calmly, rationally and objectively. In some states, there are conflicts, which have linguistic components. Analyzing this problem from a language
159 Benoune, M. (op cit: 167 160 Benoune, M. (Idem)
106 Chapter three : Language Planning in Independent Algeria policy perspective, Fishman (1968) advances two approaches: one, which seeks the cultivation of the national identity to contain the ethnic cultural particularisms present in a community for which the adoption of an indigenous language, mostly ranked for its expressive reliability and symbolic attributes. The second one is the nationism option giving rather primacy to the operational efficiency concerning the economic and administrative management of the nation to maintain political stability required for the policy of development. As Cooper has noted,
“Language is the fundamental institution of society, not only because it is the first human institution experienced by the individual, but also because all other institutions are built upon its regulatory patterns.” (1989:182)
As regards Algeria, and given the problems of orthography and the limits of the expressive power of both dialectal Arabic and Berber and given the condition required for language use, the choice of CA was an obvious one. Furthermore, the Arabic language and Islam were and still remain the pillars of anti- colonial discourse and those of the national policy after independence. 161 As regards the impact of the colonial history on language choice, Le Page (1971:45) observes, “the colonial history of a newly independent country inevitably plays a certain part in determining the linguistic policy of the government after independence.”
Kaplan and Baldauf ( 2007) consider the language planning policy designed in Algeria as a quite interesting subject for the study of language policy and language planning thanks to “its almost unique history in the Arab-speaking world : it is the only Arab country which lived French assimilationist colonial rule for 132 years”. In this regard, Gordon (1966) quoted in Kaplan and Baldauf (2007:7) wrote “Algeria’s future will remain a fascinating case- study for orientalists and for those interested in “development” and “modernization”
161 M. Arkoun ‘langues, sociétés et religion dans le Maghreb indépendant ‘ In Maria Angels Roque (ed), Les Cultures du Maghreb, Paris : l’Harmattan, 1996:85
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For Kaplan and Baldauf (op cit), the language issue during both the pre-independence and post-independence eras further marks this uniqueness within Africa and the Maghreb, as Djité cited in Kaplan and Baldauf (2007:7) points out: “Nowhere else in Africa has the language issue been central in the fight against colonialism [as in Algeria]” In the eyes of Kaplan and Baldauf (idem), “the most severe problem Algeria has had to cope with since independence lies in language. It was Algerian leadership who demonstrated ideological intransigence in recovering both language and identity”. According to, Gordon (quoted in Kaplan and Baldauf (idem) Algeria emerged as “the most vociferous in proclaiming its Arab Muslim identity”. They believe “the language planning activities, more systematic and assertive in Algeria than in the other Maghreb countries namely Morocco and Tunisia, have been carried out with revolutionary zeal”, Kaplan and Baldauf (op cit). Ephrain Tabory and Mala Tabory summarized Algeria’s interest in language planning and policy as follows:
“The Algerian situation is complex, as it is at a crossroads of tensions between French, the colonial language; and Arabic, the new national language; classical Arabic versus colloquial Algerian Arabic; and the various varieties of Berber dialects versus Arabic. The lessons from the Algerian situation may be usefully applied to analogous situation by states planning their linguistic, educational and cultural policies’’ (Kaplan and Baldauf, 2007:7)
3.4.4 Language Planning Environment
At the dawn of independence, Algeria was confronted to underdevelopment traced back the Arab collapse and the long period of the French colonialism. It also inherited an alarming illiteracy rate that M. Benoune (2000) ranks to 88%.The very few who constituted the elite belonged to two different schools: the French one and the Arabo-Muslim traditional school. These were to take the reign to rule the country. Consequently, power exercising obeyed the
108 Chapter three : Language Planning in Independent Algeria principle of language domains distribution. The elite having an Arabic language background (arabophone) got hold of the symbolic power represented by the school and the media net while the one with a French language background (francophone) took away domains such as administration, security affairs, and all the other institutions of technical, scientific and economic interests 162 . The arabophone elite worried about the revival of the symbolic values while the francophone one was in the quest of development and modernism.
To each elite corresponds a certain agenda for post independence activism. The arabophone elite poured its interests mainly on the inner man the colonial political practices disturb and deprived from its inherent and genuine context of development. The French colonization constituted such a severe cultural shock for the Algerian society that it set in motion a process of acculturation or rather a “civilization wearing away” 163 . In this connection, the 1976 Algerian charter reveals the disastrous effects the so long period of colonization had upon the Algerian personality as a result of discarding the Arabic language and denying the Algerians their culture and history, and considers the Arabic language restitution a factor to recover the Algerian personality. This task falls within the aims of the Arabized elite who was determined to regain the authenticity the colonial policy tried drastically to dislocate and to promote the recovery of the assets that constitute the Algerian personality namely Islam and Arab membership insisting upon the spread of the Arabic language in all public services . The Arabized elite was resolutely motivated to clear up the after–effects inherited from the colonial occupation.
In general, Algeria had to undertake a range of activities with extremely limited material and human resources to face all the problems, which required instant attention among which the language planning policy. The policy was to go forward in a linguistically heterogeneous community with limited literacy basis and a mostly illiterate population as well as an intelligentsia fragmented according to language and ideological grounds, and government
162 Benoune, M. 2000:12 163 Benoune, M. 2000: 143
109 Chapter three : Language Planning in Independent Algeria official agencies going about their business in an isolated fashion each. This fragmentary aspect is traced back to the time the national movement took shape. In spite of its smaller size, the elite was fractioned into Arabophone and Francophone, Berberphone, Islamphone and secularism. Each engaged to promote and engrave upon the society, the nation, the history and the established values its own convictions. 164 Each elite fraction developed an inward looking upon rigid identities, and each determined to reinforce and stimulate its exclusive and totalitarian conception.165
3.4.4.1The Elite: The Clash
In the traditional societies, the role of the elite consisted to guarantee social stability, to elaborate the ways of life, to create and institute values. 166 Furthermore, the elite was necessary to the construction of the young nations as it played an important role in elaborating new values , and introducing social change. 167 In fact ,there exists at the head of every community, nation or society a relatively small fraction, composed of individuals who are to be involved in the construction, change and organization of their corresponding group. They are relatively the very few best among the many common people as well as the most influential persons who initiate and participate in all organizational and political matters.
The elite is then conceived as an agent of change. This explains the reasons why the colonial policy while putting constraints upon the education of the indigenous population to retard or hinder development of the major population permitted the formation of an elite for the purpose of marketing its values. As the chief director of Bouzareah School admitted in 1908, it is not by pure generous act that the French university intended to expand education in the Kabyle area. In fact, it is in the interest of France, this only interest which is basically an instrument of authority and influence. 168 Ginsburg and Clayton (2002:388) argue that scholars working within conflict or functionalist framework have identified a key role for formal and informal education.
164 .Lardjane, O « Identité collective et identité Individuelle » in Elites et Questions Identitaires, Alger, : Casbah ,1997:15-16 165 Lardjane, O op cit : 18 166 Giovani Busino, Elites et Elitismes, Alger : Casbah ,1998:32 167 Giovani Busino op cit:8 168 Madi, M 1997: 114-115
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“ From a conflict perspective ,elite group in imperial nations design educational systems to serve their own interests , educating youth and adults(in the center as well as the periphery) with the skills , knowledge , world views and attitudes “needed” for creating and sustaining exploitative relations. This would likely entail transmitting to students the knowledge and linguistic and other skills necessary for playing different roles within the occupational and political hierarchies.”
The elite of French language background represented the eventual ambassador of the colonial authorities. Colonialism contributed to isolate the elite by converting it to the French language as a way to preserve its interests after independence. 169 This partly explains the reasons behind the fact that the elite who framed the national movement of liberation insisted upon a parallel traditional educational system to shield the colonial one.
The elite, who was to take leadership and national construction got fractioned according to the linguistic factor, a split announced with acuity as early as independence and accompanied by a division related to the domains of power exercise. The Arabic language background elite was oriented towards the Arabo-Muslim culture and determined to enhance its own values while the French language background one was inclined to the western civilization. In their activism to implant their design, both were confronted to serious needs of human, material and financial means. In addition, the social and cultural impacts inherited throughout the period of colonialism and particularly the linguistic one which contributed to ignite the conflict between the “arabophone” and the “francophone” mainly wheeling around the question of identity and the language issue.
The former trend focuses on the Arabic language as an instrument to highlight the Arabo- muslim culture kinship while the latter seeks a new identity to be constructed away from the Arabo-Muslim culture. The conflict over language and future nation-state building revealed a process of fundamental social change, which was underway. The paradoxical thing is that the agreed upon identity strong assets that sustained the national movement turned loose fitting as early as independence. 170 The Arab-Muslim enthusiasm displayed against colonialism cooled off releasing the shield in favor of a development plan adopting the western pattern. The
169 Hermassi , M.S2004: 135 170 Hermassi, M.S op cit: 18-19
111 Chapter three : Language Planning in Independent Algeria breach of the nationalist experience, which is charged with patriotism seeing in Arabization a political and postcolonial rather than a cultural and economic reaction, that is, a strategy that highlights the place of Algeria in the Arab-Muslim world and aims at unity and solidarity between all Arabs liberated two opposing visions. The modernist led by an elite in favor of the western world adopting its universal values to displace the archaic ingrained aspect underlying the failure of the arabo-islamic culture. The other group, the traditionalist, who favors a total Arabization and is imprisoned within an over rigid fashion as a way for self- defense centered on authenticity and specificity attributes through the reevaluation and glory of the Arabo-Islamic history to slash off the western values. 171
This shift resulted in the fragmentation of the national elite. In his conclusion when dealing with the problem of identity, Hermassi, (2004:165) brings to notice that independence authorities showed little concern to the assets of identity. This issue was displaced to a lower scale within the hierarchy of priorities revealing that the enthusiasm during the colonial period was but a tactical policy. Surprising as it may be, the question of identity is stained with a certain apprehension once the threat of colonialism is triumphed over.
The identity assets are admitted to the bar by the western educated elite who has been integrated in the governments of independence. The glorified Arabo-Muslim identity which used to mark the struggle against colonialism and represent the common denominator of the most social and political forces released acute differences between those who adhere to the Arabo-Muslim kinship and those who disclaim it. 172 This split phenomenon occurs as a strategy when group membership no longer favors the targeted social mobility and impacts negatively upon the social identity. It is possible then for members of the group to leave and identify to another prestige group. This is what happened in the case of turkey. 173
171 Ghalioun, B. Le Malaise Arabe : Etat contre Nation, Alger : ENAG 1991 :123 172 Hermassi, M. S (op.cit : 18) 173 Assaad, A. Elia. Klein, O La Psychologie Sociale et les Relations Intergroupes, Paris : Dunod , 1998: 69
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In the case of Algeria, the dissenting trend focuses on the Algerian specificities for self- categorization purposes. This view falls within Thiesse‘s (1999) vision about the design of identity repertoire which is men‘s edifice suggesting the constant process of construction, deconstruction and reconstruction. In the quest to construct the post independence identity, the francophone elite adopted the western world model as a way through development and engaged in a development planning calqued on the westerners. This option for development has nourished the stormy discourse opposing the arabophone to the francophone over the language planning policy project known as Arabization.
Global planning policy as well as language planning policy relied heavily on the services of education in supplying the necessary human resources to feed the respective projects. It should be noted however, that although education seems to be the only field independent of natural resources, it itself pre-supposes the availability of certain economic and human resources to function. As newly independent Algeria was in need of educational conveniences to start off, urgency was felt to give equal importance to the economic sector in order to inject investments in education.
However, this sector operates in French and requires a francophone backed managerial staff that education has to provide to guarantee the take over. This has generated a problem of language use, language potential and the users' prospects as the educational pursuit has to be oriented towards an Arabophone product. Such a problem has led to work on two language fronts: CA and French with the objective of speeding the process of dissemination of the former and lessening that of the latter through the process of Arabization.
Nevertheless, the job market as to language use has relegated this objective to a second plan .This is because the Arabophones cannot use CA at work and have been compelled to use French. Therefore, the motivation for Arabization has been slowed down. As a process, it has become selective and fractioned in its implementation. This is due to the problems of CA to handle all the educational subject matters, to the absence of the required human resources, and to the educational policy, which has to devote more of the educational endeavors to scientific and technological domains that still escape the control of CA or has evolved at a snail's pace.
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The arabophones attribute all the social problems of the Algerian society to the Francophone who are considered as the agents of western cultural invasion. Using Mouloud Kacem Nait Belkacem’s terms, the arapbophone elite who led the arabization process consider the francophone elite as being neither eastern nor western culture tied, that is ‘’cultureless’’. Mouloud Kacem Nait Belkacem argued that Arabization would not be brought to satisfaction unless the Algerian soul is successfully arabized. He believes all the obstacles to spring from that category, the francophone, which remains western sealed Madi (op cit: 119). Madi (op cit: 111) brings to notice other conflicting terms used by the Algerian press to refer respectively to the arabophone and the francophone groups namely ‘hizb el ourouba’, ‘Islamo-integro-baatistes’ or ‘middle easterners’ and ‘Lacoste promotion’, hizb frança’, or ‘ouled fafa’.
Furthermore, when analyzing the Algerian written press discourse opposing the arabophone to the francophone, Arous in N. Grine (2008: 98) elaborated a depiction of the ways both of the arabophone and francophone elites conceive each other. On the one hand, the arabophone is baatist, Islamist, obscurantist, of a devilish creature, violent, cowardly, opportunist, retarded, integrist, and traditionalist… on the other hand, the francophone is a mediocre Franco-man, of a dangerous schizophrenic nature, hysterical, Francophile , opportunist, full of complexes, l’integrisme lui-même, anti-nationalist, immoral , despicable , honorless, ignorant, atheist, and French occupation advocator… .This indicates how negatively charged are the elites, a charge which impacted on the designed policies to construct independent Algeria. Hence language planning policy has never been free of problems and is still at issue today.
As early as independence and before the language planning policy, which is known as “Arabisation” unfolds its phases, impacts and shortcomings, there was an explicit renewal as to the Arabic language mission consisting of a cultural recovery for independence completion by a tacit agreement and a strong motivation for a global policy of development. In ensuring the two projects, school offers an interesting setting where to initiate the processes. Consequently, the elites cast a covetous look on school as it represents an important place
114 Chapter three : Language Planning in Independent Algeria where the foundations of the future to be Algeria are shaped or manufactured. As an educational institution, it permits official authorities to bring to satisfaction the social design they project for the society under control. It also serves utilitarian purposes to shape people’s behavior, and to intervene in knowledge acquisition, skill, and attitudes development. This brings us to the fundamental role of education, which participates in energizing the process of global policy implementation and in thrusting development.
In reality, in addition to the language policy the global policy of development has been aiming at two related processes, one that has sometimes been called “modernization” and the other “development”. ”Development” suggests simply growth, that is, improvement in a country's economic and social conditions. More specifically, it refers to improvements in ways of managing natural and human resources in order to create wealth and raise people’s standard of living. “Modernization” has been conceived as a process of change from a traditional way of life and organization to a modern style which allows overcoming the technical, scientific and normative gap between the industrialized Western World and the Third World in general. Partly because the industrial revolution first took place in the West, western civilization as a whole became the criteria for appraising and measuring “modernity’’.
In fact Western culture, technology and life style represent the reference point not only for policy-makers, but also for individual private behavior. Modernization has been largely equated with westernization in spite of the rhetorical assertion of the ex-colonized countries. Both modernization and development are conceived as an attempt to catch up with the West. In Practice, the twin process holds substantial risks of imitation and dependency. Developing countries in general have become increasingly preoccupied with attempting to imitate western methods of production, western techniques of analysis, western approaches to organization, and western styles of behavior. Language use in Algeria has to be seen in this wider context. Because of these questions in the background, the language planning policy in Algeria has to be regarded in relation to those wider processes of modernization and development and their
115 Chapter three : Language Planning in Independent Algeria associated process of alien penetration. Mazrui (1978:302) views development as “modernization minus dependency.” When it comes to the services of foreign language use Mazrui and Ostergard (2002:202) argue, “No country has ascended to a first rank technological and economic power by excessive dependence on foreign languages. Japan he notes rose to dazzling industrial heights by the Japanese language and making it the medium of its own industrialization. Korea as well has approximately scientificated its own language and made it the medium of its own technological take off” Philipson (2003) warns as to the reliance on the ex- colonial European languages. Though newly independent countries in one way or another adopted them for they connote modernism and progress, these countries are still among the underdeveloped group, i.e., among those who adopted their vernacular(s). In spite of the fact that English is used world widely, the vast majority of the world’s population has no proficiency in the language. By way of illustration, the population of Nigeria and Kenya display a low rate of proficiency not exceeding 10%. This ranks English as the language of the powerful keeping the majority which is linguistically deprived living with the dependency syndrome. 174
174 Robert Philipson “English only Europe: Challenging language policy, London : Routledge ,2003 p:7 English is often referred to as a ‘global language, but even if many decisions affecting the entire world’s population are taken in English ,the vast majority of the world’s population have no proficiency in the language. In many African states that are loosely referred to as ‘English-speaking countries’ such as Nigeria or Kenya, under 10% population speak the language well. The same is also broadly true in former colonies in Asia. The hierarchy of languages of colonial times has been maintained with English as a key medium for prestigious purposes, and proficiency in English correlating with socio-economic privilege. This has serious adverse effects on civil society and democratic participation in the political process. English is the language of the powerful. For the majority lack of proficiency in English closes doors”.
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The educational policy with special emphasis on language policy was framed to declining the utilization of French. The aim was to slacken the need of French in one area of national life after another and allow Arabic to rival French in the business of the nation. But essentially, the ultimate ambition of Algeria then is to devote more energy and investment in promoting the Arabic language so as to conquer social, scientific and technological horizons to neutralize the opinion which believes science and technology are the monopoly of the western languages with special focus on French. However, since independence, Algeria has still not been able to give Arabic equal footing with French though Arabic has now greater position in education than it had during the colonial period and the early years of independence.
Implementation has not all the time come up to the Arabic language allies’ expectations. Significant also is the fact that Arabization was faced to the French language burden as school has to operate on a two language fronts with a clearly hierarchical distribution granting linguistic leadership to the French language in the educational domains that are science and technology appealing. Among the advocators of the French language is Mazouni, who assigns a rational and technical potential to the French language and remains convinced that the use of French is a no way out formula for industrialization and modernism. Accordingly, it permits access to logic or experimental scientific truths while the Arabic language is but that, which develops the ability to enjoy beauty and express dogmatic or metaphysical facts, Madi (1997: 121).
Furthermore, and as matters stand, education itself pre-supposes the availability of economic and human resources to be on active service. Algeria, like any other developing country, was lacking educational facilities to ensure the start in 1962. It was necessary then to give equal importance to the economic sector in order to inject investments in education. However, this sector still operates in French and has been in want of a francophone or bilingual backed managerial staff that education has to provide to guarantee the take over. This has raised a problem of language use, language potential and the users' prospects, as the educational pursuit has to be oriented towards an Arabophone and francophone or bilingual products. Such a problem has led to establish a language agenda process, which projects the gradual spread of CA with a planned discarding of French. Certainly, French has been flushed
117 Chapter three : Language Planning in Independent Algeria out of the primary, intermediate and secondary educational levels to be allocated a foreign language position. Nevertheless, the character of the job market and tertiary education remain language planning process enemies that forced a language conversion phenomenon motivated respectively by professional and higher study perspectives and international contact.
The need for French has relegated the language planning objective to a second plan since the Arabophones can not use CA at work and have been compelled to use French. And so, the motivation for Arabization has cooled off. As a process, it has become selective and fractured in its implementation. This is due to the problems of CA to handle all the educational subject matters, to the absence of the required human resources, and to the educational policy, which has to devote more of the educational endeavors to scientific and technological domains that escape the control of CA.
In addition to this manifest awareness of the obvious importance of education to Arabization as regards CA, the authorities have also expressed the equally obvious importance, complexity and subtlety of modern world requirements upon education and language. Education has had to satisfy Man's fulfillment at the national and universal levels. It is then, a policy of Arabization as well as a policy of economic, social, and scientific development, i.e. it has a crucial role in the global policy of development. Gibson (2006:34) notes:
“Of all the domains (…) education is probably the most crucial, sometimes indeed bearing the entire burden of language planning implementation. The reasons are straightforward: education in most countries is largely funded and thus controlled by the state; schools are one of the key agencies of socialization; school pupils are captive audience, and the curriculum affords the state unequalled opportunities to shape the attitudes and behaviors of the next generations. Unsurprisingly, then it has been a cornerstone in the process of national transformation”.
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Besides the issue of CA, the Algerian government has to provide the basic infrastructure for global development. To this end, there has been an urgency to combat illiteracy, and to make efforts of schooling so as to guarantee the necessary conditions for the acquirement of modern technology and ideas that would promote the Algerian innovative effort which is fundamental to development. Policy concerns with educational expansion in Algeria stem from the presumption that investment in education is crucial for technological progress, which is believed to be the way out of underdevelopment and dependence syndrome. As Coombs revealed ‘’educational planning, seen in its broader frame, embraces both the internal affairs of education and its external relationships to the rest of the society and economy’’ (Zajda 2005:9).
Unfortunately, the project of education has collided with the Algerian reality, which was inherited as a result of colonialism. Namely, a language which has not followed the progress of the scientific, industrial, and economic activities, a social environment in which CA has almost no room, in a country lacking qualified human resources, and an infrastructure which functions in French.
The departure of the Europeans posed also serious problems of professional training, technical, and economic assistance because the Algerian staff could hardly take over. This situation has slowed down the realization of the educational objectives and Arabisation in particular. This objective depends mainly on what it takes to achieve the goal and the ability of CA to handle the educational subject matters.
Though, admittedly education is that domain which interacts with the other domains of national life to the extent of rendering necessary their Arabization, the performance and efficiency of the educational output depend undoubtedly also on the readiness of these domains to use and strengthen this output-input product. However, these domains developed in an isolated fashion from the objective of Arabization because of the state of the Arabic language. Arabization then has been bound to be selective and fractioned according to easiness and opportunity.
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The objectives of Education in general, and Arabisation and democratisation of schooling in particular, suffered from the enormous social, economic, educational, and financial problems Algeria confronted immediately after independence. The realization of these objectives has fallen short of expectations, for success is conditioned by the means and deeds in favor of education, by the way the masses are brought to adhere to the project as well as by the way massive schooling and Algerianisation are organized to meet the needs of Arabization and the economic sector. Analyzing the discrepancy between educational policy goals and outcomes Psacharopoulos argues that the reason of failure is that “the intended policy was never implemented”, and that policies were “vaguely stated” financial implications were not worked out , and policies were based on “good will” rather than on research proven cause effect relationship” Zajda (2005: xxiii).
While Emmerij quoted in Zajda (2005: 5) focuses on the economic impact of education and the school-work issue and argues,
“Education at the policy level should reflect national efforts of a more equal income redistribution and seek to diminish the gap between the ‘world of work’ and ‘the world of school’. One of the main objective of education policy in developing countries should be to inter-relate more closely the world of work and the world of school in order to bring individual aspirations into closer harmony with actual opportunities offered by the environment (…) to diminish the gap between the policy and labor market and employment policies’’.
This unbalance of socio-professional chances of promotion and social hierarchy climbing which is directly related to language use has fuelled the conflict between the Arabophone and the Francophone, a conflict, which in fact obscures other interrelated problems. Among the reasons behind the conflict is the feeling of exclusion of the arabised fraction from higher state services and the economic sector management positions. As Madi (1997: 121) observes, the labor market outlines the professional domains on the basis of language use. The Arabophone fits political propaganda, religious discourse missions, local assembly representatives and the commissaire politique federal de la wilaya, law and theology domains while the francophone suits technology and industrial jobs, industrial company leadership, administrative and finance positions, and social prestige professions such as engineers,
120 Chapter three : Language Planning in Independent Algeria doctors and architects. The socio-professional hierarchy and categorization nourished self- devaluation and the feeling of handicap to participate in the national development dynamics. However, not all blame can be put on the policy engineering of the Algerian authorities. Another not less important and project hindrance problem Algeria confronted has been the illiteracy burden that also puts a brake on the dynamics of development. That was another mission of the language policy, which needed to bring the Algerian population to participate in the process of development and policy implementation.
3.4.4.2 Importance of Literacy
No doubt, there can be no development without literacy. A high illiteracy rate certainly hinders economic and social development and slackens the way any policy develops. In fact “knowledge is power, but knowledge is acquired through language. And when the majority of people are asymmetrically excluded from having the opportunity to acquire knowledge, then they are indeed disempowered, the whole nation is disabled and relegated to the squator of underdevelopment”,Djité (2008:179). Djité (op cit :180) further argues that “sustainable development will occur only when the majority of people are educated enough, healthy enough, materially secure and aware of what is at stake to able to take their destiny in their own hands. If development is really the aim, a nation should develop its own productive capacities, and that it can only do so efficiently through its own people”. The actors of change remain the people themselves. “They are the ones who have to become more knowledgeable of new technologies and be able to take them up and adopt them to their needs and realities”. Algeria needed to trigger the human and financial resources not only to fight successfully illiteracy but also to avoid the phenomenon of people falling back into illiteracy. In parallel, there was an urgency to not only cope with modern society and fully participate in all aspects of social life, but also to prevent a relapse into illiteracy after a person has acquired the skill to read and write. Another point, which requires mention here, is illustrated by. Benedicta, (2000: viii) who argues that
“Literacy is a prerequisite for educational advancement. Literacy is assumed to be the starting point for formal education and, if it is to have tangible social, psychological and economic rewards, all recipients must at least receive several years of consecutive instruction either through formal schooling or non-formal instruction”.
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Different ways to approach literacy are offered, namely (1) literacy as a basic human right; (2) literacy as a way to promote an improved quality of life ; (3) literacy as a basis for enhanced life long opportunities for education and personal development ;(4) literacy as a strategy to reduce social and economic disparities ;(5) literacy to promote national health ,nutrition, and population goals ; (6) literacy to promote political and economic freedom and literacy (7) to encourage national economic development and adaptation to the technological change observing that ‘’the validity and relevance of each is context specific. Any effective policy approach to literacy as Lind and Johnston put it has “to be tailored to the particular … conditions existing in each country. It will only work where this is done”, Windham ( 1991: 23).
Illiteracy may mean income loss not only for the individual but also for the society as a whole. What literacy can mean for both the individual and society at large is betterment of people's lives, self-esteem promotion, and ability to cope with the majority of the society. It also provides people with the option of becoming members of a self-confident and informed common people who develop a fluid understanding of issues, represent themselves, take responsibility for self-improvement and better participate in civic affairs. Then, a complex array of factors is involved to implement the language policy . But what is more alarming is that language planning policy is destined to failure in the absence of major sectors of society, which should normally be involved to abolish illiteracy. As Windham (op cit: 28) observes “the true measure of a nation’s commitment to literacy is indicated by the level and effectiveness of its expenditure, not by its rhetorical zeal for literacy …”
The concern about literacy in independent Algeria was considered within the global development and modernization project, the language policy project as well as the socio- cultural and economic inherited poverty the country was trapped in. This led to limit the implementation of the language planning policy to the educational sector as an investment upon the young generation. In its first phase, the language policy unveils as a schooling policy adopting the Arabic language as a language of teaching.
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From a sociolinguistic concern, Algeria was confronted to a major problem of illiteracy, and, therefore, rose the problem of “language planning” and “literacy planning” within a not less important problem that of linguistic diversity that both the Arab and the communities present. Since literacy implies the production of language in written form and although there are different models of literacy planning to handle diverse linguistic situations, .i.e., mother tongue, multiple, local, national literacies as well as bi-literacy, Algeria had to decide about national literacy. This is simply because on the one hand, it implies written release of language, and, also because all the other varieties are not written. To opt for any other model of literacy is venturesome, costly and much time consuming and needs to get through a language planning policy on a micro level. Algeria could not afford any other solution to literacy.
Furthermore, the choice also carries out a policy to deal equally with all the varieties, which are not written, be they Arabic or Berber. CA seems an economical and advantageous solution obeying the cost benefit approach but culturally and linguistically problem rising as it ignored the Berber factor. But it constitutes both a must and a predictive measure determined by the apprehension of the inter-group conflicts fed by the cultural and linguistic differences as well as the backing up of the feeling of loyalty to the nation-state seeking objective to edify a collective identity of the Algerian citizen.
But as matters stand, the collectivity is made up of individuals and these as Kramch (2000: 82) states “need to be recognized both in their individual and social group identity.” However, and as the law of the majority works, the choice of CA was obvious and, thus, a convergence towards a mono or collective identity construction based on one language conveying one culture encompassing Berber and Arab characteristics needed to be reinforced by a policy of literacy. The trap here is that identity is of a fluid character and is in a constant construction and evolution. What varies is the importance of each phase according to the prevailing situation. It should be noted that deconstruction must not be experienced as a negative phenomenon. It simply suggests the penetration of new factors, which affect the symbolic values of a community to change and enrich it. This also implies language and culture dynamism, which are at the heart of identity construction and conflicts.
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This policy of homogenization through language was conceived as a strategy of investment to construct a collective identity and fight against any risk of identity based conflict, which may emerge to put into question the nation-state building approach. However, be it a policy or a strategy if devised in an environment in which goals are not coordinated, at least to some degree, it is likely to be unsuccessful.
3.4.4.3 The Berber Crisis
As Wright (2002:8) puts it, “Language is an immensely emotive subject. It is a carrier of identity and any undermining of a variety is experienced as an attack on fundamental group values”. However, and according to standard practice, to each nation construction corresponds a language. This is not particular to Algeria. All nations around the world whatever the model of nationalism they adopted, language has been a fundamental element. Unity through language and religion was the most prized asset and a sine quoi non condition to uphold. Harbi as well argues that the Messalism philosophy believed cultural pluralism ill assorted with nationalism and that the Arabic language and culture together with Islam represent the whole lot shared by the Algerian society with all its diverse components. 175 But some Berber leaders among those who framed the national movement of liberation considered that the Algerian identity was wandering off the path as long as it was limited to territory, religion and Arab kinship. Consequently, the Berber ethnic question was raised in 1949. Two nationalist diametrically opposed trends emerged an Algerian nationalist trend, and an Arabo-Islamic trend. Those advocating Algerian nationalism were accused of berberism as they wanted to include the Berber ingredient within the Algerian identity framing. Though a major crisis exploded over the issue, it is noteworthy to mention that the quarrel remained insignificant at that time.
175 Madi. M (1997:112)
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The governing elite of the newly independent States of the Maghreb in general agreed upon the Arabic language for which the term “school language” suits better so as not to be confused with CA, which is tuned with the sacred form of Arabic. In the case of Algeria, a language policy was elaborated purposefully to gradually set in motion the French language discarding from the linguistic situation.
However, opponents of the language policy found in the measure a downgrading of Berber and dialectal Arabic since these codes have no room in the national policy. Associated to this, is Ahmed Ben Bella’s claim “we are all Arabs and Algeria is Arab, Arab, Arab” quoted in Spickard (2005:149).This claim flared up the crisis in the 1960’s. In terms of the working mechanism behind the motivation for unity, Le Sueur (2005:250) argues,
“Though that Algeria is anthropologically composed of four main peoples - the Chaouias, the Kabyles ,the Mozabites and the Arab speaking ones - to show how the kaleidoscopic mechanism had both united and separated Algeria but the war had irrefutably affected the kaleidoscopic mechanism because the different ethnic groups – which had historically attempted to differentiate themselves from one another – were now motivated by the desire to dissimilate themselves from the Europeans (…) In other words, the war and the colonial situation aided in breaking down the particularisms and fostered the development of national consciousness”.
However, in practice the unity discourse generated a conflict around collective and in group identity. I caused a clash which served as Suleiman and Tilmatine (1996:167) quoting Ouerdane (1987, 1990) “a major milestone on the road to Berber language recognition as an ingredient in the Algerian national identity came towards the end of the forties in what has been dubbed as the 1949 crisis”. Suleiman and Tilmatine (idem) consider mostly the crisis to dwell in, “The determination within the national movement to cast the Algerian identity in exclusively Arab-Muslim terms, thus rejecting the concept of an Algerian Algeria in which cultural pluralism can be allowed as an operative socio-political factor. In effect, this has boiled down to denying the role of the Berber community and thus language as a constitutive ingredient in the national self”.
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Harbi, stresses the fact that the process of cultural specificity awakening ,and particularly in the kabylian region with an anti-Arabism swing started in 1949, but remained really insignificant as the members framing the movement were Francophile intellectuals who strived to revalorize the Berber heritage 176 . Within the same thought, Suleiman and . Tilmatine (1996:167) have reported
“The awakening of a language based Berber consciousness started as an elite led phenomenon towards the end of the 19 th Century. Exposure to French education and the academic fruits of the scholarly- cum-political interest in French circles in the history, ethnography and linguistic situation in Algeria acted as a catalyst in promoting an indigenous Berber interest in the native culture”.
The crisis streamed into, following a motion adopted by the majority of a Kabyle militant group belonging to the French federating (PPA-MTLD) revolving around the Algerian specificities as a reaction to Messali Hadj’s declaration in a memorandum to the United Nation Organization emphasizing Algeria ‘s Arabo-Muslim kinship 177 . However, the Berber dissidents’ identity claim was opposed by the Arabophone militants and the Berber ones mainly the Chaouias members of the PPA who reacted violently 178 . The Berber dissidents had no credit since the movement was exclusively fostered by the Kabylian Berbers only, but the movement remained in hibernation or in a form of “wait and see” strategy until the 1960’s when it erupted as a result of instituting the Arabic language the national official language of independent Algeria. Y. Suleiman and M. Tilmatine (1996: 166) have noted,
“ In Algeria Berber speaking community can be found in all regions of the country , but none is more numerous and politically active than the kabyle population who, in the last decades or so, has been at the forefront of all Berber attempts to extract ethnic recognition from successive Algerian governments” .
176 Madi, M, op cit 112-114 177 Ait. Kaki, M 2004 :45 178 Madi, M op cit
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The Berber question made eruption in the 60’s when a small group of kabylian intellectuals of a francophone profile felt threatened by a power loss process through a forced Arabization. 179 This is also due to the fact that Arabization is seen as a process which negates their identity by forcing them into a homogenous mold which does not fit their authenticity. As a minority, they feel imposed an alien cultural form or kinship. Kateb yacine cried out his anger and rejects the Arabization policy which considers the Berber communities as isolated minorities within an Arab people who in fact are the ones who constitute the least minority claiming “we are not minorities , we are rather an unconscious majority” – referring to the Amazigh element. 180 The Berber advocator, Chaker, (1968) considers the Berber question as an assertion one. Being Berber and remaining Berber in the actual Maghreb is a militant, cultural, and eventually scientific and everlasting political act. For Chaker (op cit), the Berbers’ future is closely related to the Berber language and culture as constitutive elements of their identity. He remains quite comforted as to the resistance potential both culture and language display for the time being.
When it comes to the rise of berberism two major conflicting positions rose: one attributes the revival interest in the Berber identity simply to a renewed and “successful” attempt of the Western world with France at the head to wane and challenge the national unity of the states in the Maghreb through the support and funding of Berber identity trend. All Berber studies were initiated and developed in Europe. The second one brings doubt about the Arab–Berber harmony. The Berber community with its culture, history and language are presented as being subjected to the Arab invasion and that the movement is but a struggle against the oppressor.
The Berber crisis has to be seen in the light of the French colonial policy as well as in the 1949 crisis resulting from the activism to frame the national movement of liberation. It has
179 Ait Kaki, M 2004: 67 180 Ait Kaki, M op cit : 18
127 Chapter three : Language Planning in Independent Algeria also been kindled by the language policy known as Arabization together with the social and economic problems that contributed to develop a certain brittleness and flimsiness of the Algerian society. All these made the Berber issue to be more or less ready to be instrumentalized and driven into the tides of language and power conflict. The Berber issue stemmed from the changing circumstances that characterized the post independence language and educational policy along which there was no substantial worry as to the socio- professional mobility of the Algerian citizens as a whole and the investment on the human factor precisely which represents the basis of any planning policy and its implementation. Policies and plans are elaborated for people and thus depend on their responsiveness. In consideration of the issue of language planning, and the side effects problems it generates politically and socially, Tollefson (1991:16) cited in Bamgbose (2000:16) considers language planning as:
“The institutionalization of language as a basis for distinction among social groups (classes) … that is, language policy is one mechanism for locating language within social structure so that language determines who has access to political power and economic resources. Language policy is one mechanism by which dominant groups establish hegemony in language use”.
According to Cooper (1989: 79, 80), language policy elaboration constitutes “the pursuit and maintenance of power”, and “members of society who are the most powerful exert the most influence “. This corresponds to the elite clash, which broke off at the dawn of independence, and consequently, the reading balance of the cost benefits of the language policy is questioned by those excluded from power.
Madi, (1997:126) believes the linguistic question to be at the heart of the identity issue Algeria faces, and that it has never been objectively debated. For this reason, it stirs up much emotion and passion suggesting, in case, the language policy intends the national cohesion, to handle the linguistic and identity issues away from the political and ideological tensions. A. Guenoune (1999) unveils the events that marked the Berber issue in three phases namely before the war starting from 1945, during the war and after independence until 1990 (see annex:239).
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The Berber conflict began to outline as early as independence. Berber militants against the state over the economic and policy design as well as language and culture showed occasional clashes which developed into an acute political pronouncement. A. Layachi (2005:196) stresses,
‘’the politicization of the Berber ethnicity to a host of factors including linguistic demands that become more pressing in response to a reinforcement of the State’s control over the country’s culture and linguistic pursuits not sanctioned by the State, and an exacerbation of the political and economic crises that have beset the country since the early 1980’s’’.
Two important protest events (1980 and 1988) contributed in imposing a shift in the Algerian identity definition to which the Amazigh dimension was introduced within the collective identity to be sheltered from restricted in-group monopoly. This measure can be traced to the rising voices which consider dialectal Arabic and Berber as being depreciated and out casted by the Arabic language “the school form’’ they believe to be a foreign language - as it used to be defined by the colonial authorities - within the Algerian language situation.
Ait Kaki. (2004:82) argues that this strategy which intends to couple dialectal Arabic to Berber and dissociates dialectal Arabic from its membership and affinity to the Arabic language project not only adds value to the demographic aspect of the Berber language ,but cultivates doubt as to the real origin of the speakers of dialectal Arabic attributing them the status of arabized Berbers that Ait Kaki (op cit) , supports with Mohand Aarav Bessaoud who argued that History tells us very much about the Arabs who are in fact a minority and that he who believes to be an Arab is but an arabised Berber. Ait Kaki (idem) further reveals that the Berber claim has been hijacked to serve political targeted objectives and reads within the demonstrators’ claim in Tizi-Ouzou “we are Berbers not Arabs”.
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Guessoum in Brenzinger (2007:123) expresses his doubts on the underlying motives of the Berber claim and thus the outcomes desired by these movements .He assumes
“The ‘Berber renaissance’ is mainly a cover of the francophone Maghreb elite (in Algeria) to counter the Arab expansion. He suspects that the primary interest of those activists is the introduction of French in its former function and areas. Guessoum believes the support of raising the status and use of Amazigh is only of secondary importance.
For Guessoum (op cit : 129) “the movement for the Berber culture is in reality but a francophone claim under the Berber label , and it cannot be otherwise given the Berber hostility to the Arab culture , script , language etc” .The Berber demands gained relative recognition in 1989 when a political release permitted overt political pluralism, which enabled stifled Berber movements to emerge claiming official recognition of the Berber language and culture as the fundamental ingredients of the national identity. However, for the Berber opponents, the Berber movement is perceived as a French remote control intervention. This is because of the support France showed in favor of the movement by allowing a non negligible number of Amazigh Associations on its territory and other militancy channels such as the Berber academy and the radio / TV communication facility measures that Layachi (2005) sees as instruments of French neocolonialism. Among other arguments the opponents retain against the Berber movement is the use of the Latin alphabet as a script. This has been tuned with the latinization reasons of the Turkish and Romanian languages moving respectively from Arabic and Cyrillic scripts for scission purposes from their former corresponding nations.
There is certainly a relationship between the attitudes towards French and the fact of advocating the use of the Latin alphabet for the promotion of the Berber language .and the hypothesis of the roman origin of the Berbers. Hagégé (1983) notes that Script selection can be a marker of political, social, or national identity, and that various orthographic changes have as their motivation an issue of political or social identity. Basin (1983) sees in the replacement of Arabic script by Latin script in Turkish, for example, a motivation to palliate to the inadequacies of the existing orthography. However, the decision to replace rather than to reform the existing orthography was motivated by a desire to affirm the westernization and secularization of the country as important national goals and to distance modern turkey from its Islamic Ottoman past (in Liddicoat (2005: 996).
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In the case of the USSR, Imart (1983) considers the replacement of Latin and Arabic scripts by Cyrillic during the Stalinist era a strategy to reinforce a sense of unified national identity and to weaken the cultural distinctiveness of minority groups in the context of a movement towards Russification of the Soviet Union (in Liddicoat op cit) . In so doing, the cost is dramatic as it creates a cultural rupture because in the long term access to material produced before the script reform is restricted and gradually driven into oblivion.
As regards language from a colonial angle, it appears as a major arm for imperial expansion and as a major agent of alienation of the colonized peoples from their traditional cultures as well as a source that may in the long run engender violent acts seeking to separate communities and nationalities. Malcoln and Askaland (2008:59) observe:
“Colonialism often involves constructing the colonized nation incompletely representing it in terms that the colonizer can understand, and evaluating its culture and civilization according to the colonizer’s values and attitudes. Colonizers use education and cultural experiences to shift the colonized people’s culture and values towards that of the colonized power”.
However, in terms of language policy elaboration, language becomes a strategy deployed in the construction of identity which itself is also used to cultivate and / or construct language and fuel language and identity conflicts causing individuals or members of a community to adapt identity strategies according to utilitarian purposes.
In the case of Algeria, the national movement of liberation found in the Arabic language and Islam the crucial identity ingredients and the strategy to gather strength and fasten together the masses against colonialism. However, as Leigh (2001: 11) argues, strategies of identity are governed by
“(…) practical, utilitarian concerns, rather than sentimental, historical and cultural ones. In other words, by making ‘rational’ choices, individuals, and even groups, emphasize and suppress certain aspects of the ethnic identity or identities, in an attempt to maximize socio- economic advantages ( power, honor… etc) . But when these advantages may once have been linked solely to the majority group membership, many ethnies are returning to their minority identities which they now realize can provide them with similar advantages”.
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Accordingly, collective or national identity is but an agreed upon and a deliberate composite formula which fits situations and shared interests. In the view of Josselson quoted in Ennaji (2005: 22)
“[…] identity is neither a structure nor a context but a property of the ego that organizes experience. It is an amalgam […] of constitutional givens, idiosyncratic libidinal needs, psychological defenses against inner conflicts, significant identifications with important others, interests and social roles. In a sense, we might think of identity formation as the assembling of jigsaw puzzle in which each person has somewhat different pieces to fit together”.
Identity ingredients then can be organized in multi-fashionable manners that individuals or groups under or over communicate depending on the environments with which they interact. Mucchielli (1999:95) speaks of a negative identity, which is constructed along side with the positive identity. The positive identifications and the assimilation process imply the rejection of certain identity ingredients, i.e., to force back all those which are depreciated. In their analysis of the inter-group relations from psycho-social lenses, Assad and Klein (1998: 64), attempted to explain how the inter-group relations oscillate in a to and fro fashion between harmonious and conflicting states.
According to the theory of real conflicts, the inter-group competition which targets the acquisition and control of the extremely rare resources is at the origin of the conflict. Access to power, job availability and opportunities, political representation and, in general, social mobility may be considered as rare resources. The search for rare resources constitutes mobilizing factors that make men adapt identity strategies as a defense mechanism. Purposefully the individual develops a plurality of belongingness that he activates in accordance with the confronted situation E. M’bokolo quoted in Ruano-Bordelan (1998:13). Linguistic membership and ethnic affinity among other distinctive aspects represent identification resources during periods of conflicts and uncertainty. Convenient serviceable
132 Chapter three : Language Planning in Independent Algeria concerns rather than historical and cultural ones govern the strategies of identity. In other words, by making cogent choices, individuals and even groups highlight and hold back certain aspects of their identity or identities in an attempt to maximize socio-economic advantages such as wealth and power. However, while these advantages may once have been associated exclusively to majority group membership, a return to a minority group may come up again in the case it can promote similar or better advantages.
It should be noted that over such a short time of policy implementation, and bearing in mind the environment in which it was conceived and implemented, it is unjustifiable to attribute all the problems that cropped up instantaneously to the Arabization policy, and it is too early to speak of a success or failure story. One has to appreciate the time consumed, the efforts made, and the strategies resorted to dating back to centuries, before both French and English reached the present statuses.
Modern French is traced back to the 15 th century from 1539 when the Edict of Villiers - Cotterêts was issued, which honored Francien, the dialect of Ile-de-France, as the only official language of France; it was not until 1762 that Francien could replace Latin in higher education (Hervé 2007: 37). French did not become the widespread national language it is today until the final third of the 19 th century Laitin (1992: 12). Weber (1976:67) quoted in Laitin (op cit) reveals that as late as 1863 about a quarter of France‘s population spoke no French. According to the Ministry of Public Instruction, in 24 of the country’s 89 departments more than half of the people did not speak French. French remained virtually a foreign language to a substantial proportion of the country’s population for much of the nineteenth century (Offord 1996:7).
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Shiffman (1998) noted that the ordinance of Villiers–Cotterêts 181 was meant to ease out not only Latin but to annihilate languages other than French, seeking a policy of French only. When the ordinance was issued (15 August 1539), only a minority of the population to which the new law applied actually knew any French. It was a time when the regional languages of France still flourished and French was known only to a very few in the peripheral areas of France ,(Offord 1996: 3-4). When the French language was standardized in the seventeenth century only 10% of the population were literate, and many spoke other languages (Holt 1994:33). A century and a half after the French Revolution, a policy of unilingualism had unified the country linguistically. The regional languages were put on the side line with no market value leading on the one hand to the marginalization of other social groups together with their ways of speaking and writing and concentrating power in the hands of a very small, highly educated and ambitious group, (Adamson, 2007: 5). The political unity resulted in the marginalization of other groups.
Ager (2001:15) sees oppression exercise in the French language policy towards the regional languages from the 16 th century to 1950. Furthermore, the decree of 2 Thermidor (20July 1794) instituted an environment that Adamson (2007:8) refers to as “linguistic terror” 182 . During The course of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, it was absolutely forbidden to use any other language than French for purposes of instruction in the French schools. It was not until 1951 and the passing of the law Deixone that this situation changed (Offord 1996:7). The law allows the teaching of some languages such as Breton, Basque, Catalan and Occitan. These were on a voluntary basis allocated one hour a week within the
181 All legal decisions and all procedures pertaining either to the highest courts or to the lowest or inferior ones, whether they concern records, inquests, contracts, commissions, wills or whatever other legal acts or instruments or whatever is dependent thereon […] should be pronounced, registered and delivered to the litigants in the French vernacular language (language maternel François) and in no other way. Leigh Oakes , language and national identity: comparing France to Sweden ,Netherlands :John Benjamins, 2001:55 182 Any document not written in French would be illegal, and any servant of the Republic who drew up a document in a language other than French could be imprisoned. R. Adamson, The defence of French: a language in crisis,Clevedon: Mulilingual Matters.
134 Chapter three : Language Planning in Independent Algeria school institution. In Blanchet’s view, the spread of the Ile de France variety all over the French territory was perceived as a revolutionary matter and required measures to be taken to eradicate the idioms , patois , jargons and other kinds of non-standard French, since they were deemed counterrevolutionary ( Blanchet et al 1999:7). When propounding his ideas about francization based on a survey conducted about the language varieties used in France, the Abbé Gregoire predicted their extirpation:
“They will disappear little by little the local jargon and dialects of six million Frenchmen who do not speak the national language ,for , as I may not repeat too often , it is more important to extirpate this diversity of vulgar tongues than to prolong the infancy of reason and the senility of prejudice”. (Quoted in Shiffman 1998:99)
President George Pompidou as well is famous for his remark as late as 1972 which states, “there is no place for regional languages in France, which is destined to play a fundamental role in Europe” (Ager 1996:43).
It took more than two hundred years for the ideal of a single monolingual French nation to become realized. French as a national language today is the dominant medium of public discourse, yet other languages still continue to be used by minority groups in other domains and regions. In the case of the English language, in 1582 Richard Mulcaster ,whose disciple was Edmund Spencer, considered English as a language of little scale limited to the Island, and even there, it was not spread everywhere (in Mackey, 1976: 31). Within similar lines, Hogg et al (2000:3) have noted,
“In the fifteenth century England was an island nation, if with two independent kingdoms, Wales and Scotland, sharing its territory; or, counting, imperfectly conquered Island, a two-island nation; English, far from being a world language , probably had fewer than seven million speakers, and was virtually unknown outside its island confines”.
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Furthermore, Hogg and Denisson (2006) report that Edward the Confessor was more a harbinger of Norman French than a restorer of the English tongue when he came to the throne. English, too, which was the subject of linguistic imperialism from the French language, particularly following the Norman Conquest for hundreds of years, is nowadays on the way to dethrone the French language. Romaine (1999: 48) notes the role played by language in England’s changing conceptions of itself. This was achieved through” the construction of a glorious past for language as well as in ever increasing prognostications of a bright future as world language. English, like England, was to have its conquest”. As Dean Trench (1855) quoted in Romaine (1999) wrote:
“What can more clearly point out our ancestors’ native land and ours as having fulfilled a glorious past, as being destined for a glorious future, than that they should have acquired for themselves and for those who came after a clear, a strong, a harmonious, and a noble language?”
In addition to the broader colonial objective of territorial expansion, both the French and the English colonial policies impacted on the international language situation, and brought to notice with the wave of decolonization, the post colonial motives which are rather language and knowledge dependency. It became apparent as early as independence that the linguistic colonial legacies turned to work in favor of colonizers’ linguistic targets. This legacy that Gyasi and Hatford (2002) view as “political independence with linguistic servitude”
In the case of the French language, intellectual activities accompanied official legislation contributing thus to pave the way to the French language development together with image and prestige planning process, H .Haarman (1986), and Ager (2001). Malcoln (1996:4) reveals that the works of Malherbe (1555-1628) and de Vaugelas (1585-1676), the founding of the French academy in 1635, and the publication of Dictionnaries of Pomet
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(1676), Richelet (1680), and Furetière (1684) were important milestones in the development of the French language. The great French writers also brought enormous prestige to the language: Corneille, Racine, Pascal, Moliere La Fontaine, Descard, Voltaire, Diderot and Rousseau. In 1784, Antoine Rivarol won a prize offered by the Berlin academy for his speech on the universality of the French language, a speech that predates the French Revolution 183 .
3.5 Arabization: Evolution within the French Colonial Legacy
Algeria underwent an awfully weighty colonial shock. The French controlled education for 132 years through a policy of cultural colonialism which quoting Sayigh (1978:523) operated on two fronts:
“ and educational colonialism manifest itself in two ways, mainly in the ‘rationing’ of education manifest in the provision of very inadequate opportunities for the education of Algerian youth at all levels of instruction and the promotion of French as the primary language , along with the demotion of Arabic to become not only a secondary language , but a ‘foreign ‘ language”.
The focus was mainly oriented towards cultural identity so as to remold the society along French wants. There is no doubt that among the toughest colonial outcomes which spoils the triumph of independence, destabilize post independent Algeria and constitute a worry for the social elites is the legacy of a dual language system unequally spread and mastered with a language curve shift which favors the French language. G. Grandguillaumme (1990:154) reveals that at independence French was used in education, administration, and in the realms of everyday life.
183 Cette université de la langue française…offre pourtant un grand problème : elle tient à des causes si délicates et si puissantes à la fois que ,pour les déceler, il s’agit de montrer jusqu’à quel point la position de la France ,sa constitution politique, l’influence de son climat, le génie de ses écrivains, le caractère de ses habitants et l’opinion qu’elle a su donner d’elle au reste du monde ,jusqu’à quel point tant de causes diverses ont pu se combiner et s’unir pour faire à cette langue une fortune si prodigieuse
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This explains the heatedly motivation to combat French as early as independence through the policy of Arabization. According to K. Taleb Ibrahimi (1997:184) ,it is synonymous of resource , return to authenticity, and revitalization of the Arab identity attributes which can be realized only through the Arabic language restoration , dignity recovery and the primary condition to be reconciled with the self, ( in Ait Dahmane 2007:18 ).
In fact , it was on October the 5 th 1962 that the first President, Ahmed Benbella, announced the promotion of the Arabic language as the official and national language of independent Algeria ,and revealed the intention to use the Arabic language ,i.e. ( CA) as a medium of education in parallel with the French starting from the primary school year 1963 (Grandguillaume 1983). The formula adopted to spread the use of Arabic at school was a progressive one according to grade. It started with the teaching of Arabic for seven hours a week to be raised later to fifteen, and gradually to become the medium of teaching for the first primary school year 1964-65. In addition, CA conquered the radio channel broadcasting domain and was promoted as a medium to print the official journal. The language issue continued to trouble the authorities and became within the briefs of the National Assembly held on June 12 th , 1963. Furthermore, the first F.L.N Congress held on June 1964 stressed the urgency to speed up Arabization placing emphasis on the schooling of all six-year-old children. There was also a felt need to elaborate a permanent literacy program as well as an Arabization schedule.
President H. Boumedienne’s period extending from 1965 to 1978 was characterized by a strong motivation to consolidate CA. This period was marked by total Arabization of the Ministry of Justice as well as the second year of primary school in 1967. To transform the Arabic language into a language of teaching, the Minister Taleb El Ibrahimi adopted a pedagogical strategy, consisting of a progressive and continuous Arabization of subject matters starting from the first grade to the last one of the school cycles.
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Concerning administration, the Bill of April 26 th 1968 instituted the learning of Classical Arabic by all civil servants. On December 5 th 1969, a sub commission of Arabization deriving from a National Commission to reform the educational system was set up to work out an Arabization plan to be put into effect in 1971 targeting total Arabization of the third and fourth years of the primary school, one third of the first year at the intermediate level and one third of the first year at the secondary one. The year 1971 was also characterized by the extension of Arabization to Higher Education. The teaching of Classical Arabic was included in the program of Higher Studies as a measure to enable the Francophone degree holders to use Classical Arabic as a working language. In theory, this course was designed for the teaching of terminology, which fits the students’ fields of studies.
The process of Arabization has been gaining grounds at the primary, intermediate and secondary schools. To appreciate the progress Algeria has made in the universalization, the algerianization and the Arabization in education, David C. Gordon (1985: 137) suggests considering the situation that exited on the threshold of independence. While almost all French settler children (the colons) were in school in 1962, only 14% of Muslim children were. At the University of Algiers, there were only 557 Muslims to 4,548 Europeans. Regarding language, it is estimated that one million Algerian Muslims could read French (out of a population of 10 million at that time), and only some 300,000 could read Arabic in 1964. While the great majority spoke colloquial Arabic, some 20% spoke Berber dialects, and as many as six million could speak French. Except for a few private Muslim schools, the education, those Muslims lucky enough to attend school received, was French. When Arabic was taught, it generally was only offered as a token and taught casually and badly. He (op cit) observes that the situation is radically different today. With the post national education system which adopted a financial quota of 25% from the national budget until 1978 and about 21% since, all six year old children are in school, 80% of those between six and thirteen (because of drop outs) and in the university of Algiers, once serving mainly colon children, and in the new universities established ever since independence 80,000 students are enrolled. Among the other dates that marked the arabization process are:
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1973 Creation of the national commission of Arabization
1975 First conference on Arabization 1976 fundamental school project, a reform conceived to reinforce the educational system with a technical option of teaching. 1978 Total Arabization at the fundamental school level 1980 creation of the high council of the national language and the resolution to generalize the use of the national language 1984 total arabization of the social sciences at the university kevel 1986 official creation of the Arabic language academy (not effective up to the present) 1989-90 the national assembly voted the law 05/90 relative to the generalization of the Arabic language 1991 freezing of the law 05/90 1994 adoption of the law 05 /90 1996 creation of the high council for implementing Arabization having as a deadline 05 07 1998 1997 new project reinforcing the coercive measures in favor of Arabization
Arabization begun to produce some measurable results as it reached an important social diffusion with French being degraded to a second language introduced at the level of the third primary school year. In 1989, the university was going to admit the first promotion of Arabized baccalauréate holders in all branches at the start of the university Academic year1989.
In parallel, the schooling efforts were reinforced with school infrastructure and teaching staff development (see tables 3, 4:141 and 5:14) .In addition to the major universities, higher education has also been reinforce with universities ,state institutes ,teacher-training colleges, and Islamic institutes distributed all over the national territory. (See annex: 256,257).
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Table 3: School Infrastructure 1962-1992 over 5 year- laps
YEAR 1962 1967 1972 1977 1982 1987 1992
PRIMARY _ 4581 6990 8380 9864 11843 13461
LEVEL INTERMEDIA _ 454 540 987 1362 2118 2498 S TE
SECONDARY 34 56 78 156 248 574 700
Source: Revue Statistique n°35, Office National des Statistiques.
Table 4: The evolution of the Algerian teaching staff YEAR teachers at teachers at teachers at Secondary school Intermediate school Primary school
Algerian Foreign Algerian Foreign Algerian Foreign
1962 532 684 1,237 1,231 12,696 7, 212
1967 1,003 1,827 2,089 2,575 27,307 5, 806
1972 1,201 2,939 5,300 3,843 47,459 4, 002
1977 3,286 3,756 16,053 3,610 76,025 984
1982 10,168 4,124 36,849 2,120 99,648 640
1987 28,066 2,991 73,292 739 139,531 344
1992 43,705 917 86,048 362 154,326 359
Source: Retrospective 1962-1992 Series Statistiques, Revue Statistique n°35 Office National des Statistiques.
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Table 4 shows the evolution of the Algerian staff and indicates that the balance has been upset in favour of Algerianization since 1982. The Algerianization rate amounted respectively to 99.6%, 97.8% and 78.7% at primary, intermediate and secondary levels in the school year 1984-1985 (in Revue Statistique 1985 n°7). Table 5 extends the figure to the year 1996.
Table 5: Schooling, infrastructure and teaching staff development from 1962-1996
1962- 63 1996
Schooling 777,000 7593189
Secondary schools 39 1,103 Infrastructure Intermediate schools 379 3,038 Primary schools 7855 15,426
14,565 algerians over a total 322,904 Teaching staff of 24,612
Source : Nouria Benghabrit Remaoun (2001 : 290)
A.Djebbar (2008:177,178,185) offers figures related to the efforts concerning the schooling of 6 year old children , the progression regarding the schooling of girls, and the school infrastructures extending respectively 1998, 2001and 2000 . Table:6 Schooling of 6year old children
Year 1954 1966 1977 1987 1998
rate 15% 47% 70.4% 79.86 83.05
Source : A Djebbar (2008) Table: 7The schooling of girls
year 1962-63 1976-77 1999-2000 2001
number 301.000 1.112.800 3.692580 3.758.504
rate 36.4 40 48 48.5
Source : A Djebbar (2008)
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Table: 8 School infrastructures
1964 2000
Primary schools 3.050 19.040
Secondary schools 49 1218
Source : A Djebbar (2008)
According to Oxford business group (2008:211), Algeria has made significant progress with regards to education. According to UNESCO figures, literacy rate has increased from 50% for adults and 74% for youths in 1987 to 75% and 92% in 2006 respectively. The target for universal primary education has essentially been reached – net enrolment in primary education in Algeria is 99%. The gross enrolment ratio for secondary education is 86% foe females and 80% for males and for higher education the ratio is 23.6% for females and 17.2% for males. Having reached such results the group suggests that emphasis should focus on improving the quality of education and expanding access to higher levels. This also requires efforts to be done to increase and modernize the education infrastructure, to raise the teachers’ qualifications and to modernize the teaching methods and increase the number of teachers to provide a favourable environment for students to learn better, teachers to teach better and schools to be more efficient (OCDE, 2004). The school institution at all academic levels should provide a solid foundation of knowledge and skills that will equip students for life and learning beyond school.
Another important factor in favor of the Arabic language and the Arabization policy is the intergenerational language transmission which according to M. Brenzinger (2008:xi) constitutes the most ‘’crucial factor’’ as it determines language acquisition among children and the role they play in turn among the community to influence language spread. The different fractions among the arabized-schooled population participated and still participate in
143 Chapter three : Language Planning in Independent Algeria introducing CA lexical items in daily Arabic. As an illustration / m æ ni ∫ responsabl ʕlihum/ is replaced by / m æ ni ∫mæsʕu:l ʕ]lihum / , / ʕandna expoze /, /ʕandna ba ħt/ , /prof m æ ʒ ∫ /
/ustæd mæʒæ∫/ or / ∫ixmæʒæ∫/ . In addition, pupils at the different school academic levels shifted from the French school administrative and school furniture and activity register to a totally CA one.
Fr CA Fr CA Fr CA Secrétaire kætiba bureau maktæb dossier milæf
Concours musabaqa composition imti ħæn devoir far ḍ bibliotheque maktaba réunion iʒtimæʕ group fæwʒ
Demande ṭaleb moyenne mu ʕadel cahier daftar
Cahier de classe kuræs eqism surveillant hæris cours dars
Crayon de couleur aqlæm mulawana exposition ʕar ʕ histoire qi ʕa
Experience ta ʕriba excursion ri ħla regle mis ʕara
These are but some examples that passed into the parents’ daily use. It is also noteworthy to mention the use of some CA lexical items that have been introduced by the medias ever since October 1988 . These items are the ones corresponding to the facts and events Algeria witnessed so far among which and by way of illustration the classical terms for : crisis / ʕazma/, terrorism /irhæb/, unemployment / ba ʕala/, elections / intixabet/ , parties / Aħzæb /, associations / jam ʕijet / youth employment/ Ta ∫ʕʕ i:l e ∫abeb / , economic crisis / æzma iqti ʕadija / , youth / ∫abeb / , dialogue/ ħiwar/ etc . Television is also playing an important role in the social use of the Arabic language. Hammond (2007:61) reports that
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“there has been a rise in the level of spoken language so that the gap between formal and spoken has been reduced” Television contributes to this gap bridging. Children programs on TV among which are the Spacetoon Cartoon channel TV program are in formal Arabic, and this according to Hammond (op cit) is supporting the spread of formal Arabic among children. It is important to bring to notice the role children are playing in promoting outdoor games using CA.Within similar veins, Alwani Said cited in Hammond (op cit: 61) notes that “within a few years we will have enabled the Arab child to use formal Arabic in a better way than he did in the last century”. While Hedi Mechri, editor of l’Economiste Maghrebin, believes the French market does not have a future and predicts quoting him “in ten years’ time, Arabic will dominate … we are at the cross-road. My education was all French in primary and secondary school and Arabic had a minor role: now it is the other way round”, (in Hammond 2007:68).
On the other side, Arabization has engendered certain problems resulting from the conditions within which it has evolved. Boyer (1991:107) argues that Third World countries, which opted for language planning policies, did not have the necessary means mainly the financial ones to meet their ambition. Language policies like any other kinds of State’s interventions are costly; furthermore, the cultural and historical conditions act as obstacles and loosen the enthusiasm. Gerard Destanne de Bering described the socio-economic system bequeathed to the independent countries at the time of independence as outward oriented and inwardly disorganized .It lacked also financial means and cadres ( in Stora et al, 2004:152). In a quite similar line, Lapidus (2002:597) reveals that the problems of organizing the regime, defining an economic policy and creating a cultural identity for the state were enormous. Algeria came to independence after the whole fabric of Algerian society had been ripped asunder.
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3.6 Conclusion
The language planning policy Algeria has adopted since independence has had as a target the assertion of the national identity, the French colonization has obscured for years, through the promotion of the Arabic language as a national official language. This political and linguistic orientation, which is known as Arabization, has generated a conflict between the values and beliefs of the traditionalists who are in favor of Arabization, and the modernists who resist it. It also generated a tension between Arabic advocators and Berberists who see in Arabization an erosive process to their identity.
Throughout its implementation, the policy has achieved a quantitative result. Benhayoun et al (2005:58) note that Algeria is the country where the process of Arabization is the most advanced. The primary and the secondary education use the Arabic language and French is no more than a foreign language. However at university, some scientific and technical teaching still use French when the Arabic vocabulary is not developed, when the teaching books do not exit in Arabic, and when the framing human resources are timid or scarce. Theoretically, the language policy was supposed to bring about quantitative and qualitative change. Unluckily, only the first was largely satisfied, hence the partial failure of the policy. Arabization is not just an affair of increasing the number of users of Arabic In parallel it implies improving the skills and efficiency of the users and at the same time focusing on corpus planning activities in order to allow it to make entry in certain registers mostly scientific and technological ones. .Nevertheless, Arabic confronts some difficulties adjusting to the terminology and neologisms introduced in a number of sciences.
It appears that much remains to be done to deal with the issues surfacing in the different fields of implementation according to whether they displayed receptivity or hostility. Outcomes must be measured for methodological goals and future language planning phases. This would lead to the elaboration of a language planning policy, which suits the Algerian case allowing an objective knowledge of the issue and submitting it to an evaluation process. Certainly, issues related to language and identities in conflict situation are pertinent to language planning evaluation.
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Furthermore, an educational policy is not limited to the selection of the teaching language but rather to the scientific, economic and social ideals and rewards derived as a result of using it. Within this line of thought, the process of Arabization has a double mission: It has to construct and preserve the identity but also to express modernity and internalize science. This passes inevitably by improving the level of the students in Arabic whatever their option of studies, by constant expansion of the teachers’ expertise each in its area of concern, and by improving the teaching methods. It is necessary to develop and valorize Arabic and to use this language in scientific fields. The diffusion of scientific Arabic will be more effectual if an important production of scientific and technical books is made available in this language.
The language question in particular, has adversely affected the quality of education in Algeria and the attitudes towards the language. This is because some influential social and cultural problems the country has been facing since independence remain unsettled in addition to the lack of coherence between the education policy and the economic and social planning and the human resource planning. Since people are the most strategic resource on which projects depend and for which they designed, major part of language policy and planning requires a human resource planning at its background to engage projects. For Amstrong (2003) “human resource planning determines the human resources required by an organization to achieve its strategic goals.” Bulla and Scott (1994)cited in Amstrong (2003:362)defines the human resource planning as “the process for ensuring that the human resource requirements of an organization are identified and plans are made for satisfying these requirements.” As a decision-making process, Quinn Mills (1983) cited in Armstrong (2006:364) notes “human resource planning combines three important activities :(1) identifying and acquiring the right number of people with the proper skills,(2) motivating them to achieve high performance , and (3) creating interactive links between business objectives and people –planning activities.”
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Because the human factor stands as the most influential factors, which affect language and language planning, Gyasi and Hatford (2002) suggest that policy makers and scholars need to find creative ways to fostering political empowerment through a substantial participation of the citizens in governance. As regards language planning, Du Plessis (1991:284) equates status planning, an aspect of language planning and management, with “people planning” (in Efurosibina 2003:171). For this reason, the next chapter is versed into the issue of human resource management as an attempt to sustain the policy with social cohesion and conclude efforts with a special emphasis on the language status uncertainty and corpus management /marketing focus.
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4.1 Introduction
Now that knowledge of CA (the school form) has reached a social dissemination among the young generation through massive schooling, and made its way into the humanities domains of use, it should be looked into so as to disclose the other domains of language use which remain hostile to its entry. For this purpose, a language management strategy is necessary to support the language promotion process. This consists of the formulation of strategies for getting an organization from the here and now to the future. As circumstances change over time, strategies for achieving tomorrow’s success often change as well. Good planners must always be mindful of the need to review the plans to meet the changing needs. Language management is meant to address the different domains that interplay in the language enterprise. Among the language management activities is language auditing. It is desirable to inquire about the reasons behind the problem and to decide about the ways of treatment. Language auditing will focus not only on language itself and its practice, but on the users as well. In a way, language auditing should see to the way the human resources are geared to language objectives. And this is where the investment lies.
Along the realization of the educational project, the scale of global development priorities somehow impacted on the carrying out of the language policy in such a way that the Algerian authorities have overshadowed investment on the human and social capital which constitute key factors which underpin the language policy implementation. The mission of the language planning policy has been so far restricted to the primary and secondary grades and to a lesser degree to the university level within the humanities subject matters. Furthermore, the global strategy of development has relied heavily on quantitative and material investment and neglected to a large extent the role of the labor market on language use. This also represents another field where need arises for a labor market oriented language in education policy as well as a need for constant corpus planning cultivation principally scientific and technology corpus planning.
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Certainly, the transfer of technology and the acquisition of machinery require that consumers and operators need to have knowledge of the innovators’ language, and accordingly the policy legislation concerning language needs to be put into abeyance or tempered purposefully for strategic objectives. The fact that the economic and the industrial sectors function in French, a fact attributed to the expressive weakness of CA in the respective linguistic registers might be acceptable if we consider the complexity of the scale of priorities which depends on both endogenous and exogenous factors. Nevertheless, what is striking is the noticeable carelessness to keep control of the domains which require neither effort nor any scientific terminology. That the economic and industrial infrastructure is mostly signaled in French and in some cases even in English is utterly incongruous. The law 05-91 relative to the generalization of Arabization concerning the Linguistic landscape is violated in its article 20 of Chapter II.
This constitutes, as regards the Arabic language, an institutional as well as a social disengagement. The strong authorities’ motivation for modernism, scientific and technological transfer smothered the language enthusiasm even in domains which do not impact directly on global development. Another very important problem the Arabic language promotion suffers from is the mismatch between the labor market planning, and the educational system, which remains mostly non-market driven. This has negative returns both on the language policy and the human capital. Needless to speak about the social capital which is a sine qua none condition for the social cohesion, which Lenson (1998) defines as “the shared values and commitment to a community.”(in OECD 2001:13).The OECD (2001:13-14) argues that “more cohesive societies are effective in realizing collective goals” and that social cohesion serves “to mobilize the energy of the population to get things done”.
When it comes to language use, i.e. the use of Arabic, we notice a language conversion phenomenon. The entire school outcome hired in the economic and industrial sectors undergoes a forced self-conversion phenomenon into French. Some other technological demanding economic and industrial sectors even encourage the use of English. Such is the case in the hydrocarbon industrial sector where the human resource services give interest to the English language learning in their training programs. This language learning which happens
150 Chapter four : Language Management and Marketing at a stage where the individual is supposed to be professionally productive and linguistically efficient, certainly creates a disadvantage and a feeling of handicap in terms of language proficiency, and impacts on the quality of the productive and receptive performance at work. To palliate, a code switching and mixing is resorted to depending on the speech situation. This exposes the cumulated knowledge of the Arabic language to attrition and poses the problem of the language capital needed for self-realization and expression.
Thus, the human capital is deprived from that efficient tool of communication, which is language, and the language policy as well is deprived of its popular base let alone the denial of the Berber language and culture which clogged another base of support. As E. Adegbija (1991:179) puts it, “Language planning without a thorough knowledge of the context for which language is being planned is bound to be counterproductive. Often it constitutes a leap in the dark and a mere waste of effort and resources”. While Rubin (1984) “emphasizes that the planners must bear in mind the fact that language plans bear upon other existing socioeconomic and political process.” (In Adegbija, 2003:179). However important the political discourse would be, it remains insufficient. All social forces need to be considered namely the human and social capitals for which permanent investment through human resource management is necessary.
This chapter will be centered on the human resource management, language management, marketing, and language auditing. Language management and auditing activities stem from the fact that language status is threatened by an uncertainty problem which is function of social, economic, and political variables that influence the scaling of languages, while marketing arises from the need to sustain the language promotion activities.
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4.2 Management Theory
Management theory has come a long way since the days of Fredrick W. Taylor 184 , often referred to as the father of Scientific Management. However, the most enduring orientation in management theory is founded on the philosophical insights of Henri Fayol, who is commonly referred to as the father of modern management theory (in Stewart and Dunkerly (1980:99).The management process school traces its ancestry to Henri Fayol. Its primary approach is to specify the management functions such as planning, organizing, commanding, coordinating, and controlling. The major tenet of the process school is that the analysis of management along functional lines allows the construction of a framework into which all new management concepts can be placed. Webb (2002: 281) in attempting to define language management observes that in general terms, “management can be described as the set of activities undertaken to ensure that the goals of an organization are achieved in an effective and efficient way”.
4.3 Language Management
The term "language management" is used to refer to the activities, ways and steps, which are taken to deal with the language promotion issues. A language management agenda encompasses the status of the language candidate, its corresponding corpus planning and its spread. Management of language status seeks to deal with language legislation and language attitude. The corpus targets everything which relates to the language under focus namely the description of the language, the standardization and instrumentalization. This has been termed “language cultivation”. The spread of the language encompasses both status and corpus and seeks to influence and dominate the linguistic landscape as well as the language used on the radio, on television, in the press, and in the various domains and workplaces.
184 Frederick Winslow Taylor, The principles of Scientific Management : Forgotten Books,1923 The Principles of Scientific Management is a monograph published by Frederick Winslow Taylor first published in 1911. This influential monograph is the basis of modern organization and decision theory and has motivated administrators and students of managerial technique. Taylor was an American mechanical engineer and a management consultant in his years. He is also often called “the father of scientific management. His approach is also often referred to , as Taylor’s Principles or Taylorism (1923: viii)
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Language management implies to assign values to the various aspects of language varieties used in a community to agree on which to apply to each of the languages that make up the community’s repertoire. One of the most recent developments in language planning relates to an increasing awareness of the potential role that management can play in the overall understanding of language planning processes (Webb, 2002). The concept of management as used in the economic and industrial domains is borrowed in an attempt to be adapted to the subdivision of research activities in the field of language planning policy and implementation as regards the distribution of language tasks to all language agencies and agents involved in the issue of language use and promotion. In fact, it is in a constant search for ways and means to improve the process of development and use of the language.
The broadest decisions for language planning are initiated and elaborated by politicians, but these need to be sustained by the services of experts in the field to decline the policies into activities that provide the language with the means of development .As regard Djernudd and Das Gupta (1971:196) the broadest authorization of planning is obtained from politicians. A body of experts is then specifically delegated the task of preparing a plan. In preparing this, the experts ideally estimate existing resources and forecast potential utilization of such resources in terms of developmental targets. Once the targets are agreed upon, a strategy of action is elaborated. These are authorized by legislators and are implemented by organizational set-up, authorized in its turn by the planning members. The planners may evaluate the implementation of the task periodically. (in Antia ,2000:3)
Webb (2002) approach to language planning in South Africa constitutes an overt orientation to language management theory. Webb (2002: 282) develops an agenda for language management. The framework he offers consists of a chart of management tasks, a broad presentation of the activities that cover each of the main management tasks, and a language management example dealing with language standardization. The major management tasks included in the framework are: planning, organizing, leading, and controlling.
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Planning is naturally the starting point in the management process. Success requires that the staff involved in any organization to conduct a project be provided with the future goals and the corresponding plans to achieve them. This leads to developing a framework or an organizational structure to indicate how and where the human and other resources should be deployed to achieve the goals. This entails a dynamic strategy, which consists of directing the human resources through motivation in such a way to align their activities with the predetermined goals and plans. Since objectives cannot be attained without a follow-through activity, the use of mechanisms to ensure that objectives are satisfied is necessary. Then, a controlling structure which sees to the development of standards , norms and performance indicators to measure the progress towards the achievement of an objective ,and make sure the organization is on the right course is fundamental .
According to Webb’s framework, each of these management activities consists of a number of sub-tasks. The management task of planning incorporates three sub-tasks namely strategic planning, functional planning, and tactical planning. The management task of organizing integrates the sub-tasks of responsibility and authority; delegation; co-ordination; assignment of tasks; and the allocation of resources. The management task of leading and controlling include respectively, the sub-tasks of leadership, motivation, disciplining, and communication, and the sub-tasks of setting standards, measuring performance, evaluating deviations ,and rectifying deviations. The Webb’s Strategic Planning Framework (2002) also deals with the language management institutions. The ones developed and relevant to the case of South Africa include legislative bodies, state departments and statutory bodies such as the Pan South African Language Board (PANSALB).
The Language Management Approach represents both a consistent development in language planning as a discipline by extending its epistemological scope as well as a response to the failures and dilemmas of present day language planning theory and practice. It seeks to benefit from other influencing domains and their concepts not available through the practice of “policy” and “planning” to be adapted for language policy and planning problem resolution. From the available literature, two notable scholars offer definitions of language management.
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In language planning terms, language management “refers to the actions and strategies devised to achieve language policy objectives”, Webb (op cit: 281). But he distinguishes between two situations. In a matured situation, where a language policy and language plan is in place, language planning and language management noticeably differ. In such a case, language management refers simply to the management of the implementation plan. However, where language policy and language planning development is still in progress
“language management has to refer to the entire process involved, that is, from the strategic analysis stage (the identification and definition of the major language problems which need to be resolved , the decision about the language planning framework to be used , the analysis of the relevant external and internal environments, the description of the language planning vision and mission, and the formulation of general and specific language policy goals), through the strategic planning stage , that is the description of the specific plan of implementation, to the actual management of the implementation of the language policy plan.”
Spolsky (2004) also attempts to define language management observing that in studying language policy, we are trying to understand just what non- language variables co-vary with language variables. There are also cases of direct efforts to manipulate the language situation. When a person or group directs such intervention, this is also language management. Thus, Language management may apply to an individual linguistic micro-unit (a sound, a spelling or the form of a letter), or to a collection of units (pronunciation or a lexicon or a script) or to a specified, named macro-variety (a language or a dialect). Language management refers to the formulation and proclamation of an explicit plan or policy, not necessarily written in a formal document, about language use. However, the existence of such an explicit policy does not guarantee that it will be implemented, nor does its implementation guarantee success, (Spolsky, 2004: 8, 10, 11). Language management is seen as a discipline, i.e. language management is, and should be an organized body of a particular kind of knowledge and scholarship that engages with particular epistemological and pragmatic concerns of resolving language related problems in society, and harnessing language resources in society with a view of enlarging people’s choices. Jernudd (1991:134) defines language management as:
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“A process through which particular people are given authority to find and suggest systematic and rigorous solutions to problems of language potentially or actually encountered by members of their community.” (Antia, 2000:8)
One of the major activities to be conducted continuously throughout language management process is the fact of constantly assessing the engaged activities outcomes through language auditing activities to ensure efficiency.
4.3.1 Language Auditing
Auditing is a management tool used to verify that systems and processes are compliant/conformant, effective, and continually improved. The process audit determines if process requirements (methods, procedures) are being met. In general auditing can be considered as a kind of regular health check .It is a means resorted to for assessment purposes .It can be conducted to measure the performance of an organization, a system, a process, an enterprise or a project. Formerly, audits examined mostly public sector expenses based on some liability standards that are results oriented. However, in the Context of language planning policy, which itself is a project destined to society, auditing seeks to inquire about the ways the planning programs have been aligned to achieve the commitments of the policy.
However, there is no liability standard as long as language policies differ greatly depending largely on the decision makers and the sociolinguistic situations they are designed for. Language auditing is a newly introduced notion, which is concerned with the procedures of a language program from the beginning of recognizing a need to implementing a language program (Reeves and Wright, 1996). It consists of a set of analyses and diagnostic phases of language planning necessary for a comprehensive data collection concerning the sociolinguistic situation in Algeria, the way it has evolved and what actions it needs to gain social support. Its application to language can assist in supplying strategies based on the results of language auditing, as it would help language agencies to better formulate their language strategies as a result of identifying the root causes of the problem, the actual and the expected consequences and the measures to resolve the problem. As Reeves and Wright (op cit:5) argue,
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The primary objective of language or linguistic auditing is to help identify the strengths and weaknesses of the language policy and policy implementation (…) It will also indicate what it will cost in time, human resources, training and finance to improve the process, so that the resource implications can be fed back into strategic and financial planning.
When it comes to auditing practice, it can be approached on two fronts. It can place emphasis on the purely linguistic aspects of the language, i.e., to identify the language resources in such a way to prompt the development of the linguistic registers which are not yet elaborated, and see to the efforts the concerned language agencies have made so far and whether they fit the objectives of the corpus planning policy. The other emphasis can be directed towards the social factor, i.e., what investments are made to bring about a societal commitment to the language issue. This will necessarily focus on the role of the human factor as regards the status planning policy together with the image planning which are tightly dependent on the human resources management. Another essential aspect of language planning is the data gathering process which helps to understand the language situation that prevails, including the needs of students, the language they speak, and the attitudes towards these languages. Language planning takes place at various levels from government and government agencies to the individual.
4.3.2 The Human Resource Management
Human resources relate to individual knowledge ,skill and expertise that are part of the stock of resources on hand to an organization for realizing its tasks, While Human resources management , a term mostly used in economics and sociology, constitutes a framework for the valuing and development of the human capital within an organization, a community or a nation. It implies both training and education, reinforced with health and employment policies that ensure the continual improvement and growth of the individual, and the national human inventiveness. Researchers now believe that it is not enough to simply implement a series of best practices but that human resource management needs to be tailored so that it fits with the organization.
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The Human resource approach treats people as a key resource placing emphasis on ways and means needed to obtain an added value from them that ensures a competitive advantage for an organization which may in this case stand for an economic organization, a community or a nation, the latter being the one focused on within here. As Armstrong (2000:6) puts it “It regards people as human capital from which a return can be obtained by investing judicially in their development” for the purpose of gaining their commitment i.e., gaining “the hearts and the minds.”(Armstrong op cit: 7). People are then elevated to being the most valued assets that individually and collectively contribute to the achievement of the nation’s planned objectives. Effective human resource management requires its alignment with the strategy of the organization creating a culture that allows the individuals to identify their own interests and successes with that of the organization.
Being aware of the complexities involved in the story relationship between language promotion and human resource development, and because language concerns human beings very directly, and precisely their behavior, their attitudes, their emotions, and their relationship and communication with each other, it is obviously in recognition of these facts that a policy based on human resources management contributes to language planning and policy implementation if dedicated to the objective. Al-Hajj (in Chejne 1999:145) draws a parallelism between the user’s status and language status. According to him “if a people rises ,the language rises … when a poet is found , a language of poetry is found; when a philosopher is found , a language of philosophy is found; when a scientist is found , a language of science is found.” Similarly, Chejne (1999) has noted,
“Whatever virtues or defects of a language may be, they are directly related to the general philosophy of a people, to their psychology, inquisitiveness, and creativeness. Proof of this can be seen in the development of Arabic from humble beginnings to become a supreme medium of intellectual expression as the Arab people matured intellectually and emotionally and acquired an inquisitive spirit and love of knowledge”.
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Whatever model of language policies and their corresponding mechanisms of implementation, man remains the key element that impacts negatively or positively on such processes. Investing on man is the only way out to gain his adherence. How elaborated a policy may be, a policy in absence of motivation, and motivation in absence of ability as well as ability in the absence of motivation is but insufficient to yield performance.
Human resource development is essential to the process by which governments, organizations and institutions bring to satisfaction their objectives. Investing on human resource development represents one of the most important means to implement any project policy. It implies also the quality of receptiveness to the internal and external stimuli, and adds value and support to policies. As a policy, HRM intends to prepare and identify the human capital required to meet any policy elaboration and implementation. Smith (1982) argued, “Human resource policies should be tailored to reflect the needs of the Future…” (in Cynthia Lengnick-Hall and Mark. Lengnick-Hall ,1999: 35). However, the human capital requires that it takes into consideration the individuals’ goals and aspirations as this motivates them to respond satisfactorily through participation and support. In other words, there is a need to align the human capital with the goals to ensure success. Government programs that better respond to the needs and aspirations of young generation can mobilize them towards the state policy. Thu, investing in people is the most important asset. Focusing on language planning policy and implementation, Webb (2002: 250) has noted,
“Language planning, as such, cannot constitute much to the process of language promotion, in and of itself. The pre-requisite for valorization of a language is that the stature of its first speakers must increase (...) Communities need to become successful and acquire self-esteem as well as esteem in the eyes of the out group.”
John P. Wilson (2005:3) argues “Human resource development represents the latest evolutionary stage in the long tradition of training, educating and developing people for the purpose of contributing towards the achievements of individual, organizational and societal objectives”. In practice, the mission of the human resource management targets the promotion of the human and social capitals, which represent the principal capital of every country, and are required by all business enterprises and agencies.
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The human resource development option to sustain the language policy stems from the fact that man is the manipulator of language and his adherence to language project depends highly on the services the language offers, and the extent to which they square with his social and economic goals. Knowing that any policy planning be it economic, social or linguistic is basically oriented towards introducing change, it is required that the agent of change and those for whom change is meant must constitute the primacy of the policy. However, the approach to human resource development should on no account be a one-way profit handling. Citizens need to be supplied with the necessary means to build their human capital, which will enable them to develop the feeling of belongingness and self-esteem necessary for self- actualization purposes.
4.3.2.1 Human Capital
The term human capital was originated by Schultz (in Armstrong, 2006), encompassing “all human abilities to be either innate or acquired. Attributes … which are valuable and can be augmented by appropriate investment will be human capital”. Human capital is individual and focuses on the economic behavior of individuals, particularly on the way they build up knowledge and skills, which enable them to enhance productivity and income, and trigger social mobility. This, undoubtedly impacts on the productivity and wealth of the society on a larger scale, and offers a friendly environment to global planning goals. Investment on the human capital with the perspective of knowledge and skills acquisition will certainly decline into social and economic returns, individually and collectively.
Taken from a rather economic angle, human capital is defined by the OECD (1998:9) as “the knowledge, skills, competences and other attributes embodied in individuals that are relevant to economic activity.” Its creation rests on the changes persons go through bringing about skills and capabilities enabling them to act in new ways, Coleman (2000: 22). For Bontis et al,
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“Human capital represents the human factor… the combined intelligence, skills and expertise (…) .The human factor elements (…) are those that are capable of learning, changing, innovating and providing the creative thrust which if properly motivated can ensure the long-term survival”.(in Armstrong 2006:33)
Agencies concerned with the human capital services need not only to appraise and assure people’s future needs, but also to offer the conditions that allow the development of the inherent capacities of people by providing learning and continuous development opportunities that discloses people’s potential energy. Djité (2008:179) argues, “The masses need to acquire the tools or assets that will give them access to the economic opportunities not otherwise available to them. The masses have to become the ‘engines’ that drive the economic growth and development without them, the economy will run out of the puff.” For this reason ,the citizen the policy targets must be given the chance to improve their productivity implying some form of social policy that Djité (op cit) perceives as empowering the masses to increase their ability to acquire human capital through education. Like other assets, human capital has value in the market place, but unlike other assets, the potential value of human capital can be fully realized only with the cooperation of the person. Greater worry must be paid to investing in Human capital as an effective strategy for long-term social support to large scale projects destined to the collective community. This will help to create an infrastructure of support that will encourage cooperative effects across sectors of the larger community. Jandhyala (2003: xiii) argues,
“the Human capital theory, according to which human capital is an important factor of growth, comparable to the conventional physical capital also created hopes among the (physical) capital scarce developing countries that as investment in human capital would lead to economic growth, they would be able to reach the level of the economic growth of the advanced countries, if they were to invest in human capital”.
In addition to the physical or material resources necessary to run economies, and the human capital implied, there is necessity to aim for social capital valuing without which the human capital cumulated by individuals will not be effectual.
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4.3.2.2 Social Capital
Societies need to invest in social capital as much as they invest in physical and human capital to promote social relations which are essential to social cohesion that Nat et al (2001183) described as “the glue that bonds society together, thus promoting harmony, a sense of community and a degree of commitment promoting the common good”. Social cohesion and conflict are often seen as polar opposites. A cohesive society displays a readiness to solve effectively conflict in case it arises since its members are committed to the values of solidarity and mutual support, which guarantees protection of all members of the society. Social cohesion allows the members of the community to develop strong ties of belongingness that participate in the construction of positive identities at the social and collective levels.
Selka et al (2009:416) argues that just as physical and human capital facilitate production activities, social capital does as well. Healy et al (2001:41) define social capital as the “networks together with shared norms, values and understandings that facilitate co- operation within and among groups”. They furthermore argue that social capital allows individuals, groups and communities to solve collective problems more easily and bring to notice the three forms of social capital namely bonding, bridging and linking, (Woolcock ,1999), emerging respectively according to group closer or distant kinship relations, (Healy et al (2001:42). The French social theorist Bourdieu (1980) defined social capital as,
“The aggregate of actual or potential resources which are linked to possession of durable network of more or less institutionalized relationships of mutual acquaintance and recognition - or in other words, to membership in a group”. (in Putman, and 2004:5)
Given the importance of the human and social capitals, their interrelationship and the social cohesion which results if they are suitably developed; need arises to invest on both. To this objective, training and education play an important role. The idea of humans as capital fundamentally carries the idea that humans have a certain worth to a society. Education
162 Chapter four : Language Management and Marketing increases that worth, making individuals more able to contribute to a society. This makes investment in education worthwhile. Becker (1993:17) asserts that “Education and training are the most important investments in Human Capital ‘’ (in Becker and Collins 2003:3). Since human capital falls within the mission of the human resource development which takes place in education which, itself, is intimately related to language use, need arises to deal with human resource development in its language related dimension. Additionally, absence of a sound worry about the human resource investment, which links the interests of the individual to those of the institution, represents a glaring gap in the process of language planning and implementation.
4.4 Education and Language Management
In modern times, literacy represents a basic and a pre-condition requirement for enhancing solidarity and membership to a community. A citizen can fully enjoy his rights only and only if s/he possesses this asset. This mission is among the agenda of a nation educational system, which must provide the necessary human and material resources; otherwise policy projects will be doomed to failure. Education involves the use of language whether it is taught directly or not. Teachers always engage in the transmission of information via language. Indeed, without language there will be no education. A student’s mastery of a particular area of study, be it science or art, depends on his command of the language through which the subject is taught and learnt. The role of language is of an immense significance. Apart from the teaching of languages as first, second or foreign language is a crucial mediating force in the process of learning .The school institution where educational activities are conducted represents an important agent of language promotion and the ideal place for policy makers and planners.
The school institution, which has to raise the intellectual level of the whole society, has to infiltrate everywhere. This objective stresses the necessity of education to use the national language as that of thinking, science, and technology. With language, the user updates and develops the combinatory possibilities of his idiolect, which will in turn have an impact on the language. Idiolects play also an important role in the future of a language. By improving their idiolects, users of the same language will participate in the elaboration of sociolects which in
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their turn will cause the development of the language. Although all domains are equally dependent on language use, the educational sector remains largely the one concerned with language planning policies. This is because language is fundamentally related to the human factor, which in turn represents the raw material of the educational sector whose central objective targets an outcome which suits the global policy project.
Education is probably the most imperative if not the most vital sector bearing the entire burden of language planning implementation. In view of this, education is that domain largely funded and thus controlled by the state, schools the agencies of socialization, school pupils a captive audience, and the curriculum the state unequalled opportunities to shape the attitudes and behavior of the next generation. This represents a cornerstone in the processes of national transformation (Gibson 2006).
Education occupies an important place in society. In addition to the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake, it has the task to shape the minds, to influence human behavior in general, to safeguard material investment, and to determine the future of a society. As Taner. (1999:157) argues, “Education is not seen just as an essential pre-requisite to personal advancement but also a core component of a progressive and prosperous society.” Education provides knowledge that adds to the quality of life and raises the standard of living of everyone. It is that systematic influencing of people's knowledge, skills and attitudes to serve utilitarian purposes such as those related to status raising, quality of life and the upgrading of everyone’s standard of living. In the view of Tove (1999: 198) education is part of “well being” and “identity” and a prerequisite for “security” and “freedom.”
The role of education is paramount in the search for development in general. As regards the individual, it permits progress, knowledge acquisition and diffusion, as well as autonomy and empowerment. On the collective or national level, it allows building self- confidence and reliance and decision about its own destiny. Bangbose (2000) conceives education as the resource that enables members of the community to become informed citizens, able to participate on equal terms in the betterment of their living conditions.It
164 Chapter four : Language Management and Marketing gives access to productive resources and remunerative activities, and is essential for increasing capacity building through knowledge and skills transfer 185 . Similarly, Dgité (2008) believes that no reasonable social change and development can be envisaged without education. The successful implementation of development prospects, for instance depends on the capacity of members of the community to put their potential to maximum use.
However, an educational system must operate in some medium, i.e. some language, which when employed will pound its products. Education itself is dependent both on human and material resources as well as on the competition of the economic and industrial sectors to bring positive returns on society. Of great importance also, is the role of teachers in education. They should be given prime concern, and provided with the conditions that give freedom to think, to study, to create, and, thus to play effectively their basic role in society. Teachers should keep up with every phase of education demands. The absence of modern techniques and updated pedagogical material limits the productive capacity of teachers and systematically reflects on the educational objectives and output. Yet, education cannot bear such a task alone.
Equally important is the educational physical infrastructure, which affects in various ways the educational environment and outcome. Infrastructure is important as it houses and supports the instructional programs by providing appropriate physical environment for learning. The best educational policies are destined to failure if the physical environment does not offer school and classroom conditions that comply with the least standards. A patchwork approach will surely wane the efforts and engender problems which affect the planned outcome. Learning does not occur in a vacuum; students and pedagogical staff prosper in an orderly, favorable and motivating environment. To this purpose, a constant managing of school facility is required.
185 Djité; G. Paulin (2008:53) The sociolinguistic development of Africa ,Clevedon : Multilingual Matters
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As Man is the only language manipulator, therefore investing in Man for language acquisition and learning means to investing in language. Cooper (1989:182) has noted, “To plan language is to plan society. A satisfactory theory of language planning, therefore, awaits a satisfactory theory of social change.” This fits within the task of education which represents a determining factor in the development of the human resources. The school institution which has to raise the intellectual level of the whole society must be accessible to all people whatever their sex, age, socio-economic conditions as well as their geographical position and social environment. These objectives stress the necessity of education to use the national language as that of thinking, science, and technology. Furthermore, education must be oriented and geared to the individual’s search for knowledge, job opening perspectives and social mobility; otherwise, the obsolescence of certain learning and levels of disciplines together with the job market demands and law would feed not only people’s inertia but also resistance to participate in development projects. For Efurosibina (1994: 96)
“The educational system is the power house of developing every nation. When it is sick, it sickness will most likely be contagious and affect the entire nation. On the other hand, when it is healthy, the entire nation in all probability will enjoy fairly good overall health. Language is crucial in ensuring the health of an educational system and attitudes towards language use in education can make or mar an entire educational edifice”.
On the basis of popular sentiments, Cox (2009:1) notes that social capital fosters the well being of a community by promoting “civic awareness and participation, economic development, social equity, environmental protection, and even physical and emotional health”. It is important to bear in mind that decisions affecting the policy domains of status and corpus planning, language standardization and management of language use can be made according to a wide variety of considerations, including ideology, identity, image or human and minority rights concerns, as well as a variety of economic factors. Against the background of such realities, an analysis of language policy always needs to focus on who formulates and implements specific policies and in whose interest they are. In other words,
166 Chapter four : Language Management and Marketing language policy is not made in a vacuum of normative aspirations, but in a concrete context in which different actors with often diverse interests and opportunity structures interact. By way of illustration, Gibson (2006) refers to the national mass education system which was introduced in France in 1880 under the Jules Ferry laws, and which has been absolutely central to the dissemination of national standard language knowledge and the process of coming to know are good in themselves.
To reinforce the language planning policy and the role of education in its search to lead the sociolinguistic situation to a successful change, an institutionally organized effort must be made to influence and structure the course of change. The effort must concern the outer and inner factors of CA development. The outer factors include an efficient literacy, an extension of chances of pre-schooling to all children to compensate for the existing inequality due to family’s cultural capital and incomes, the preparation of the post-schooling environment, and a system of long life learning. It is generally acknowledged that highly literate population is basic for an advanced society. It is principal for both humanitarian and economic reasons. At an individual level, literacy promotes quality of life, self-image, and the ability to adapt to an ever-changing and increasingly technological world. Literacy allows access to knowledge and creates an environment to achieve self-fulfillment. At the national level, stability and economic prosperity of a society depends upon well educated, flexible and highly trained workforce. ( Riley 2006)
Illiteracy has dire consequences for both the individual and the society. UNESCO pointed out in 1965 that the world map of literacy coincided very closely with the world map of poverty. The poorer countries of the world tend to have the highest population of illiterates. The rich countries of America and Europe on the other hand have achieved universal literacy, Oxenham (1980:2-3). There are good reasons for literacy. It is good for the individual and the society, and for the economic well-being and the political stability. So that a country becomes prosperous, its people must acquire skills and literacy. According to Gaw et al (1989) “Literacy is primary to success in formal education and central to learning and the development of thinking”, (in Riley 2006:1). For Bialystok (2001:152) “ The pinnacle of
167 Chapter four : Language Management and Marketing young children‘s educational development is the acquisition of literacy. Literacy is the ticket of entry into our society, it is the currency by which social and economic positions are waged, and it is the central purpose of early schooling”. As regards Riley (2006:1), “the link between academic success and high level of literacy occurs, first through allowing access to the set of courses and, secondly, by enabling the individual to achieve educationally and be successful”.
In dealing with poverty and inequality, it is imperative to give priority to training and education. So long as people’s incomes are largely function of the labor market, the ‘’human capital’’ they hold is crucial to the wages they will earn. Human capital strongly affects the work people can do, which in turn affects their incomes. Education is paramount to the idea of equal opportunity. If people are to have an equal chance to achieve economic well being, they need to start the competition race with equal skills. In the information age, physical strength and stamina may no longer be necessary, but cognitive and verbal skills are essential. Thus, a kind of compensatory education is necessary in order to ensure an equal start. There is a need then for governments’ involvement in pre schooling. Children of low-income family will have the opportunity to evolve in a favorable environment given the existing facilities in the pre school institutions. Pre schooling is the foundation for success in school as it allows children to enter school better prepared. It also provides early socialization and affects, though invariably, the children’s motivation and attitudes towards learning.
High quality pre-school experience can translate into academic competence (Barnett 1995, Newman and Dickson 2001) 186 . The pre-school years are especially important for initial experience of language development that links with later school achievement. Generally, children who have high quality pre-school experience with an emphasis on language and literacy are more likely to acquire strong language and literacy skills that translate into achievement in the early grades and throughout schooling , Lesley et al (2007:63,64). Tanner (1999: 58) reports that international data shows that children who attend pre-school classes achieve higher levels of literacy and numeracy. A compulsory half-time and full-time pre- schooling respectively for all four year and five year old children will certainly serve to
186 Lesley Mandel Morrow and Diane H. Tracey (2007). In Linda B. Gambrel et al (ed ), Best practices in literacy instruction, New York: Guilford Press (p57-82)
168 Chapter four : Language Management and Marketing adjust children of the low cultural capital background to high cultural capital background. The goal is to ensure that children engage in primary school on equal footing and to facilitate access to academic capital, which combines with the cultural capital to gradually build the linguistic capital necessary for upper school levels. However, language use and development is also function of uncertainty status, attitudes and job market issues. In addition, language is constantly threatened and it is required that policies must constantly consider predictive and preventive measures which must be long term projected.
4.4.1 Language Status Uncertainty
Universal history attests how different languages combined both progression and regression in their span of life not because of their linguistic aspects but rather owing to their users’ talents and devotion. Latin used to be a major language in spite of its inflectional endings and gender differences. Similarly, Greek and Arabic as well as other languages have been a medium of intellect for centuries, well before English emerged from a tribal language of mainly the Jutes and the Angles to become the acknowledged international language of communication, science and technology. This shows how significant is the potential and readiness of language to flourish and spread. Any language can be developed if its people are disposed and devoted to make efforts to support and channel the course of development through the means they believed appropriate. The secret of the Greek language lies in the swords and spears wielded by the armies of Alexander the Great; Latin owing mainly to the legions of the Roman Empire ,Arabic as a result of the spread of Islam. The Portuguese, the Spanish and the French realized it through the colonial policies, which were also implemented by armies and navies. Crystal (2003:9) acknowledges the role of the military power to establish a language, but he remains convinced about the economic power in maintaining and expanding a language.
In the case of the English language, Thomas (1994) reveal that the Acts of Union of 1536 and 1542 were issued to ensure that the welsh people would have the same rights as the English in Wales , provided that the English language alone would have legal and administrative status. The Act of 1536 announced,
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“All justices …shall proclaim and keep …all…courts in the English tongue;…all oaks shall be given … in the English tongue;… no person or persons that use the welsh speech , or language shall have …any office … within this realm of England ,Wales or other the king’s dominion …unless he or they use and exercise the English speech and language.” (in Thomas ,1994:95)
“Nobody knows what the future holds in language or anything else”, states Abley (2008:24). In a report on the future of the English commissioned by the British council, Graddol (in Maurais , 2003: 16) predicts that English will not hold a monopoly by the middle of the 21 st century , but it will be part of an oligopoly with a few other languages, each having its sphere of influence. According to this report, the languages most susceptible to increase in terms of number of speakers are: Hausa and Swahili in Africa, the regional (state) languages of India, Tokpisin in Oceania, Russian, Mandarin, and Arabic. Graddol in (Maurais 2003:13) predicts “a major shake –up of the global language hierarchy in the 21 st century”. In figures one and two, Maurais (2003) displays the hierarchical shift which is likely to occur by the year 2050 (see page 171 ).
Maurais (2003:16) reports that the engco model 187 which is used to generate projections and was developed in 1995 by the English Company (UK) predicts that French will no longer remain the second international language with English by the year 2050. French runs the risk of losing ground outside France owing to the conditions of its learning and its place within the labor market in the French-speaking countries. Pierre Alexandre (CILF, 1999:8) cries out his anger as to the negative achievements of the educational system in the sub Saharan Africa where the French language seemingly enjoys no power. He finds it unworthy “to ask thousands of children to acquire the basic tools of knowledge in a language that is not their
187 For D Graddol “The engco model calculates an index of ‘global influence’ taking into account various economic factors including Gross Language Product , and openness to world trade (Traded Gross language Product) The model also includes demographic factors ,such as the numbers of young speakers and rates of urbanization. Finally it takes into account the human development index(HDI) for different countries .This is a composite figure produced by UN, which combines measures of quality of life , those for literacy and educational process. In this way HDI provides an indicator of the proportion of native speakers who are literate and capable of generating intellectual resources in the language.” “Looking ahead” in Jenkins Jennifer (ed) .World Englishes :a resource book for students ,London :Routledge, 2003:209
170 Chapter four : Language Management and Marketing own and in conditions that are of the ridiculous: classrooms of 50 to 100 pupils with one manual for10 to 20 teachers”. Schooling in French, according to him, has not only turned rather into a “factory of the jobless”, but does not even permit the very few successful ones to enjoy “improved conditions”. In view of these conditions, (in Maurais 2003:16) wonders what the future of a language is when it no longer is a guarantee of upward mobility.
Figure:2 The world language hierarchy
The big languages ENGLISH,FRENCH
Regional languages (languages of the United Nations) The big languages ARABIC , CHINESE , ENGLISH, CHINESE ,HINDI / URDU FRENCH, GERMAN, RUSSIAN, ENGLISH, SPANISH, ,ARABIC SPANISH
Regional languages National languages (the languages of major trade blocks) Around 80 languagesserve over 180 nation ARABIC, ENGLISH , CHINESE, MALAY states RUSSIAN, SPANISH
Official languages without nation states National languages (And other’safe’ languages) Around 90 Languages serve over 220 nation states Around 600 languages world wide (Krauss,1992) (eg. Marathi)
Local languages Local vernacular Languages The remainder of the world’s 1000 or less languages The remainder of the world’s 6000+languages With various degrees of official recognition
The present world language hierarchy The world language hierarchy in 2050
Source: J. Maurais, 2003:17
The World’s Major Languages ranked per number of native speakers according to the engco model and comparative data from Grimes (1996) and Graddol (1997: 8) express the reason why international opinion considers the world major languages at war along the international scaling
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Figure :3 Major world languages in the future
Estimated numbers of native speakers globally, ages 15 to 24, in 2050
Source: Global Advisor Newsletter 35 th edition
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Though in the case of English, Graddol (1997:2) sees no eminent danger, he believes it necessary to “take stock and reassess the place of English in the world”. He does not excrete the fact that the language will not be challenged in some world regions and domains of use as the economic, demographic and political shape of the world is transformed. Graddol (op cit: 3) argues,
“the world is in transition , and so the English language is itself taking new forms (…) developing in ways which reflect local cultures and languages , while diverging increasingly from the kind of English spoken in Britain and in North America”.
As Mazrui M. Alamin (2003: 109-110) as well argues,
“As English becomes a mass language, it is more likely to diversify along regional lines. The language is beginning to bear the marks of popular democratization as it serves the needs, not of the elite, but of the common people and gets “distorted”in the mill of mass experience. New varieties of English are beginning to spring up throughout the continent. These African varieties of the language have sometimes been seen as revolutionary and anti hegemonic”.
In addition to the threat of divergence from the “proto form” to the extent of differentiation as in the case of South African variety of English which is considered as “People’s English” not to be on any account confused with a dialectal form of international English, (Mazrui op cit: 110). The other threat of English lies in the fact that native speakers of English are or will soon be outnumbered by those who speak English as a second or foreign language. The decline in numerical terms is likely to be associated with changing ideas about the centrality of the native speaker to norms of usage. The native speaker image will fall apart as local pedagogical staff will be framing the process of learning with locally produced pedagogical material. As large numbers of people will learn English as a foreign language and participate in elaborating local varieties of English, Britain will lose the monopoly of ownership. The language will shift in such away that native speakers will become “minority stakeholders in the global resource” Graddol (op cit).
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This constitutes the other side of the coin of the English language globalization. The demographic factor turned to be a disadvantage in the sense that linguistically the power slipped from the hands of the native speakers of English. Graddol (2003:157) reports that the proportion of the world’s population who speak English as their first language has, in fact declined sharply (…) but given the population increase in parts of the world where English is not used as a first language, this constitutes a significant demographic shift away from English. Users of English are categorized according to being native and nativized and English being classified as ENL (English as a native language), ESL (English as a second language) and EFL (English as a foreign language), (Kirkpatrick, 2007). While the number of users is constantly increasing, English in its Received Pronunciation form (British English) faces a decline of native speakers as a proportion of the world’s population. Graddol (2003:157) notes that in 1950, over 8% of the world’s population spoke English as their first language; by 2050, it will be less than 5%. This requires a policy of language planning and use to be on the safe side of any unpredictable development or problems. Graddol (2006:22) believes the world to be rapidly stifling to a completely new social, economic and political order and with it a new world order in language, (in Wolfgang Mackiewicz et al 2008:46). The economic developments in the international market have led, as Hague (1988, 1992), quoted in Kaplan and Baldauf 1997: 158), to a language policy dichotomy. On the one hand,
“The rise of English to its predominant position as the world’s leading language has accelerated during the last quarter of the century. It has eclipsed French in the realm of international diplomacy, and left German far behind as a first language of science and technology”. (Hague, 1988)
On the other hand
“Despite the pre-dominance of the English language … few people in Europe –apart from English native speakers – would argue that English is the only second language necessary to operate successfully today. Indeed, there has been a development towards greater linguistic diversity…” Hague (1992)
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This provides, according to Kaplan and Baldauf (1997), an indication of the two directions that international language use is taking in the world today, i.e., globalization versus diversity assertion concerning the rise of the use of other languages. No one denies the international position English enjoys. However, while this growth in English has been occurring, “ there has been growth and assertiveness in the use of other languages in a variety of spheres , perhaps part as a reaction to the growth of English . For example, Spanish, Arabic, Hindi and Portuguese are growing at a faster rate than English as a first language and it is estimated that Spanish will overtake the total of English mother tongue speakers in the world.”,( Kaplan Baldauf 1997)
On their turn , the French have long been worrying about their language. The invention of the new word “francophonie”, the act of speaking French, by the French geographer Onesisme Reclus in 1880 indicates that there was a growing interest in the speaking of French outside France. This is confirmed by the creation in 1883 of the Alliance Française whose mission was the spread of French in the country and in foreign countries. Ever since the number of agencies which has developed amounts to 246 of which 15 are official. The others vary from large activity organizations to pressure groups, Ager. (1999:235). Within similar lines, feeling the threat of the English language “successive French governments have invested substantially in the promotion of their language internationally, and in the establishment of a counterpart to the British Commonwealth, a global ‘francophone organization’. Recently the French authorities have also legislated to ensure that French is given priority in France in commerce, education, public life and the media. Similar measures have been taken by the polish and Hungarians to restrict the spread of English. A Swedish parliamentary committee as well has recommended legislation aimed at ensuring that Swedish remains a ‘complete language’ serving all purposes in Swedish society as a proactive language policy work, Philipson,(2003: 7)
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Francophonie meant also to ensure the presence, prestige and influence of French, the language of the Republic, to retain its role as a language of international communication and to preserve cultural and linguistic diversity throughout the world by promoting multilingualism to shield the spread of English. For the French authorities, the presence of French meant also the presence of France in the world. DGLF (1997) reveals, “The promotion of French and its use as a means of international communication at a time when globalization favors monolingualisn are more than ever, for the position of France in the world, for the acceptance of her ideas and conceptions, for the future francophonie, a priority which requires a determined and explicit policy.”, Ager (1999:166)
Among the strategies adopted in favor of Francophony is the new attitude towards local languages. François Mitterand (in Xavier, 1988:54) warned against the reliance on local languages, as there is a risk of impoverishment 188 . He considered foreign language learning to be an alleviation to poverty. Such a view is beneficial for the French language as far as it encourages non-native users of French to maintain the use of French and invite the French to open up on other languages, mainly English. The local language view allows the French to be on the safe side as far as France is concerned and favors Francophony as it warns non-native speakers of French of their local language drawbacks.
As a language policy, Francophony has led to new attitudes towards French varieties used elsewhere 189 . Such a policy aims to safeguard the mobility, economic, ideological and cultural factors of language power as well as the statistical factors and scatter ones that outlimit France. It is also a two-sided language protectionism. On the one hand, it acts against the process of globalization that is in the making through the English language. On the other, it preserves the dominance of the French language compared to the varieties that resulted historically from the colonial presence. In other words, the French language will be the norm, taking a superimposed position in relation to the other varieties, as it is the case in Tunisia and
188 Celui qui s’enferme dans sa langue locale, s’enferme dans sa pauvreté. 189 “L’usage commun du français est un moyen offert à nos peuples de refuser l’uniformatisation de la planète qui se dessine sur le monde Anglo-saxon, sous contexte de libéralisme économique …Il ne saurait y avoir de véritable liberté sans le respect des identités culturelles et linguistiques, respect existant, lui, au sein de la francophonie. L’un des deux principes en honneur à Port Louis sera d’ailleurs : l’unité dans la diversité. ” Toubon in K. Salhi, (2003 :5)
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Algeria, which are characterized by a French variety, which has taken the features of the respective culture. In addition, it is for this very reason that each nation needs to target constantly the modernization of its language. Language must advance in the lockstep with new technologies in order to maintain its status.
Though the French language still enjoys the advantages of international language, Hagégé Claude(2006) warns against the hegemony of English and the threats awaiting the French language and suggests that the French government “doit retrouver une politique offensive”. On another front, a fierce language struggle animates the French-German European Union, henceforth EU, language orientation. While Foreign Minister Hubert Vidrine “advocated the use of only French and English, arguing that up to now, these have been by far the most commonly used languages, Joschka Fischer’s Foreign Minister in Berlin argued, on the other hand, that German is spoken by far more EU citizens than before.”, Hamm et al (2005:223).According to the figures (see table: 178) The German language enjoys a numerical strength at the EU level. Ammon (2003:235) reveals the numerical strength the German language enjoys in terms of the number of native speakers of official EU languages within EU. However this strength alone is not sufficient, the scientific and technologcal strengths of English outweigh those of both French and German.
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TheEU countries numerical strength
1-German 89,413,000 2-French 63,948,000 3-English 61,613,000 4-Italian 57,154,000 5-Spanish 39,551,000 6-Dutch 21,137,000 7-Greek 10,408,000 8-Swedish 9,832,000 9-Portuguese 9,832,000 10-Danish 5,173,000 11-Finnish 4,753,000
Source : Fischer Weltalmanach 1997,1996
Der Spiegel reported in August 13, 2001 “a bitter linguistic struggle is brewing between Paris and Berlin. The German government is determined to oppose the French moves to abolish German as an official language at the working level of the EU council, the committee of the representatives of the member states” Hamm et al (idem). On 2 July 1999, under the headline ‘language “snub” infuriates Berlin’, the British newspaper The Guardian reported a German threat to boycott meetings of European industry ministries conducted during the Finnish presidency of the EU. The German objected that translation would be provided only in English, French, and Finnish, Gubins (2002:48).
This justifies the extent to which the issue of language is important to politicians and policy elaboration. Though, politically European countries constitute a union, the issue of language renders it frail. The three major languages namely English, French, and German remain clogged to any negotiation. Each not wanting to be routed in this EU language struggle, seeks a privileged status within the European Union. This justifies as well the reason
178 Chapter four : Language Management and Marketing why language needs to be constantly modernized to espouse and generate scientific knowledge just to be on the safe side from the language hierarchy uncertainty. Alain Richard, the French Minister quoted in Spencer, I. Samia (2010:276) has a quite pessimistic perspective concerning the status of French as an international language. For him, “Saying that French is an international language of communication such as English brings a smile to the face these days.”
4.4.2 Language modernization
Language modernization means to make or become modern, and to make conform to present usage, expression or characteristics. The term relates to all fields of social life. When it comes to language modernization, no one denies the fact that society and language are so intertwined that when dealing with the modernization of language, the modernization of the society in which language operates will at fortiori be taken into account. The processes and attitudes involved in the construction/reconstruction of a society play an important part in the modernization the language(s) used in the society. Modernization implies the means and processes by which a language is made functionally fitting for use in new or extended domains. Modernization is resorted to when a language needs to spread out its resources in order to meet the needs of the modern world, a concept that Haughen (1983) has termed “language elaboration”.
This applies when a language changes in status following for example independence from colonial power or a change in governmental policy concerning the language in education or both. In the latter case, vocabulary expansion is often needed to provide the terminology associated with new domains of communication. It may also take the process of a language reform, which concerns the activities to bridge the gap between communication needs and linguistic resources. It constitutes an organized and conscious response to potential language
179 Chapter four : Language Management and Marketing communicative problems requiring the expansion and technicalization of the language in order to meet changing and growing needs of a society. In terms of grading, the modernization of language may be considered as the process which enables a language to be the equal of other languages as a medium of communication. It is in a sense, the process of joining the world community of inter-translatable languages recognized as appropriate vehicles of modern forms of discourse.
The process of language modernization which concerns the expansion of the lexicon that is required to treat new topics and domains requires that the practitioners ,who need the vocabulary, to be directly involved in the activities to increase the language expressive potential that enable them to handle the newly introduced concepts and developments relative to technological, economic, political, educational, and social spheres. Lexical modernization therefore is a matter of a corpus planning activity to palliate to the lexical gaps languages generally experience. As Jernudd has noted “a major activity of many language policy agencies … be they normal language academies, development boards or language committees ,is the development of terminologies ,particularly in technical fields”(in Thimothy and Schreffler 2005:215).
Language modernization is also a process of “technicalization” (Webb 1995), an aspect of language planning, which he believes cannot be conducted in isolation. It must be seen as part of a wider context. Language technicalization pre-supposes the existence of a technicalized culture, and a technical culture perspective for language revalorization purposes. Efforts should be directed at the resistance against the use of the language in question in high function situations and as an object of study and research. However whatever the language status, language technicalization is directly dependent on the existence of the necessary sustaining infrastructure, training programs, agencies for terminology, professional association research centers, and any agency versed in language related activities. The process rests on a bottom up formula which seeks to involve the consumers, i.e., those who use it at ground level and the cooperation of schools and media to participate in the dissemination and elaboration of technical terms. Language modernization suggests that users must be brought to take up the challenges through language learning, a process, which is attitude based.
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Attitudes towards language play a fundamental part in the psychology of the speakers in their use of language. Attitudes are considered to have a strong effect on motivation to use, to speak or to learn a language. Baker (1992:9) likens positive attitudes to healthy eating and exercise, which increases life expectancy of a language. It is within this line of thought that stems the idea of investing on language attitudes in such a way as to bring about attitudes that stimulate learners to participate in the language laboratory works through learning and use.
Though, modern linguists agree that any language can be modernized and used as a medium of education and modernity, opponents of the Arabic language usage as the important language of national culture medium have argued that it is archaic, and difficult because so diglossic ,and that it is an emotive rather than a scientific language , with no common technical vocabulary to serve modernity. Gordon, (1985:136,139) for example, has noted that Arabic as a language of modernity may have some difficulties but these are minor. Arabic which is the language of over 100 million people and spread throughout a large geographical area became the official language of the United Nations in 1974. According to him, in the great majority of Arab countries the use of Arabic in all important spheres of national life presents no problems. In the case of Arabic much progress has been made through the works of journalists and creative writers to develop an Arabic drawing both on the differing colloquialisms and the classical form. It has done so by adapting new structures and by developing a scientific terminology by direct borrowing or the adoption of Arabic equivalents. He further argues that the hostility to Arabic is not based on purely linguistic considerations. It is rather based upon emotional, political and ideological factors adding that the most serious, probably, is the challenge that comes from those wholly Arabic-educated elements who are handicapped in obtaining important jobs because they are monolingual in Arabic .
4.5 Language Attitudes
An attitude is by and large an appraisal that expresses how much we like or dislike an object, an issue, a person, an action etc. Attitudes are a social product, which tend to persist over time. Our attitudes also echo our overall evaluation of something based on a set of associations linked to it. They are also important because they guide our thought; they
181 Chapter four : Language Management and Marketing influence our feelings, and they affect our behavior given their cognitive, affective and connative components. In social psychology, attitudes represent an essential part of human individuality and serve as driving forces towards activity and decision taking. They even espouse the form of convictions for which people are ready to risk their lives . Bohner and. Wanke (2002:5) define attitudes as “a summary evaluation of an object of thought. An attitude object can be anything a person discriminates or holds in mind. Attitude objects may be concrete, abstract, inanimate things, persons or groups”. As regards Baker and .Prys (1998:174), “attitudes are a predisposition to respond favorably or unfavorably to something like a language, a person, an institution, or an event. An attitude represents internal thoughts, feelings and tendencies in behavior across a variety of contexts». The concept of attitudes has long been a central concern of social psychological theories. It is also important in other disciplines such as economics, politics and sociology. Attitudes are not vacuum situated; they are part and parcel of the individual’s whole psychological functioning. As a construct, they are both a social product and an intrinsic part of social action. From an influential level, they are also central in human decision-making and represent a psychological drift that implies to inject in a particular entity some particular degree of favor or disfavor.
Attitudes are fundamental in the life span of a language. In fact, they constitute the innermost factors underlying language development, decline, death, revival and /or promotion. The status and significance of language as related to society and the individual depend mostly on adopted or acquired attitudes. Even success of a language policy is partly resulting from attitudes within which language evolves. Attitudes are highly significant in influencing people’s thinking and behavior individually and collectively. Baker and Prys (1988:112) believe attitudes to be an “input / output construct”. Attitudes may be conceived of as a construct an individual develops to delineate or prop up a certain individual or societal conduct towards language. A person or a group having or developing positively charged attitudes towards a language displays willingness to learn the language fluently and adapt to the respective cultural values. For Baker and Prys (op cit: 113) “while attitude is certainly a causal or input variable, it also needs to be thought of as an output or outcome variables”.
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As regards language, attitudes refer to people’s stance and inclinations towards their language and other varieties and what value they attribute to them as far as their respective functions, social statuses and development are concerned. Attitudes towards language are common practice. People allocate different attributes to language and adopt different attitudes as well. Thomas et al. (2004: 197) have noted ,
“People invest some language forms with prestige while others are stigmatized. Prestige and stigma are intimately related to speakers of languages and have to do with social class, social or national identity, and with ideas about status, solidarity and unity. These values judgments about language and varieties within a community are recurrent and affect the social and cultural in important influential ways. Issues dealing with language are far from peripheral, but are central to people’s daily life”
4.6Types of Attitudes
Some researchers in the field of language attitudes distinguish two approaches: one relative to the behaviorist view, which approaches language attitudes on the basis of the responses in relation to certain languages 190 . The other, the mentalist one, considers attitudes as an internal mental state, which gives rise to certain forms of behavior.” Fasold, (1984:147) describes attitudes as an “intervening variable between a stimulus affecting a person and that person’s response”. In fact, attitudes play a key role in predicting behavior towards objects. Changes in attitudes are indicative of changes in behavior .Other researchers versed in the field of attitudes see attitudes as being either “instrumental motivation based or integrative motivation based”. The instrumental motivation “reflects targeted, pragmatic purposes for learning a language, such as career advancement, studying in another country (…) while “Integrative motivation arises when a learner has the desire to integrate within the second language cultural group, to become part of the society”, Ricento (2005:897). Investing on instrumental attitudes for vocational reasons, for status raising purposes, for social achievements, for personal success, for self-enhancement, for self-actualization or for basic security survival would lead to integrative attitudes.
190 Appel René et Muysken Pieter (2006) Language Contact and Bilingualism,London: Amesterdam University Press
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Another important aspect of attitude is its changing feature. It changes according to the individual’s needs and drives resulting from the social changes. The need for success, mobility, and recognition interacts with the effects of environmental conditions to shape attitudes. Bakerad Prys (1988:140) argues, “Attitudes can change through activity which is self-directed and purposefully planned as well as through the needs for security and status within a group, and through societal demands”. Changing or influencing language attitudes through language policy requires changing people as they represent the agents of change. Given the highly complex factors, which interplay in the process of attitude construction and the complexity of the human nature, changing people’s language attitude requires fundamental changes in societal organization and structure. These changes must secure the language services that both the individual and society are targeting and awaiting for .These services are mainly those that bring about achievements such as self-fulfillment, and projection of the self including corporate identity and image into a promising future. They also will be of great importance to the realization of basic potentials that are value laden for the labor market. E.G. Lewis (1981:262) argues that,
“Any policy for language, especially in the system of education, has to take into account the attitude of those likely to be affected. In the long run, no policy will succeed which does not do one of the three things: conform to expressed attitudes of those involved; persuade those who express negative attitudes about the rightness of the policy; or seek to remove the causes of the disagreement. In any case knowledge about attitudes is fundamental to the formulation of a policy as well as to success in its implementation.” (in Faiq, 1999:144)
Though people holding some attitudes tend to show persistence and resistance to change, they do change under the pressure of environmental conditions and the constantly changing individual’s needs and motives. Baker and Prys (1998) reveal the existence of “different theories of attitude change, parts of which have relevance to changing attitudes to a language”. “Rewarding” and “boosting self-esteem” may be mentioned given the role they play in converting an attitude from a negatively charged one to positively charged one. Indeed, the individual moves along a bidirectional attitude axis adapting positive and negative attitudes according to his motives. For Baker and Prys (op cit: 178) “Acquisition of a language, using and maintaining, or acquiring a positive attitude to that language may depend
184 Chapter four : Language Management and Marketing on gaining reward and avoiding negative outcome”. It is important to provide users of a language with a linguistic environment, which enables them to express themselves and their talents and exchange, on equal footing, their experience with their social and economic environment. This would make language use more engaging and worthwhile. Baker and Prys (op. cit) believes “boosting self esteem” to be fundamental to psychological health.
Maio et al (2010) have revealed that attitude researchers have devoted considerable attention to the functions of attitudes. They believe the prominent ones to be those developed by early scholars versed in the field of attitudes arguing that attitudes serve some functions. In the case of Smith et al (1956) attitudes have three primary functions: “object appraisal”, “social adjustment” and “externalization”, (in Mayo et al, 2010:38).The “object appraisal” refers to the ability of attitudes to summarize the positive and negative attributes of objects in our social world Mayo et al (op. cit). The “Social adjustment” function allows adjustment that promotes identification with a group or dissociation. The “externalization function” relates to the type of attitudes that “defend the self against internal conflicts”, Mayo et al (op cit). Attitudes can stimulate either to approach beneficial things or to circumvent harmful ones. A bad performance in a field may lead to develop a strong negative attitude regarding the field because poor performance threatens self- esteem.
Katz (1960), on his turn, suggests four functions, which are pertinent to language attitudes namely “the utilitarian or instrumental function’’, “the ego defensive function”, “the value expressive function” and “the knowledge function”. The utilitarian or instrumental function is sensitive to the fact that attitudes may change according to reward or punishment. When group effects are worthwhile, attitude changes in that direction; when the effects are unpleasant, the opposite occurs. In fact, the changes are related to attempts to satisfy the individual’s needs and motives. People generally feel positive towards things that bring them reward and negative towards punishing stimuli. Attitudes also function to influence our emotions and feelings, i.e., they perform a psychological function. This category of attitude which corresponds to the “ego defensive function” is controlled by some psychological safety needs arising from inner conflict.
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Within similar veins, the ego defensive function reflects the fact that “Basic inner security is essential for psychological health. People who hold attitudes which lead to insecurity, embarrassment and anxiety, are likely to change their attitudes to achieve greater security and less anxiety. Being a peripheral member of a group, not sharing the common threads of identity of a group ,lacking some of the attributes of a high status reference group may lead to attitude and behavior change.” Baker (1992:100) .The “value expressive function” relates to the fact that “attitudes are expressed and activated when they are congruent with personal values and self concept” Baker (op cit: 101).The holding of a particular attitude may serve the function of providing the individual with a means of giving positive expression to the type of person s(he) wants to be . It gives clarity to the self-image and leads to clear pathways. The knowledge function helps us know the world. Because they have a cognitive or knowledge component, attitudes “facilitate understanding of people and events” and are “more susceptible to change when knowledge function is known and understood” C. Baker (op. cit). For example, a person for whom the knowledge of a language is necessary to career promotion or job acquisition or social status gain will be likely motivated to develop positive attitude towards the target language . As E.G. Lewis (1981) asserts, “in some instances a language policy is in fact largely if not principally concerned with inculcating attitudes either to the languages or to the speakers of those languages” (in Baker op.cit:97) . Baker (1992:21) argues,
“Attempting language shift by language planning, language policy making and the provision of human and material resources can all come to nothing if attitudes are not favorable to change. Language engineering can flourish or fail according to the attitudes of the community”.
In view of the way attitudes relate to their causes and effects as well as their importance as instructive variables, their analysis helps to provide insights into human functioning. For this very reason conducting surveys of attitudes serves as checking and measurement device supplying knowledge about the current community thoughts, beliefs, preferences and desires, and the overall tide of evolution the community releases.
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Collective attitude towards language is a social phenomenon which is determined by a great number of forces. In fact, official language planning has an important function in this context. It serves within the social process to express the determination and guiding principles of the political class and the current political opinion. Nevertheless, it should be noted that the political shore up alone remains insufficient. All social forces must retain the utmost attention as to the role they play in this long-term task. Social classes, ethnic groups, age groups, occupational groups, organizations, and associations, all contribute in developing collective attitudes. Language planning policy is but a disciplinary power, the success of which depends partly upon the ability of the state to structure the institutions of the society and partly upon the attitudinal role the social forces will espouse. Attitude surveys are very important in language auditing. They serve as a barometer like instrument to measure the success in language policy implementation and prediction.
For Baker and .Prys (1998), they provide “a measure of the climate of the language”. For example, “attitudes to Spanish in the United States or to French in Canada reveal the possibilities and problems of languages within those countries.” Baker and Prys (op cit). Understanding how and why attitudes are formed brought researchers in the field of language to shift the concern towards an economic standpoint adapting marketing approach to influence language attitudes towards new offerings and new behavior. This will help language planners to plan strategies for changing attitudes and orienting language change and use by focusing on the users’ motivation to learn and use language. By offering all facilities to develop their ability and ensuring the opportunity to realize the desired achievements, users will certainly adhere to the language project. Using a language is not only a means of educational successes but also a means of social and economic upgrading. This has led to see language use from an economic standpoint. Planning for language is also planning the targeted audience social and economic welfare.
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.4.7 Economic considerations of Language Planning
In addition to the legal, culturalist, and educational related domains that constitute the traditional concerns of policy discourse about language planning is the economics approach which focuses on the economic considerations in language planning. Early language planning has changed by introducing other elements of consideration resulting from the inter- relatedness of language and the social environment with all its dimensions namely the social, cultural, political, educational and economic ones. An increasing number of specialists in the field of language problems have come to notice that the policies they often advocate have economic inference. In addition to political matters, any language planning policy must view not only the linguistic and social matters at the basis of language issues , but also the economic factors on which any language plan will eventually influence its success. Kaplan and Baldauf (1997:154) even warn against “the economic implications of not having adequate language resources to access to the world of science” and believe “proficiency in this language is a valuable commodity both to the individuals and the national economies” given the scientific and technological supremacy of the English language.
The economics of language is a recent trend, which considers language as any product the value of which depends on the services it offers. It also focuses on certain language topics such as the effects of language on income, the costs and benefits of language planning options, the economic returns on language promotion, preservation and maintenance. It is also relevant to the analysis of language policy option and implementation . For Grin (2006:77) the economics of language or language economics “must be seen as a form of public policy- just like transportation policy, environment policy …” Furthermore, Grin (1996:6) states,
“The economics of language refers to the paradigm of theoretical economics and uses the concept and tools of economics in the study of relationships featuring linguistic variables; it focuses principally, but not exclusively, on those relationships in which economic variables also play a part”. (in Grin, 2006:78)
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Questions revolve around how do language skills effect economic variables , how do economic variables affect certain patterns of language use and how do economic processes, such as constrained utility, affect language processes such as language dynamism. The language economics view holds that every sociological, linguistic, political and economic domain offers supplementary angles from which an issue can be looked at. “The economics of language can contribute to the study of language issues through insights or conceptual tools that other disciplines do not provide”, Grin (2006). The economics of language considers language skills as a form of human capital, which affects language and economics related issues. It focuses on the labor market consequences on language learning and proficiency. Economics has an essential role to play, in terms of selecting and designing language policy.
This recent tendency addressing language issues dates back to the 1960s. Studies conducted in Quebec concerning French-English language issues as well as those conducted in the US associated to the earnings differentials between Hispanics and Anglophones all wheeled around the effects of language on labor income. These studies dealt with the labor income and language based discrimination correlate together with the way the language skill factor that has come to participate in the human capital accumulation and its impacts on income. A study conducted in 1985 in the Canadian province of Quebec, based on unilingual francophones, showed that unilingual Anglophones earned 9.71% less; while bilinguals earned 5.14% more. Those having neither French nor English as a mother tongue called in the Canadian literature “allophones” earned less. The earning difference was a 5.14%, for those allophones mastering English and French, but it amounted to 17.77% for those who learnt only English, and even greater, amounting to 24.47 % for those having learnt only French. 191 Dealing with the interaction between language and economic activity, Webb (2003) shows how the relation is quite self-obvious. This is because language, as a major means of human
191 Grin, F (2001) Economics. In Joshua ,A Fishman (ed) A Handbook of Language and ethnic Identity , New Work: Oxford University Press, (8-24)
189 Chapter four : Language Management and Marketing communication, is involved in all social activities. “It is central to training, effective management, trading and the provision of services. In addition, language plays a very insignificant part in the job market and the provision of work security”, Webb (2003:62). Language, as a creditable commodity in terms of both job opportunity and level of earnings, can be either a barrier or a facilitator depending on the linguistic capital of its user.
Another economic value was found to lay behind the decline and spread of languages. Attention was drawn to the reasons that urge the individual to engage or not in language learning and the resulting economic measurements, gains or losses implied. From a demographic angle, standard practice believes the more people use a language, the more it becomes a tool for wider communication. As regards the economic standpoint, Grin (2006) refers to the distribution dimension of languages within the European Union. Accordingly, when an individual moves from one linguistic environment to another, it induces gains and losses. Who gains, who loses, and how much because of implementing the European Union language policy, and what compensation mechanisms are there, is what Grin (op. cit) attempts to explain. In the case of the European Union, the progressive, though not official, drift towards the dominant or even sole use of English as a working language of the European institutions amounts to a massif transfer in the direction of the native speakers of English paid for by everybody else. Among the gains derived by the native speakers of English, he notes,
1- Native speakers need not to invest any time or money in learning other languages, since native speakers of other languages learn English. 2- They may profitably invest the resources thus saved in other growth enhancing development strategies. 3- They get quasi-monopoly on the market of translation and interpretation into English as well as on the market for English language text editing and language teaching. 4- They need not to make any effort to make themselves understood in international settings. 5- They retain a decisive edge in negotiations and conflict, simply because it takes place in their own language, while the others have to struggle in English –for them, a foreign language. ( Grin, 2006:86-87)
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These economics concerns expressed in terms of gains and loses as well as the attitudinal issues contributed in approaching language through an economist view point which considers language as a product obeying the market laws and marketing strategies. The economy which used to be based on natural resources is now developing into a knowledge based economy. Nowadays, natural resource rich societies are greatly dependent on knowledge based societies. The factors determining the success of firms and industrial economies are more dependent than ever on the capacity to produce, to use and to transfer or export knowledge. In addition to the traditional economic activities, the world of business is characterized nowadays by new economic activities whose product takes the form of services rather than physical goods. The economic good can be etheir a physical commodity or a service which yields utility and which could command a price if bought or sold on a market. The world has entered a new era of business through the practice of the economics of knowledge and the economics of education. And, thus, the school as an educational institution which delivers a good and efficient educational product would prosper while those that do not will disappear. Furthermore, because knowledge is codified and expressed through the knowledge holder’s language, language becomes another commodity necessary for acquisition, production, and transaction. This leads the users of the language to feel secure in and about their language and to take pride in using and spreading it through their “business service activities”. Marketing for their business services entails marketing for their language as well on a world wide scale. Thus, the conveying languages prosper at the expense of others.
4.8 Marketing: A definition
Marketing is a social and managerial process by which individuals and groups obtain what they need and want through creating and exchanging products and values with others. The classic western definition as summarized by Philip Kotler is “a human activity directe at satisfying needs and wants through exchanged process” (in Mercer1996:12). The Charter Institute of Marketing defines marketing as the management process responsible for identifying anticipating and satisfying customer requirements profitability. (in Wikipedia). In terms of Maheswari (1997:264) notes,
,
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“Marketing implies the process of moving goods and services from producers to the ultimate consumers. It involves all the activities from product development to storage, transportation, sales promotion, pricing and financing. Marketing identifies human wants, gives maximum satisfaction to the consumer and continues to create and maintain consumer demands. Marketing is a creative, dynamic and challenging socially useful activity, which every planning has to undertake”.
The Penguin Dictionary of Economics (1978) broadly defines marketing as “those functions in a business that directly involve contact with the consumer and assessment of his needs , and the translation of this information into outputs for sale consistent with the firm’s objectives.” When it comes to language, marketing aims at focusing on the economic considerations in language planning to cause users attitudes to change through persuasion.
4.8.1 Language Marketing: an economic adaptation
The concept of language marketing is adapted from the world of business to mean that the government and state actions are aimed at generating exactly the same results on the ‘client’ as the advertiser and marketing expert aims at. There is an attempt to match between the process involved for marketing a commercial product and those followed by language policy makers persuading ‘clients’, that is, users to accept a language together with its product. The four concepts for marketing which are known as the marketing four P’s namely “the products nature ”,“ the price or cost ” , “the packaging or presentation" and the place of sale” Ager (1999:166) are adapted to language planning activities. Cooper (1989:73) reveals that Kotler and Levy (1969) were the first to suggest that “effective marketing principles can be applied to non-business organization.”
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If native speakers represent the fulcrum that develops language , marketing for a language, then is essentially based on taking care of its users socially, and economically. Marketing for a language is also function of the kinds of educational and professional prospects offered to its users, mainly those that imply prestige and high degree of competition locally and worldwide. These services if guaranteed makes of their holders a rare resource which represent an added value to their society. For the language policy to achieve its primary goals concerning the status promotion of the official national language, the whole enterprise of language policy and planning should be viewed as a marketing plan. Among the long term measures for language policy development and planning, Webb (2003:78) suggests “An extensive marketing strategy aimed at convincing the labor force as well as public and private employers that the policy concerned will be economically beneficial, also in money-terms , to individuals, communities and the country as a whole”. In such a case, language marketing is a strategy for addressing social issues and is accomplished in the form of social marketing campaigns adapting the marketing principles and techniques to influence a target audience to freely agree to, thrust aside, adjust or abandon a behavior for the benefit of the individual, the group, or society as a whole. Thus, marketing research needs to be conducted to understand the language market segments and each segments needs , wants , beliefs , problems , concerns and behavior because in terms of language services, these differ from one audience segment to another. This will serve to increase involvement of the different audience‘s segments each according to the identification of its interests.
Though language planning activities do not seem to be addressed as any material products, Cooper (op. cit) supports Kotler and Zaltman’s analogy (1971) which sees the marketing problem in terms of language as “developing the right product backed by the right promotion and put in the right place at the right price” , ( in Cooper, 1989:72) . As regards the “product”, Cooper says that language planners must “recognize, identify, or design products that the potential consumer will find attractive… These products are to be defined and audience(s) targeted on the basis of empirically determined consumer needs”. “Promotion of a communicative innovation -by which is meant changes in language use, structure or acquisition- refers to efforts to induce users to adopt it, whether adoption is viewed as awareness, positive evaluation, proficiency or usage”. “ Place refers to the provision of
193 Chapter four : Language Management and Marketing adequate channels of distribution and response. That is, a person’s motivation to buy a product must know where to find it”while “The price of a consumer product or service is an important determinant to its appeals.” Cooper (1989: 73-79).
Alatis et al (2002:130) note that.Bourdieu (1991) views language planning or management as a marketing problem. Bourdieu (op cit) argues “linguistic products are signs of wealth or capital which receive their value only in relation to a market characterized by a particular law of price formation.” For him the market fixes the price for a linguistic product or capital. The linguistic capital not only declines into educational capital but also into economic capital giving wider chances and perspectives in the job markets. Bourdieu argues “the more linguistic capital that speakers possess, the more they are able to exploit the system of differences to their advantage, and thereby secure a profit of distinction”,( Bourdieu and Thomson ,1991:18).
4.8.2 Baker’s and Prys’ Language Marketing Approach
Language marketing is a concept adapted from economics to the field of language issues. It seeks to view language from a commercial standpoint in which a contract of profit exchange is established between the users as customer and language policy makers and planners. Within most people’s experience, marketing implies advertising material products taking into consideration the customers needs in terms of competitive quality and competitive pricing in some cases. According to Baker and Prys (1998:221), “Language marketing derives from the concept of social marketing theory”. This has been defined by Andreason (1995) as
“The application of commercial technologies to the analysis, planning, execution and evaluation of programs designed to influence the voluntary behavior of target audience in order to improve their personal welfare and that of their society.” (in Doovan, & Henley 2010: 6)
Baker and Prys reveal that some propositions of social marketing ideas related to language maintenance, language shift , language planning have been successfully adapted for the purpose of promoting the minority languages as a desirable possession. Yet, language marketing activities can accompany language whatsoever its status. Maintenance, shift, and
194 Chapter four : Language Management and Marketing planning are phenomena that concern language in general and do not pertain specifically to minor languages only. Despite the fact that not all the ideas of marketing dealing with material products are applicable in the marketing of a language, Baker and .Prys (1998:221) remains convinced that language marketing can be” a valuable component in language planning”. Baker and Prys (1998:221) suggest a ten interrelated marketing stage strategy for language. These are:
1- Defining the product 2- Investigating customer needs 3- Defining the market 4- Making the product attractive 5- Promoting the product 6- Anticipating and challenging counter propaganda 7- Distributing the product 8- Pricing and yields 9- Evaluating the product and the marketing strategy 10- Revising the marketing strategy and implementing a long –term marketing plan
By “defining the product” is meant, in addition to language labeling, the identification of the language component to be marketed. This means, the particular aspect of the language product needs to be specifically defined and clarified. The language product to be marketed must serve a target planning focus, i.e. what linguistic component for what purpose and for whom. The linguistic component might be particular lexical items, new vocabulary or terminology, while the purpose relates to the specific domain or discipline which is subject of promotion. A language product is also audience centered. The language product promoters must determine the audience for which the product is addressed. Thus, the linguistic component, its corresponding purpose and the targeted audience are the ingredients constituting the product. Nevertheless, planning and deciding about the language product requires that those for whom the product is being designed are taken into consideration. There is a need then to investigate about ways to magnetize and persuade the customers.
Regarding the customers, the services the product offers are very important. While answering some not yet satisfied needs, designing a product requires a certain environment through which it is channeled. If the language product targets an audience, its motivation for possession and attitude towards its worth constitute a sine qua non condition for its adoption.
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However, being motivated and having favorable attitude towards a product is insufficient. The ability and opportunity to use the product increases its worth. Providing a language product in the form of technical terminology relative to a whatever specific and highly ranked domain requires that the targeted audience has the ability to use it, in which case, mastery of the basic language skills and efficiency are required together with the opportunity to use it.
There is a need to invest on language teaching human and material resources since these are very important facilitators of language learning and attractiveness. In the case of Algeria, Baccalaureate holders join the university with a language background they have been using to learn general and scientific educational subject. Yet, the language product they acquired is devalued of its possession and worth since tertiary education remains hostile to its maintenance and use, and rather favors shift of language. this generates the need to abandon the product. Designing a language product requires, in addition to need analysis, that language policy makers and planners are not only knowledgeable about influencing the subjects’ motivation and attitudes but to maintain and develop their ability to use it and provide opportunities to use it and secure some material and ethical gains. This would constitute the cost-benefit transaction that every side including designers, promoters, and consumers worry about in any transactional operation. How can an urban sociology degree holder having studied in the Arabic language exercise his profession using the language he studied in if the market job does not offer the opportunity? Moreover, how can he exercise in the language of work if he lacks proficiency? Thus, defining the product depends on a chain of interrelated decisive tasks, which led Baker and Prys (op cit) to propose a ten interrelated marketing strategy. “Investigating customer’s needs” concerns the identification of the customers and consumers potential needs.
Investigation should seek to inquire about the customers’ motivation, attitude, ability, and opportunity. “Defining the market” aims at identifying and addressing the target audience, its corresponding language register and the assumed chances of success. “Making the product attractive” requires that the product meets the audience’s expectancy value, that is the set of associated gains such as economic opportunity ,social justice, enablement ,empowerment , self –esteem etc. “ Promoting the product” focuses on rendering the language
196 Chapter four : Language Management and Marketing more visible. For this purpose, linguistic landscape and the technological means 192 can participate in the awareness and persuasion process. We are all familiar with advertising on billboards, through television, in newspapers and in magazines for propaganda and promotion for a particular product. “Anticipating and challenging counter propaganda” is a predictive and proactive strategy. Promoting a language implies exclusion and reversing the balance reading of the existing power distribution, the dominant group’s privileges and interests. “Language marketing may challenge the status quo and appear to provoke political and /or social unrest” Baker and Prys (1998). Thus, opposition must be expected and ways to soothe and gain the opposing forces to be predicted in advance. “Distributing the product” requires that marketers must target the appropriate audience together with the appropriate place for the placement of the product.
In marketing a language, it is important to target the learner-users, the institutions and the processes for acquiring the language products. For example, targeting a linguistic register related to a certain domain of use requires targeting particular schools and particular social and economic consuming sectors. Television channels and radio stations can also participate at appropriate times of the day with appropriate programs to reinforce the language product to increase proficiency and the number of language users. “Pricing and yields” refers on the one hand to the cost in terms of investments the users make in the form of time, money and efforts and the educational, social, and economic returns the users derive as an outcome. Promotion within the job, career offerings or an increase on a salary scale may serve as incentives for having participated in language promotion activities or in learning a language. “Evaluating the product and marketing strategy” is a constant activity that language planners ,marketers, and implementers worry about ; This serves as a control room like device providing feedback and sending signals to the language agencies concerned to maintain, improve or revise their activities . This step constitutes an on-going formative and summative evaluation of the process, which may serve as an audit operation ensuring the accountability of the past planning and marketing strategies and the necessary
192 Advertising for a language can come in many forms. A language may be publicized on posters, through adverts in newspapers, magazines and television, videos and pictures, through cartoons and computer graphics, through balloons and plastic shopping bags, through badges and labels, and through signposts and speeches .
197 Chapter four : Language Management and Marketing future requirements. This would lead to the last stage of revising the marketing strategy and implementing a long-term marketing plan in accordance with the data collected from implementing the planning and marketing processes. For Baker and Prys (1998:227)
“Marketing a language is a continuous process. It is never a one–of event … the marketing strategy must be sustained rather than short- term, evolutionary and not momentary. The marketing strategy must be a cyclical activity. The evaluation of the past ad the present must provide ‘feed forward’. Failures and unrealized ambitions need investigation, with an alternative marketing strategy put in place. Successes need sustaining and building on, in such a way that success breeds success”.
In addition to the application of the economic principles to language planning policies and issues, other aspects of socio-economic life join to participate in language marketing and influencing language behavior. These are the linguistic landscape and the job market.
4.8.3 Linguistic Landscape: awareness and a marketing role
Linguistic landscape henceforth (LL) refers to the words and messages displayed and exposed in public space. As regards Gorter (2006) and (Landry and Bourhis (1997), LL constitutes language which is all around us in textual form. It is the language that can be found for instance in indoor markets ,on shop windows, on commercial signs , on posters, on moving vehicles, on traffic signs ,on advertising , on billboards ,on street names , at place names , on commercial shop signs , and on public signs on government buildings” etc. In recent years, researchers have started to make a closer look and study the language texts that are present in public space. According to Gorter (2006:1) “linguistic landscape can be synonymous with or at least related to concepts such as “linguistic market”, “linguistic mosaic”, “ecology of languages”, “diversity of languages” or “the linguistic situation”. It is about the social context in which one or more languages are visible in a certain area .
Spolsky and .Cooper (1991) in Gorter (2006:62) have the conviction that the “Linguistic landscape” functions as an informational marker on the one hand, and as a symbolic marker communicating the relative power and status of linguistic communities in a given territory. Language is not used in public space at random; it is rather goal oriented as the messages it
198 Chapter four : Language Management and Marketing delivers are about society, people, the economy, policy, and identity. Language use in public space has its own rules and regulations, which either sustain or go against the declared policies; it can also be used for language awareness activity. In fact, it represents the practice of language beyond the school activity and authority.
The most central function of the LL is to serve as a marker of the geographical territory inhabited by a language community. The fact of using a language on public signs may also imply that the language in question is used to obtain services from public and private establishments. However, a feeling of exclusion can be experienced when the language of public signs is not matched by the ability to use it for obtaining services . L L also supplies information about the sociolinguistic situation of the community. The prevalence of one language rather than other mirrors the power and status of the competing language. The use or exclusion of one’s own language on public space impacts on how one feels as a member of a language community. Having one’s language present on private and public signs nurtures the feeling of value and status. LL participates to upkeep the community’s social identity. The absence of the language from the LL leads to the devaluing of the community’s language, weakens their attachment to the language, and eats away their collective motivation if there is any to act as active agents in the language enterprise. These are symptoms we see in our LL. LL is rather employed to market the French language. The majority of private space makes use of the French language rather than Arabic. French is used in indoor markets, on shop windows, on commercial signs, on posters, on moving vehicles, on advertising, and on billboards. The “linguistic landscape” in the public space serves as an important mechanism with which to regulate and develop language awareness in society. Language visibility can therefore be used to create and maintain power relations and collective identities. 193 Language
193 Extra, G (2010) Mapping the Linguistic Diversity in Multilingual Contexts: Demolinguistic Perspectives; In Joshua, A. Fishman 2 nd (eds). Handbook of Language and Ethnic Identity: Disciplinary and Regional Perspectives, New York :Oxford University Press, (107-122 )
199 Chapter four : Language Management and Marketing visibility influences directly on linguistic vitality and cultural identity. It is for this very reason that the language profile of private signs and government signs must be organized to contribute to a friendly and coherent LL. Discordance with the government’s profile will cause erasure when it comes to the policy planning efforts. LL represents by itself a political landscape for language policy implementation.
Levine (1991: 137) reveals that the sign issue is symbolically explosive. Many Montreal francophone see anything short of unilingual French signs as the continuing legacy of the ‘conquest, while Anglophones view bilingual signs as a symbol that Montreal is a social contract between two linguistic communities. In short, the debate over Montreal‘s French Face revolves around antithetical visions of the city: Montreal as a fundamentally French city versus Montreal as a dualistic city. In the case of Algeria, the “linguistic landscape” suggests a considerable gap between the official language planning policy which was set stressing the dominance of the national and official language, and the much higher tolerance towards French and English to a lesser extent. Language constitutes the decorum of public space together with the architecture, but it also serves as important explicit and hidden strategies to manipulate languages practices and attitudes.
LL is a fundamental showground for enforcement of language policy and creation of collective identity as long as it represents in the social environment the first contact we have with the language and the script of the place. LL participates in the cultural and language awareness through the constant interaction between the individual and the LL components. The individual reacts in a conscious or unconscious manner to the components which generate a response in the individual who receives it; even if the response takes a silent form through inner speech. Constant contact develops a certain sensitivity to the language displayed causing a kind of language processing. The print visual components of the LL contributes to a lexical visual storage which may be a kind of literacy practice in the case of children , in which case LL can serve within the social environment as a pedagogical reinforcing tool . LL can constitute one of the social agencies participating in language promotion and language marketing. For example, a billboard used for advertising has a twofold function:marketing of the product as well as the language used to present the product.
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4.8.4 Language and the Job Market
There exists no domain of economic activity in which language does not have a function. All domains are language based in one way or the other. Indeed, language proficiency plays and important role in determining the individual’s earnings and occupational attainment. Language skills can either limit or allow chances of labor market prospects. There is a direct relationship between language and the job market. Language can contribute to job creation or scarceness. This is because language knowledge and linguistic skills are commodities that can be sold and obey to market demands. Webb establishes a direct relationship between the individual’s socio-economic situation together with his living standard and language abilities. For him “if the speakers of a language become more wealthy, with higher per capita income and a higher quality of life , their language will concomitantly acquire status and prestige , and automatically lead to its use in higher functions” Webb, (2003:77)
Language can also affect entry in lucrative careers in increasingly competitive job markets. A language policy which is not sustained by a job market policy is necessarily doomed to failure. A market job which is indifferent to people’s wants and needs and does not allow continual adjustment by introducing better jobs affects people trust in their language power and may lead to social disinvestment and social unrest . Language problems are deep- seated. They can even interfere to slump the economic activity and affect social cohesion.
Employment policies play an important role in language learning, use, and shift which are associated with economic change. This is not surprising since language has a strong instrumental value. New economic opportunities motivate individuals to do so. Similarly, Economic pressures often weigh on people to learn a job–select language. Kaplan and Badaulf 1997:164) reveals that in Germany, “a secretary who does not need languages will on
201 Chapter four : Language Management and Marketing average earn a few thousand Deutschmarks less than a secretary who has at least one foreign language to do the same job.” If economic and social rewards become associated with Arabic, we will certainly witness a shift towards Arabic, but if otherwise, we will witness a withdrawal. This seems to be a strategy adopted by the newly proposed higher educational reform through the LMD framework focusing on the human capital formation and seeking its delocalization since it retains the transferability option for convertibility perspectives.
In the case of Algeria, the National Institutes such as INH, IAP, and INELEC have contributed in this transferability and convertibility process of the Public school outcome from a French language background and later an Arabic language background into English language users for economic and career perspectives. 194 These schools to which was allocated the task of supplying the human resources for the economic and industrial sectors functioning either in French or in English offered opportunities for field training, a monthly pre-pay along the period of training and a performance guarantee of employment. At this period of time, when these extra school institutions, belonging to the government ministries to which was attributed the task of development, modernism and technological transfer, were in effect, the language policy implementation had already been put into effect. However, there was no room in the agenda of these institutions to the policy concerning the Arabic language except a hidden one that can be read through the “laisser faire” paralleled policy for modernism and technological transfer purposes .That was a denial as to the expressive power of the Arabic language and a barrier to the language planning policy implementation and efficiency. The educational sector, which represents one of the key domains for language policy implementation and social mobility aiming at knowledge and material income redistribution, must establish strong ties with the world of knowledge engineering, educational perspectives , and the economic and employment policies which must take into consideration the incoming human capital. When it comes to the economic development, Aghrout (2004:29, 31) has noted,
194 L Boukreris ‘Langue Nationale et enseignement des langues étrangeres ‘ in Bouhadiba Farouk (ed) Revue Maghrébine des Langues Acte du Deuxiéme Colloque des Langues Etrangeres en Algérie, Oran : Dar El Gharb,2004, pp289-299
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“the algerian economy had not been able to grow at a rate that would provide sufficient employment opportunities for the new labour entrants (…) Algeria’s future whether political or economic, will depend upon the willingness of its citizens to continue to create a polity that reflects their legitimate aspirations and permits the great majority of them to benefit from the creation of the basis of economic prosperity”.
Emmerij (1982) on his turn believes that since a basic requirement of the NIEO (New International Economic Order) seeks to promote “the international redistribution of income”,it falls within the scope of the education policy to play a role to increase efforts to redistribute income in a more equal way, and by the same token to diminish the gap between the “world of work” and the “world of school”. Cited in Zajda (2005:5) Emmerij argues,
One of the main objectives of educational policy in developing countries should inter relate more closely the world of work and the world of school in order to bring individual aspirations into closer harmony with the actual opportunities offered by the environment … to diminish the gap between the policy and the labor market and employment policies. (in Zajda : 2005:5).
Because the individual is constantly in search for opportunities for work and social improvements, the unfulfilled expectations of young people reinforced by a growing mass- elite gap contributes to fuel social unrest, which feeds mistrust in any social project, and constitutes a waste of this precious human resource. Within this context, and due to the mismatch between the way the policy of Arabization has been evolving, and the Arabized expectations as regards corresponding jobs and future career perspectives, a social unrest developed among the Arabized. Students who did not learnt French found themselves without skilled jobs, a situation caused by the deficiency of the Algerian economy as well as the lack of technical training. Holt (1994:38-36) reports that “The lack of opportunities for these students blocked either by the régime to reform the upper echelon of the administration, or its lack of political will led to strikes and demonstrations in 1980 (…) followed by the Berber spring.” On another front, baccalaureate holders attending university are discouraged as they must struggle with the essentials of the French language so as to be able to master the substantive courses related to their fields of study which is taught through the French language .Thus, the available literature in French remains reachable to the very few.
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Language plays a number of key roles for social cohesion and in the distribution of social benefits. It is also the foremost means by which knowledge and economic benefits are distributed and acquired, and is an important instrument to perform daily social tasks. Webb (2003) argues that language is used as a cognitive instrument to analyzing, describing, generalizing, and understanding, defining problems and developing solutions for them. It is an instrument for organizing people and getting tasks performed successfully. It is a socializing instrument for establishing values, attitudes, and standard norms, and it is an instrument of participation and of a symbolic function for the construction and expression of identity.
When it comes to the cognitive and social tasks which need to be performed in the job market, Webb (2003:63, 64) argues that these can be performed satisfactorily only if participants possess high level linguistic skills. The ability to understand, interpret and evaluate texts , identify and analyze job related problems, obtain relevant information, plan solutions and manage the implementation of these plans, and assume leadership in particular projects in order to perform tasks effectively require that workers have to possess meta- cognitive skills, a rather high level of linguistic proficiency. A low-level knowledge of language will clearly not enable one to participate meaningfully in the economic life of a society. It should be noted that performing work related tasks require a specialized language skills namely technical registers which allow the user to perform appropriately in the linguistic market.
Given the tight relationship between language and professional career, and knowing that work is mostly based on knowledge, and that most jobs involve technical knowledge, learning and mastery of new and highly technical disciplines is required so that the language of knowledge acquisition must be itself the language of work. Thus, it is worthwhile to twin education and the language planning policy with an economic and employment policy. Language planners has not only to engage in language research activities for the purpose of leading the Arabic language to make entrance in the target disciplines but also to guarantee an employment market for the educational incoming product. Daft (2007:233) notes, “Language managers must focus on shaping an environment that frees energies to determine what they can do and should do to the benefits of themselves so that they will direct the
204 Chapter four : Language Management and Marketing process faster than language agencies”. In a linguistically conscious nation, mastering languages must be an asset, as something cherished and highly graded. As Charles –Quint (Marcel (1837: vii) argues, « Autant de langues un homme sait, autant de fois il est homme ». Marcel (op cit: vii) However, there must be a sacred motivation to maintain and deepen one’s language mastery and one’s language diversity promotion. This relates to an issue of self- esteem and uncertainty management. Language learning is a complex but potentially rewarding experience and that is a way of gaining access to other cultures. There is a clear benefit for the individual and the organization, but to believe that French and English are the business languages of the world surely limits options of development.
4.9 Language Management Agencies
Among the earliest language agencies established to deal with language issues are the Arab academies whose goal was two-fold. Their main concern has been to protect the Arabic language from dialectal and foreign influence, and to adapt on the basis of its inner developing mechanics to the needs of modern times. Cited in Ryding (2005:8), Abdulaziz (1986:17) reveals that Arab academies have played a large role in the standardization of modern Arabic and formal Arabic, to an extent that today throughout the Arab world there is more or less one modern standard variety. This is the variety used in newspapers, newsreel broadcasting, education books, official and legal notices, academic material, and instructional texts of all kinds. The three academies that have the greatest influence are those in Cairo, Damascus, and Baghdad. Among the common objectives of these academies is the development of a common MSA for all Arabic speaking people.
Language management approach consists of involving various agencies to consolidate the political and educational efforts to reinforce the planned goals of language promotion .These agencies will assist in the way CA will be integrated within their fields of exercise and regulate the use concerning any correction and/or innovation. Further to language management, which seeks predictive and preventive objectives of language development, raises the need to consider the masses expectations, which generally focus on the satisfaction of their needs and aspirations. No one can deny that socially users of a language must be motivated not only to conform to the changes but to participate in the process as well.
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The agencies must be interdisciplinary headed by language managers of different scientific profiles. Linguists, sociolinguists, social scientists and scientists from different disciplines must meet to take concerted actions about linguistic issues and to speed up quantitatively and qualitatively the development of CA. Language management must be a consciously organized behavior towards language use and users to serve language promotion, spread, and authority. Specialists in the use of language such as writers, journalists, teachers, and linguists should co-ordinate their efforts to bring to a successful conclusion the process of language promotion. In support to this, the mass media should participate to reinforce all the activities in favor of the promotion.
To achieve efficiency in the process of promotion and development of CA and accomplish the task of language management, it is also necessary to invest in the popular base support. Algeria’s political project whether social, economic, political or linguistic rests on the readiness of its citizens to continue to create a policy that reflects their genuine aspirations and allows all the fractions of the population to benefit from the creation of the basis of social wealth, health and success. In fact, the denial of the Berber language and culture closed off a potential area of support Holt (1994:40).
The Arabic language needs to be assigned greater communicative roles and prestige - boosting functions if any attitudes towards it are to be positively influenced and shaped. The need to empower the Arabic language for greater functions in national life is a must. Language teachers, material developers, curriculum specialists, information scientists advertising writers, personnel officers, and other human resources that appear to have a role to play have to be attracted and encouraged to participate.
Language managers must organize through a research institution, which will house the different research groups that operate through committees, designed at local and regional level. The creation of a language research institute, which deals with national language issues, is desirable for it will house different wings dealing with Berber and Arabic language studies given the importance and the role they play in the preservation of the cultural heritage and social cohesion. Creating an Office of Language Research and Development which will be
206 Chapter four : Language Management and Marketing related to the High Council of the Arabic language already in service will certainly be reinforcing. The office should be equipped with a centre of documentation and investment on documentation. The latter offers its services to the Educational Programme Design Centre and the High School of Translation expertise and Investment which supplies the necessary human resources for translation activities to the Terminology Formation Centre. For an efficiency worry, these centres are organized into Group of Research and Development each versed respectively in education scientific subject matters and scientific knowledge transfer. The latter includes a committee appointed to promote translation activities. It selects works according to their knowledge value. This committee participates in updating the stock of knowledge and enables users to have access to knowledge in an almost instantaneous manner through the Arabic language. Additionally, the translation activity participates in engaging the renewal and enrichment of the expressive potential of the Arabic language.
The research groups are further organized into as many respective workshops as necessary on the basis of the specificity of the educational subject matter targeted and relevancy to the domains the Arabic language is planned to make entry. They may correspond to the present research laboratories. The workshops are in constant liaison with a coordination group which is multidisciplinary, and assesses the results of researchers according to a prior established agenda maintains fluid ties and connections between the two centres to harmonize their activities, and validate the attainments. A social marketing service centre and an audit group accompany these efforts for the sake of diffusion and improvement.
The social marketing activities concentrate on the presentation of the product and its channelling to reach the targeted audience. The audit group assists by conducting social and implementation surveys to check the efficiency of the marketing strategies and their impact on consumers. It is accountable to the Office of Language Research and Development, which
207 Chapter four : Language Management and Marketing in turn is accountable to the High Council of the Arabic Language. The latter is directly related to the various State sectors in order to put pressure on and to ensure implementation of the adopted programmes.It also conducts regular checks through an auditing group whose target orbits around the degree of involvement of the State sectors in implementing the policy of language planning. Figure (4:208) offers a layout of the various agencies, and it may be adapted according to necessity.
The language experts in the Office of Language Research and Development are organized into two broad groups of language research. Each is attributed specific research concerns dealing with language issues. A certain number of research workshops spring from each depending on the research agenda relative to the use of the language for special purposes - the number of workshops depends on the domains in which research is needed. Each workshop may also include sub group in case sub language tasks arise. These workshops are twined to a coordination group, which includes representatives from each workshop to see to the adequacy of the concepts and proposals made to meet the needs of knowledge transfer and a harmonized terminology. The agreed upon findings or proposals are then presented to the corresponding group of research and development in the different fields of science for adoption, adaptation or refusal. On the one hand, the Office of Language Research and Development, which is related to the workshops of research and development, and organized according to the different fields of science and technology, is attached to a Pedagogical Material Design Office. The latter elaborates the educational programs of the different academic levels in accordance with the global objective of research and development and the educational subject matters to be promoted. On the other hand, it is related to the various consuming sectors be they social, cultural, economic or industrial to see to the use and promotion of the language through the High Council of the Arabic Language. The task of the latter focus on preparing the language environment needed for the global objective of promotion and development, namely use given the role these sectors play in realizing the language project if they are geared to it.
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Further to the concerted activities the Office of Language Research and Development has with the different groups of research and development, it is linked directly to the ministry of education and culture to conduct jointly basic language research and research to improve the teaching of the Arabic language, and to check the planning policy. It is also required to coordinate its actions with all the other educational institutions such as universities, teacher training colleges and the various ministry bodies with language related functions to providing a comprehensive network dealing with language planning policy in Algeria. For facility purposes, each ministry should include a terminology committee and a language advisor to treat terminology failure instantaneously. Findings are proposed to the Office of Language Research and Development for validation. To maximize language management activities, the Office should encourage voluntary groups, and non-governmental agencies to participate in the language management activities. In addition, to avoid the educational policy having inadequate links with the labour market, the competent authorities are required to underpin the efforts by elaborating a job market planning and an employment policy to promote a society of full employment. This will also establish closer links between the educational sector and the economic one to operate in a process of continuous cycle as shown in figure (3:204).This will palliate to the existing mismatch between the world of education planning and the economic one. As Adamson (2004:29) argues, “the Algerian economy had not been able to grow at a rate that would provide sufficient employment opportunities for the new labor entrants.”
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Implementing Committees Ministries of education in the Various Sectors and culture of the State
High council of the Audit Group Arabic Language Audit Group
Office of Language Social Marketing Research & Development Service Centre High School of Translation expertise & Investment
Educational Documentation Programme Design Centre Centre and Investment
Translation &Terminology Formation Centre
Group of Research & Development (Scientific subject matters ) Group of Research & Development (scientific knowledge transfer )
Workshop (1)
Workshop (2) Workshop (1)
Coordination Workshop (3) Group Workshop (2)
Workshop (3) Workshop (4)
Workshop (4)
Figure (4) Language Management Agencies
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Job market
Economic planning and employment sector policy
educational sector
Figure (5)
4.10 Translation as Language Management Activity
First and foremost translation which is the process of transforming a piece of one language in another language and thus displacing or transferring knowledge from one culture to another requires insightful expertise in one’s language(s) and in foreign languages.The practice of translation is long established. A vast literature has been developed on the subject matter, and has so far exerted an important influence on the development of the theories. Translation studies cover an extremely wide range of fields of research from traditional or classic approaches to machine and electronic oriented translation. All efforts converge towards the elaboration of a science of translation given its importance in information processing and flow. Translation is crucial for the propagation of goods, products, services, concepts, ideas and values. In addition, the translator plays an essential role in the process of importing and exporting ideas, concepts, and rationales.
Standard practice regards every translation activity as a simultaneous decoding/ encoding process of the target text. Broadly speaking, Wikipedia defines translation as the interpreting of the meaning of the text and the subsequent production of an equivalent text, likewise called a translation that communicates the same message in another language. As
211 Chapter four : Language Management and Marketing regards Cronin (2003:41) “translation is all about making connectedness, linking one culture and language to another , setting up the conditions for an openended exchange of goods , technologies and ideas’’. As a process, while it decodes the meaning embedded in the text of the source language, henceforth (SL) it also transfers the meaning into a coded form in the target language, henceforth (TL). Thus, every translation becomes an extension of the original text, bringing fresh appreciation to it, as well as enrichment of TL. On this basis, this activity needs to be recognized not as a mere mechanical transference from one linguistic register to another, but as an encounter between two languages and cultures
In fact, the result is one of molding the culture of the SL embedded in the source text according to the morns and culture of the TL to ensure an understanding of the text by the TL readers. Accordingly, translation presents itself as a two way process which permits not only to assess the source text, but also to generate a new text in a different language by evaluating, activating, and adapting the expressive potential of the TL. This implies the idea that the process of translation requires skill building through expertise in the two languages and knowledge of the culture rooted in the SL.
In the search for equivalence, the translator strives to consider the subtle nuances and shades of meaning altogether with the idiomatic expressions of the SL to supply with befitting ones from the TL. When it happens, translation triggers the linguistic register potential of the TL and the working system of the language. As Benjamin (1979) puts it “… where the original text innovates, the translator is compelled to innovate: where the original uses culture specific language, the translator is free to be creative. So the rule is violated by play, by circumscribed creativity, by freedom within limits” Newmark (2004:6). Translation then, is a ruled governed activity which requires, throughout its practice, a readiness and talent of the translator to palliate to the TL deficiency if such is the case, involving then language development “by breaking the rules , by innovating, - sometimes syntactically and more often lexically, by giving words new senses”, Newmark (idem). The terms “harragua” and “hittist” may be cited by way of illustration. Though the expression “immigration sans papier” or “bruler” and “mur” correspond respectively to derive the equivalents, the audience factor and the social role of language impacted on the choice of the terms from Arabic Cicero (quoted in
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Malmkjaer de Kirsten, 2005:2) stressed the foreignization and domestication activity when translating from Greek to Latin. In the eyes of Cicero, this fact is an act of innovation. While giving Latin form to the Greek text, he resorted to the use of expressions common in the vernacular which is domestication, and expressions from Greek which corresponds to foreignization. 195 This enhances the services of translation, which brings about not only linguistic benefits, but also cultural ones in so much as it permits the flow of ideas. Newmark (1999:9) considers creativity in translation to “start when imitation stops”. In the case of informative texts, “the creative element is limited to fusing the facts with an appropriate elegant and economical style, (…) in persuasive texts; creativity often lies in converting SL cultural components neatly into their cultural equivalents (…). However, it is in expressive texts – poetry, stories, sagas, that are considered to be untranslatable (…) where words represent images and connotations rather than facts – that creativity comes to play, and the play becomes creative.” Newmark (op cit: 7, 8).
If large scale efforts of translation are undertaken by a large scale language, the SL may keep the monopoly of information, but the practice of translation by other languages defeats it as a medium of wider distribution .Translation becomes then an important strategy in today’s globalizing world. Consequently, the community of the TL does not undergo the linguistic pressure of the SL or at least its impact is lessened in case the SL has the status of a functional language admitted to operate within the sociolinguistic situation. The status of the SL will be limited to the status of a foreign language use restricted by a policy of translation. Both cultures and their respective languages remain close and distanced at the same time. Close as far as the give and take operation is concerned and distanced as long as the operation happens through their respective intermediaries playing the role of peace making troops. Cronin, M (op. cit) argues, “Our cultural health and survival relies as much on our mutual connectedness as our physical well being relies on safeguarding the planet together. Nevertheless, in our connectedness, translation also reminds us that there is a therapeutic value in distance’’.
195 Malmkjaer de Kirsten, Linguistics and the language of translation ,Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press ,2005
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4.11 Conclusion As stated earlier, “language planning is people planning”, and therefore language management is people management. In the case of language management, the idea wheels around the strategies necessary to accompany language promotion and development , and the interest given to the social ,and economic domains that are not only concerned with language use but influence language as well . As long as language is a human phenomenon, investing on the human factor becomes the most important phase to be given the utmost priority in any activity concerned with language planning and management issues. It is for this very reason that human resource development emerge to be a very important strategy for the development of language. In fact, the human resource development constitutes the framework for the expansion of the human capital within a group, a community, a society, or a nation necessary to elaborate the social and cultural capital needed to set the machinery of language promotion and development in its path of evolution. Furthermore, no one denies that language is sensitive to the underlying political, social, economic, scientific and education planning.
In addition to daily use, language users have some kind of drives in using a language among which the social, educational, and economic services a user derives from language use. Socially, users are in a constant search for the improvement of their social rank within society, educationally, users must be language and knowledge empowered to foster their well- being and that of the society as well. Economically, language constitutes a product a person uses for certain needs that have economic returns.
Taken from this optical angle language planning and policies must be tightly linked to all sectors of national life be they directly or indirectly related to users of a language. Furthermore, all of the organizations be they governmental or not in addition to the intellectual community are required to participate in the language enterprise. It should be mentioned as well that language management is not only a process of constant academic research in the different fields that are status and corpus language centered ,but also an evaluation one requiring auditing activities , and a marketing one requiring activities to bring the language closer to the users . For this purpose, a language management organization which includes the various influential parts and focusing on the participation of experts each according to the field of practice from a bottom top relation is proposed.
214 General Conclusion
It is not so evident to separate language policy from language planning. Planning is not resorted to without policy, and language planning itself presupposes policy implementation, which tends to generate policy modification and planning constant adjustment, in a potentially endless fashion. Language policy and planning constitute a unity, which requires a kind of constant assessment process.
Generally, governments and competent language agencies are concerned with language policies elaboration, which are designed in such a way to support the political goals of the government. In standard practice, language policy addresses national and local affairs, focusing particularly on governments, but recently, language policy has stirred a rather broader definition, embracing not only governments and government agencies but also other institutional settings including any domain and institution, which use language in one way or another.
The implementation of language policy and planning and the resulting effects have brought to notice the ramifications and spread far beyond national boundaries in numerous ways. The adoption of particular language policies in one country may affect language practices or policies on the other side of the border. Decisions regarding which foreign languages to teach in addition to the national language policy may affect the countries where those languages are spoken. They even play decisive effects on workforce readiness. Particular countries adopt international language acquisition policies in accordance with their type of international contact. Given the relationship between language spread and power spread, countries whose languages are positioned among wider communication ranks deploy important efforts to conquer the language markets through different appealing services. Thus, the British Council promotes English internationally; the Alliance Française promotes French, and the Goethe-Institute promotes German. In some cases, particularly regarding English, other governments are obliged to develop a policy in order to maintain and strengthen their economic or political position in the face of English-language dominance. On another level, the individual also engages as a pivotal agent to enforce or counter oppose the language policies. One chooses to learn and use languages because of his estimates of the relative
215 General Conclusion utility of languages. Thus, there exists a parallel language market in which the individual is a free agent; while scholars, politicians, and decision-makers explore alternative policies for the use of languages within their countries on the basis of the relative costs and advantages of particular configurations of languages, and other sensible assumptions, and approaches. The so called languages of wider communication, in essence the languages of power and higher status, operate as boundary markers of socio-economic mobility. These languages “ready for use” largely exclude and still marginalize the vast majority of languages among which the Arabic language from various aspects of domains of use that are considered the pillars of its development. Indeed, knowledge of these languages is considered a sine qua non condition for higher condition and socio-economic success. This recognition engendered a local split within the underdeveloped societies between the very few who use these languages and the great many who do not but represent the ones that are vital in the process of language policy and planning project realization .
If locally, these very few enjoy the benefits of their language skills, internationally they still stay behind at a disadvantage in relation to those who have them as a mother tongue. Those who have the language at their disposal and especially those who have it as a mother tongue are able to think and manipulate it to their own advantages at the expense of those who do not have it maintaining thus, the difference between the linguistically capital rich and the least ones. Language proficiency intervenes as a discriminating factor. Cited in Djité, G Paulin (2008:180), Barbotin has noted that if native speakers function 100% of their potential those who speak it very well function at 50% of their potential while those who do not, but are obliged function at 10%. This suggests the notion of linguistic capital as related to Bourdieu’s view of cultural capital which plays an important role to position the user within the linguistic market. Cited in D. Corson (1999:20) , Bourdieu distinguishes between “inherited cultural capital», possessed by all socio-cultural groups and “academic cultural capital”.
216 General Conclusion
In educational terms, and according to the cultural capital thesis (Morrison,1995:438) cited in Talbot et al (2003:274) argues that “some students possess the cultural background and dispositions (e.g a positive attitude to school, motivation, parental support, social advantage ,ease in dealing with authority ,high culture, linguistic facility ) so that when they meet school knowledge they can engage it comfortably and take advantage of it”. This, according to M. Talbot et al (op cit)
“Advantages the life of chances of those who already possess cultural capital as their uptake of education is high. Those with less of the valued cultural capital have a lower uptake of the same knowledge as it is culturally alien to them, and, thereby, their life chances are reduced”. The same holds true for the linguistic capital. Linguistic capital can be defined as fluency in and comfort with, a high status, worldwide language that is used by groups who possess economic, social, cultural and political power and status in local and global society”.
The cultural capital together with the linguistic capital constitute the power of their holders and pave the way to school success, opportunities to improve the school language,and open up chances for social mobility which will impact on the quality of life and self- actualization and esteem. As regards the linguistc capital, Talbot et al (op cit: 275) argues “linguistic capital, like other forms of capital (cultural, social, human, economic, and political) has exchange value in a market economy”. Linguistic capital which usually translates into educational capital should lead to economic capital by providing entry into lucrative careers in an increasingly competitive job market otherwise it becomes devalued.
In fact, Language policy planning has not been as successful as its proponents have liked it to be for it has not been taken as a complex whole whose interrelated components cannot be dissociated nor neglected. It rather unfolds as a complex process, which requires in addition to linguistic oriented objectives, the support of the social and economic environment with all its components. School as an institution, which concerns all these environments, must represent their utmost worry together with its outcome.
217 General Conclusion
Certainly, the language planning policy should begin at grassroots educational levels but need arises to take further educational levels principally into consideration at higher educational level given their importance in providing the human resources necessary for the consuming sectors. In practice, the policy took a fractionated implementing process in terms of the school population and subject matters. To address the global development project, the language planning and policy-makers authorities needed to invest on the human resources and the consuming corresponding sectors to take in charge the incoming school product from the academic levels which have already been engaged in the language planning policy. Higher education authorities together with the economic sector needed to be prepared to play fully their role in an interrelated planning style.
At some point of development, the language planning implementation needs to pass through an auditing to provide a need analysis data sheet serving as a tool for a joint committee composed of the influential sector representatives to find out how incoming human resources can be injected into the educational training and the economic market. This constitutes targeted planning activities.
Providing competent and suitably trained teachers who can work through the medium of Arabic will help achieve an effective Arabization as well . The latter must begin with the preparation of competent teaching staff, so that the teaching of a subject in Arabic can continue throughout the system. Before making use of Arabization at the lower levels, it seems reasonable to make sure that enough teachers at the higher levels are given timely preparation. This would avoid the problem of Arabized students who, upon attaining a more advanced level in their education, do not find qualified teachers to teach them in the language in which they have up to now continued their studies, and whose advancement now necessitates mastery of a second language. Upgrading methodology for teaching Standard Arabic in the schools would be another worthwhile step for successful implementation of the Arabization policy . Teachers
218 General Conclusion should be supplemented with interesting and authentic material. Furthermore, technology must be introduced to make the teaching of Arabic more attractive and lively. As has been stated by OCDE annual report (2004:45), the quality of teaching is a key factor in determining how well students learn. It depends on the professional quality of the people in the teaching professions, their initial education and continuing professional development, as well as their work practices and work environment.
Elaborating a job policy market to offer the school product and mainly the university one with the corresponding job offer so that the industrial and economic sectors become an extension phase, which enables new entrants to develop further their skills and talents. Another domain, which represents a chance not to waste, is to embark as early as possible in curriculum projects concerning the LMD formula.
When it comes to the language marketing agency, there is a chance not to miss and which may be considered a golden opportunity. As Algeria and the Arab countries are engaging in the process of the educational reform proposed by the European Union, it is a must that LMD project managers participate with competing programs to improve the quality and profile of the university. The LMD managers should think of developing tasks for curriculum design to participate in LMD market at the international level, otherwise our universities will constitute a LMD tronc commun phase in the global university hierarchy supplying ready transferable human resources for elsewhere, an academic training market or an opportunity for a market distant learning perspectives . In such a case, we will not only import goods but import education services in the form of curriculum designs operational in the others’ languages only. Proficiency in a European language becomes then essential for upward academic mobility and a privilege status in society. In the case of Arabic, this would lead in turn, to its becoming increasingly marginalized and may tend to obsolescence. Another problem awaiting us in case of a shortage or absence of LMD competitive training programs resides in the bleeding human linguistic capital resources, which will participate furthermore to perpetuate inequality and promote conflict between “home trained human resources” and those “trained elsewhere”.
219 General Conclusion
Knowing that the LMD reform is creeping to reach the different parts of the world and which, in fact, is but a language management project as training designs are conducted in the providers’ language, the Arab countries need to constitute together an organized body to take the initiative and encourage the development of training designs in Arabic. This will contribute to the formation of the human and linguistic capital .In parallel, an efficient foreign language policy must be adopted to engage in engineering translation works to transfer knowledge into the Arabic language so that the masses are brought to process knowledge and operate in their own language of wider communication (national official language).
It is only through the promoting of greater intellectual and scientific independence from the West through concerted activities, that developing countries can divert the European higher educational reform through which the leading powers intend to drag the whole developing world into, i.e, the joint globalization “partition project”. The objective behind consists of including the promotion of the Arabic language in the LMD agenda .Furthermore; this can be done at different levels. The Arab world and the African countries can coordinate their efforts to participate in the process of human resource transfer and mobility in the two ways: towards a European Union functioning in its corresponding languages, and African and Arab countries functioning in their respective languages as well.
Designing programs of competitive value will certainly serve promotion and marketing objectives. There is an urgent need to direct activities towards a language planning policy and an educational planning policy, which takes into consideration local conditions and needs. The language policy should constitute a lever, which seeks in addition to the political endeavour, to promote social, economic and knowledge empowerment. It should be a policy which combines distinctiveness + empowerment rather than distinctiveness - empowerment.
Another important strategy to enforce language management activities resides in the adoption of long life-learning formula. Long life learning constitutes an important strategy, which operates at two levels. It offers chances of education to those who did not have a chance for schooling, and allows early dropouts who joined the job market earlier to take up again their studies for professional mobility purposes. Furthermore, this formula serves those whose professional services became obsolete to take up again their studies to fit the newly demanding job market.
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Annex
Les Kabyles
Revendication identitaire avant 1980 Chronologie du mouvement berbère d'avant 1980 L'avant guerre 23 Janvier 1945 :
Mohand Idir Ait Amrane, étudiant au lycée de Ben-Aknoun, compose le premier chant patriotique en berbère moderne, intitulé "Ekker a mmis umazigh" (debout fils d'Amazigh). Le compositeur y évoque les illustres fondateurs de la nation algérienne : Massinissa, Jugurtha, Kahina, et Messali. Il termine son chant par un appel à la jeunesse en vue du combat pour la libération de l'Algérie. Ce chant, considéré à l'époque comme hymne, connaîtra un léger mais très significatif remaniement en 1949, suite à la crise dite berbériste. Son auteur y éliminera le nom de Messali.
Même mois : Ouali Bennai, membre de la Direction de la Grande-Kabylie du PPA, est désigné agent de liaison du Parti avec les étudiants du lycée de Ben-Aknoun, à majorité berbérophone, originaires de Grande-Kabylie. Il jouera un rôle très important dans leur sensibilisation au patriotisme et à la prise en charge de leur identité amazigh.Au Comité d'organisation du PPA, Ouali Bennai; responsable du PPA en Kabylie, demande l'unification en une seule région des deux Kabylies (la Grande-Kabylie et la Petite-Kabylie ), qui constituent, pour lui, une même et seule région naturelle que le colonialisme avait artificiellement scindée pour des raisons politiques, le fameux principe de diviser pour régner. La direction du Parti refuse. Ce problème resurgira plusieurs fois au sein du PPA/MTLD puis du CRUA(Comité Révolutionnaired'Unitéetd'Action).
Mai 1945 : Ali Halit, chef du district de la Kabylie, n'échappe pas lui aussi à la vague d'arrestations enregistrée en Kabylie. Il est remplacé par Ouali Bennaï à la tête du district kabyle. Mars 1946 : Amar Kilellil ( ancien militant du PPA et membre de la direction du Parti entre 1939 et 1943 ), chargé de la liaison entre la direction et la Kabylie, effectue une tournée dans le district de Grande-Kabylie. Lors d'une réunion de district, les militants dont Amar Ould- Hamouda, Mohand Amokrane Khelifati, Ali Laimèche et Hocine Aït Ahmed, exposent le problème identitaire berbère. Ils demandent, selon Aït Ahmed, qu'un débat soit entamé sur la
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question et que celle-ci ne reste plus un tabou. Ils chargent Khellil de transmettre à la Direction leur demande d'avoir" voix aux délibérations et aux décisions du Parti". Contrairement à Aït Ahmed, Khelifati Mohand Amokrane, cité par Ouerdane, parle lui de la" mise entre parenthèses de la question de la langue berbère" au cours de la même réunion.
6 Août 1946 : Ali Laimèche, membre du groupe des lycéens berbéro-nationalistes de Ben- Aknoun et un des responsables des Scouts Musulmans d'Algérie (SMA) en Kabylie, meurt de la typhoïde. Plusieurs milliers de personnes assistent à ses funérailles dans son village natal d'Icheraiouène près de Tizi-Rached.
Février/Mars 1947 : A l'issue du premier congrès du PPA/MTLD, quatre cadres de la Kabylie, animateurs du mouvement dit berbériste, font leur entrée au Comité central du Parti : Omar Oussedik devient adjoint d'Ahmed Bouda, Amar Ould-Hamouda devient haut cadre de l'0.S., Hocine Aït-Ahmed devient chef national de l'0.S., et Ouali Bennai responsable du parti en Kabylie."Le message de Yougourtha", ouvrage de Mohand-Chérif Sahli est diffusé par l'Union Démocratique du Manifeste algérien (UDMA) de Ferhat Abbas. Il est en même temps saboté par le MTLD.
Novembre 1947 : Ouali Bennai convoque quatre berbéro-nationalistes dont : Amar Ould- Hamouda, président de la séance, Sadek Hadjeres et Mohand Idir Ait Amrane pour une réunion dans une salle de l'Association des Étudiants, Bd Baudin (Bd Amirouche) à Alger, pour constituer une cellule de réflexion et procéder à une étude comparative de la doctrine révolutionnaire du PPA, face à la politique réformiste du MTLD.
Juillet 1948 : Ouali Bennai invite, en secret de la direction du PPA/MTLD et de l'administration coloniale, une quinzaine de militants berbéristes et militants du PPA/MTLD à un séminaire bloqué qui dure trois ou quatre jours au village "Arous" près de Fort-National (Larbaa-Nath-Irathen) en Kabylie. Sont présents entre autres : Ouali Bennai, Amar Ould- Hamouda, Mohand Idir Ait Amrane, Said Ali Yahia, Said Oubouzar, Mohand Cid Ali Yahia dit Rachid, Sadek Hadjeres... Deux points essentiels sont à l'ordre dujour : 1- Condamner la politique réformiste du MTLD et appuyer l'idée du passage à la lutte armée. 2- Introduire la dimension berbère dans l'organisation de la future Algérie indépendante. Un rapport est écrit et remis à Ouali Bennai pour l'exposer devant le Comité central du Parti.Mohand Idir Ait-Amrane est chargé par ses camarades, à la fin de la réunion, de rencontrer Mouloud Mammeri pour un éventuel travail sur la langue berbère.
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Novembre 1948 : Ali Yahia Mohand Cid dit Rachid, étudiant à Paris, ami très attaché à Bennai et membre très actif du groupe berbériste, est élu au Comité fédéral par le congrès fédéraldelaFédérationdeFranceduMTLD.
Fin de l'année 1948 : Le MTLD diffuse une brochure de 50 pages intitulée : "Mémorandum à l'0.N.U.", qui s'ouvre par : " La nation algérienne, arabe et musulmane, existe depuis le VIIeme siècle". Il occulte, de ce fait, la composante berbère de l'Algérie. Ce document a soulevé, à l'époque, une indignation et un climat de mécontentement, de méfiance et de rejet chez les militants berbéristes. Il alimente les contradictions et élargit le fossé entre les tenants de l'arabisme et les tenants du berbérisme.
La crise berbèriste Mars 1949 : Ali Yahia Cid dit Rachid, étudiant en droit à Paris et membre du Comité directeur de la Fédération de France du PPA/MTLD, réussit à faire voter une motion dénonçant le mythe d'une Algérie arabo-islamique et défend la thèse de l'Algérie algérienne. Elle est acceptée à une majorité écrasante : 28 voix sur 32. Pour certains responsables du Parti, le concept de"l'Algérie algérienne"est un concept colonialisteetdoncanti-nationaliste.
15 Avril 1949 : Juste après ce vote, la Direction du PPA/MTLD, sentant une prise en main de la Fédération de France par les militants de l'Algérie algérienne, donne l'instruction à Embarek Fillali, représentant à Paris, d'organiser un commando pour reprendre de force les locaux de la Fédération, et diffuse un tract pour condamner le berbérisme. Au même moment, Radjeff Belkacem, ancien de l'ENA et membre du conseil de la Fédération de France, originaire de Kabylie, réunit le Comité fédéral constitué de 25 membres et fait voter une motion : " Condamnation de la déviation politique du Comité Fédéral". Elle recueille 12 voix pour et 13 voix contre. Suite à ce résultat, Radjeff se réunit avec quelques militants dont le Dr Chawki Mostefai et Sadok Saidi, originaires de Kabylie eux aussi, dépêchés par la Direction d'Alger pour régler le problème et "récupérer" la Fédération des mains des "scissionnistes". Ils décident ensemble d'organiser des groupes d'autodéfense contre les berbéristes. L'effectif, selon Radjeff, atteint 70 hommes. Des bagarres éclatent entre ces groupes et les tenants de l'Algérie algérienne pour la récupération des locaux du Parti, notamment dans les 18e et 19e arrondissements de Paris.
Même mois : De Paris, Ali Yahia Rachid, sentant le danger, suite à l'intervention de la Direction d'Alger, lance un appel à Ouali Bennai pour l'aider. Ce dernier, en voulant se rendre
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à Marseille, est arrêté au port d'Oran par la police.L'arrestation de Bennai par la police est suivie par celles de plusieurs cadres de la Kabylie. Omar Boudaoud, responsable de l'O.S en Basse Kabylie, est arrêté à Rebeval (Baghlia), Said Oubouzar, responsable politique de la région de Tizi-Ouzou est arrêté à Alger; Amar Ould Hamouda, un des responsables de l'O.S et membre du Comité central est arrêté à Alger, Omar Oussedik, membre du Comité central et adjoint d'Ahmed Bouda est arrêté à Alger. Ils sont tous torturés puis incarcérés. "Ces arrestations créent un profond malaise au sein des militants kabyles qui accusent les dirigeants du Parti de "complicité" avec l'administration coloniale". Ces hauts responsables et permanents du Parti sont accusés, alors qu'ils se trouvent en prison, de berbérisme, de régionalisme et d'anti-nationalisme par la Direction du PPA/MTLD. Ils seront tous exclus du Parti. Ait Amrane leur dédie en septembre 1949 un chant : "Si Lezzayer ar Tizi-Wezzu" (d’Alger à Tizi-Ouzou).
Juillet 1949 : Vingt-deux (22) responsables de la Kabylie (chefs de zones) se réunissent dans la région d'Azazga; toute la Kabylie, semble-t-il, y est représentée pour discuter du problème du berbérisme et essayer de débloquer la situation. Le Parti, dans cette région d’Algérie, enregistre des démissions collectives importantes. Un rapport rédigé par Saïd Ali Yahia (étudiant) devait être remis à Messali Hadj par une délégation composée de trois membres Abdelkader Ait Sidi Aissa, Cheikh Mohand Ouameur et Messaoud Oulamara. Ils sont aussitôt reçus par Messali qui les félicite d'avoir entrepris une telle initiative. Il promet de les convoquer bientôt pour étudier le problème avec le Comité central. L'attente de la réponse du président du Parti fut longue.Sous le pseudonyme d'Idir El-Watani, trois étudiants : Sadek Hadjeres, étudiant en médecine, Mabrouk Belhocine et Yahia Henine, étudiants en droit et membres de la commission de rédaction du journal El-Maghreb El-Arabi, diffusent une brochure intitulée "L'Algérie Libre vivra" au sein du PPA/MTLD. Ce, pour "faire connaître les conceptions du courant de rénovation et réfuter l'accusation de berbérisme".Ils y développent notamment le concept de "nation".Pour les auteurs de la brochure, "la nation ne suppose obligatoirement ni communauté de race, ni de religion, ni de langue". Elle est basée sur quatre éléments indispensables : "le territoire, l'économie, le caractère national qui se traduit dans le mode de vie, la mentalité et la culture, le culte d'un même passé et le souci d'un même avenir". En réponse aux tenants de l'arabisme, ils expliquent que "l'existence en Algérie de deux langues parlées (référence aux langues arabes et berbère) n'empêche pas du tout la compréhension mutuelle des éléments qui les parlent". Au contraire "la diversité, loin de nuire, est (...) complémentaire et une source de richesses". Ils montrent l'existence d'une
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Algérie antérieure à l'Islam et plusieurs fois millénaire et complètent l'hypothèse de Messali qui limite l'histoire de l'Algérie au VIIeme siècle.
18 Août 1949 : Ferhat Ali, vieux militant de l'ENA, ancien opposant à Messali, militant du PPA/MTLD à Tizi-Rached et ami de Laimèche et des étudiants berbéro-nationalistes est atteint d'une balle de pistolet, tirée par Krim Belkacem accompagné de Hanafi Fernane et de Akli Djeffel, restés solidaires de la direction du Parti, après la crise de la Fédération de France. Ferhat "refuse, selon Aït-Ahmed, de se soumettre au diktat des chefs écartant l'ancienne équipe dirigeante en Kabylie". Peut-on voir ici une tentative de récupération de la Fédération de la Kabylie tenue par les berbéro-nationalistes, après celle de la Fédération de France?C'est l'avis des victimes. Le lendemain, l"'Echo d'Alger", quotidien colonialiste, profitant de l'incident, publie un article sous le titre "Des membres dissidents du PPA veulent créer le P.P.Kabyle...", déclaration présumée de Ferhat Ali.
20 Août 1949 : Après la lecture de l'article cité plus haut, le groupe des étudiants berbéro- nationalistes décide de dépêcher Ali Yahia Saïd et un autre militant auprès de Ferhat Ali pour lui faire signer une mise au point infirmant la déclaration de "l'Echo d'Alger'. Cette mise au point est publiée par "Alger Républicain" après le refus de "l'Echo d'Alger" de la publier. Il y est déclaré qu'il n'a jamais existé et il n'existera jamais de "P. P. Kabyle", pour la bonne raison qu'il n'y a qu'un peuple algérien dont les éléments, quoique d'origine ou de langues différentes, vivent fraternellement unis dans une même volonté de libération nationale".Après la récupération des locaux du Parti à Paris par Chawki Mostefai, Belkacem Radjeff, Sadok Saidi et Embarek Fillali, "une explication générale eut lieu à Alger à la Medersa "Er-Rached" en présence de tous les responsables du Parti. Les principaux dirigeants du Mouvement berbère, à l'exception d'Ait Ahmed, parce qu'il était recherché par la police, furent exclus du PPA".
Septembre 1949 : De prison, Ouali Bennai, voulant connaître la façon dont se déroulaient les événements politiques, envoie une lettre à Said Ali Yahia, que Maître Abderrahmane Kiouane, avocat du parti, devait lui remettre. Il lui demande : "que devient le M.R.B ?". Cette lettre, lue et photographiée par la direction du Parti, est distribuée à toutes les kasmates du PPA/MTLD. Elle est, pour la direction, une preuve irréfutable de la présence d'une organisation secrète, dite "Mouvement révolutionnaire berbère "mise sur pied par Bennai". Elle déclenche en fait une campagne anti-berbère. Elle sert à condamner le berbérisme avec une ardeur et un acharnement jamais connus.Des délégués itinérants sont envoyés par la
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Direction du (PPA/MTLD) à toutes les kasmates d'Algérie. Leur mission est de faire condamner le "berbérisme". Leur preuve, la lettre envoyée de prison par Bennai. Les moyens : tous les moyens d'explication et de condamnation, y compris insultes et intimidations. Pour l'envoyé à Tiaret, les "berbéristes" "étaient des alliés objectifs du colonialisme". A Alger et notamment à Belcourt, des bagarres et des matraquages entre les arabo-islamistes et les berbéro-nationalistes ont éclaté. Ces incidents n'ont pas touché seulement les berbéro- nationalistes mais aussi les militants arabophones qui soutenaient le concept de l'Algérie algérienne et qui sont en majorité originaires de l'Oranie. Belaid Ait Medri, agent de liaison de Kabylie est remplacé par Fernane Hanafi
Octobre 1949 : Le Comité Central du MTLD convoque Messaoud Oulara à Alger pour discuter du problème "berbériste". Il est accompagné de Laifa Ait Waban et Salem Ait Mohand. Ils sont reçus par Mustapha Ferroukhi, Rabah Bitat, Ahmed Bouda et Hocine Lahouel (secrétaire général du MTLD). Ce dernier accuse "à tort et à travers les ennemis du pays, sans les nommer, les agitateurs et les malhonnêtes". Messaoud Oulamara répond que Messali s'avère "le principal responsable de la pagaille" que vit le Parti.
1952 : Liquidation physique de Ali Rabia alias Azzoug (Le sourd), chef de zone du MTLD à Makouda en Kabylie, pour "berbérisme" sur ordre de Belkacem Krim, sous prétexte de relations douteuses avec la femme qui l'hébergeait. Le spectre des liquidations des berbéristes est ainsi inauguré. Plusieurs militants de la cause nationale seront assassinés par lesleurs.
04 Décembre 1953 : Le PPA/MTLD, par le biais de son organe de presse "L'Algérie libre", dénonce la pièce de théâtre de Abdellah Nakil intitulée "El-Kahina". La pièce mise en scène le 27 novembre 1953 par Mustapha Kateb, retrace l'histoire de l’invasion arabe et la résistance des Berbères sous la conduite de Kahina, reine des Aurès
Mars 1954 : Une association culturelle dénommée 'Tiwizi I Tmazight" (entraide pour tamazight) est fondée à Paris Par un groupe de militants berbéro-nationalistes dont Ali Boudaoud, Hocine Heroui, Mohand Amokrane Haddag, Mohand Amokrane Khelifati... Son objectif est le développement de la langue berbère. Une revue qui porte le même nom est éditée par l'association. Mohand Idir Ait Amrane leur rend hommage par un poème en kabyle intitulé "A kra wer neggan udan".Cette association s’autodissout après le déclenchement du ler novembre 1954, ses membres rejoindront en bloc le Front de Libération Nationale.
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Août-Septembre 1954 : Lors des discussions sur la constitution du FLN, Mourad Didouche propose de diviser la Kabylie en deux. L'une sera rattachée à l'algérois et l'autre au Constantinois. Belkacem Krim s'oppose et obtient l'aval au cours d'une réunion avec Mohammed Boudiaf et Mostefa Ben Boulaid.Les séquelles de la crise dite "berbériste" de 1949 sont toujours présentes dans l'esprit des militants nationalistes.
La guerre d'Algérie 1956 : Amar Ould-Hammouda, ancien responsable de l’O.S et responsable numéro deux du mouvement berbère dans les années quarante, est assassiné avec Mbarek Ait Menguellet, lui aussi militant berbéro-nationaliste, par les responsables de la wilaya III pour berbérisme. Pour les responsables de base ces deux militants sont accusés d'avoir constitué un groupe qui prônait le communisme au sein du FLN en Kabylie. Sur ordre de Belkacem Krim, Ouali Bennai, ancien chef du PPA en Kabylie et principal chef du mouvement berbère exclu du PPA/MTLD en 1949, est assassiné à Djemaa Saharidj dans la wilaya III pour ses positions berbéristes. Selon M. Harbi : "Le Colonel Ouamrane l'avait fait avertir par Rabah Bouaziz de ne pas se rendre dans sa région et de rejoindre les maquis de la wilaya IV. Il savait qu'en Kabylie son sort était scellé".
L'Algérie indépendante Après sa libération, Ahmed Ben Bella lance de Tunis : "Nous sommes des Arabes, des Arabes, dix millions d'Arabes. !"
5 Juillet 1962 : Dans son discours, le président Ahmed Ben Bella, accentue sa politique arabiste. Pour lui, "l'arabisation est nécessaire, car il n'y a pas de socialisme sans arabisation..., il n'y a d'avenir pour ce pays que dans l'arabisation."
Septembre 1962 : L'écrivain Mouloud Mammeri tente de raisonner Said Mohammedi Premier ministre de l'Éducation de l'Algérie indépendante (1er gouvernement Ben Bella). Il lui propose en effet de réouvrir la chaire de berbère de l'université d'Alger abandonnée par A. Picard. S. Mohammedi répond en substance "mais, voyons, le berbère, tout le monde sait que c'est les pères Blancs qui l'ont inventé !...".La Jeunesse Sportive de Kabylie (JSK) renaît après un arrêt d’activité de 1956 à l’indépendance.
19 Septembre 1963 : Dans un discours devant l'assemblée nationale Ahmed Ben Bella lance :"La nation algérienne s'est déterminée fermement comme nation maghrébine, ne ménageant
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aucun effort pour aboutir à l'édification du Maghreb arabe. L'Algérie s'est aussi définie comme nation arabe, recherchant par tous les moyens le resserrement des liens avec les pays frères en vue d'aboutir à l'unité arabe..."
21 Août 1963 : Au cinquième congrès de l'UGEMA (Union générale des étudiants musulmans algériens) devenue UNEA, et en présence du président Ahmed Ben-Bella, les congressistes soulèvent la question de l'arabisation et le statut de la langue berbère, particulièrement" la nécessité du développement de la langue kabyle et la création d'un institut d'enseignement du berbère".
29 Septembre 1963 : Des militants créent le Front des Forces Socialistes (FFS). Ce parti d'opposition regroupe en majorité des militants kabyles. C'est d'ailleurs la raison pour laquelle il est taxé de régionaliste. Le FFS prône, dès Sa création, une opposition armée contre le régime du Président Ahmed Ben Bella. La Kabylie est le théâtre principal d’opérations militaires.
1963-64 : Une petite cellule comprenant trois universitaires d'origine kabyle : Amar Abada, Mouloud Mammeri et M'barek Redjala est mise en place à Alger. L'arrestation de Redjala et son emprisonnement de mai à août 1965 ainsi que les divergences d'ordre politique et idéologique qui ont surgi par suite, ont mis fin à l'existence de ce premier groupe qui a commencé à réfléchir sur le devenir de la langue berbère après l'indépendance de l'Algérie.Le chanteur Slimane Azem est interdit d'antenne (et ses disques interdits d'importation) à la chaîne kabyle de Radio-Alger. Quelques présentateurs non conformistes sont limogés (ex. Ahmed Aimene).Réduction des horaires de la chaîne kabyle. Celle-ci émettait auparavant au rythme d'une vacation continue quotidienne, de seize heures de durée environ. On ramène le tout à moins des neuf heures trente découpées en trois tranches quotidiennes (2 x 2h30 + une fois 4h30).
1964-65 : Sur le plan scolaire, il était possible de présenter aux épreuves du baccalauréat français le berbère comme épreuve facultative. L'examinateur était alors Mammeri.
L'AcadémieBerbère 10 Août 1966 : Un groupe de militants berbéristes dépose à la préfecture de Paris les statuts de l'Association berbère d'échanges et de recherches culturels (A.B.E.R.C) qui s'est fixé pour but "de faire connaître la culture spécifiquement berbère, l'étude de la langue et de la civilisation berbères". Elle se propose "d'étudier l'histoire berbère et de dresser la fresque de
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cette grande et antique civilisation encore méconnue du grand public". L' A.B.E.R.C. s'interdit "toutes discussions politiques ou religieuses". Son bureau est constitué de Abdelkader Rahmani (ingénieur), Amar Naroun (homme de lettres), Mohand Amokrane Khelifati (manœuvre), Said Hanouz (pharmacien), Mohand Arab Bessaoud (instituteur), Djaffar Oulahbib (chef électricien).L'A.B.E.R.C. est enregistrée à la préfecture de police de Paris le 3 février 1967. L'ABERC ou Académie Berbère connaîtra un essor remarquable. Elle diffusera un bulletin en Kabylie, dans l'algérois et dans les Aurès pour sensibiliser le plus grand nombre de personnes, surtout la jeunesse, autour de leur identité. Elle drainera plusieurs milliers de jeunes. Mais son militantisme politique excessif voire raciste, la répression et son statut mal défini, feront éloigner d'elle les intellectuels et les compétences scientifiques berbères.
Rentrée Universitaire 1967 : M. Mammeri ayant rencontré Ahmed Taleb alors ministre de 1' Éducation (anciennement opposant à Ben Bella) reçut l'ordre verbal de celui-ci pour réouvrir de façon informelle la chaire de berbère à l'université d'Alger.
07 Juillet 1967 : M'barek Redjala adresse une lettre à Hocine Ait Ahmed, leader du Front des Forces Socialistes (FFS), sur la question berbère. Il écrit notamment : "Je signale à l'intention de tous que l'idée d'une réhabilitation de la culture et de la langue berbère fait du chemin en Algérie, et que tout parti qui n'en tiendrait pas compte ne saurait bénéficier des masses de la Kabylie. Les plus avancés songent même à la création de la nation berbère. Les jeunes intellectuels berbères y voient la seule issue à la longue et douloureuse tragédie que nous vivons. Nous sommes obligés de les freiner dans leur zèle de vouloir dès maintenant poser le problème de la nation berbère. Ils expliquent leur attitude par la crainte qu'ils ressentent de voir l'arabe éliminer les dialectes berbères. L'argument est de valeur. Quoi qu'il en soit, ce problème doit nous préoccuper Si nous voulons canaliser, impulser au lieu de suivre lorsqu'il sera trop tard".Un groupe de lycéens du Lycée Amirouche de Tizi-Ouzou sont exclus du lycée lorsqu'ils se proposent de jouer une pièce de théâtre en langue tamazight.
26 Avril 1968 : Houari Boumediene signe une ordonnance rendant obligatoire pour les fonctionnaires et assimilés de nationalité algérienne d'origine, "la connaissance suffisante de la langue nationale" au moment de leur recrutement.Création du premier cercle culturel berbère à la cité universitaire de Ben-Aknoun (Alger). Ses activités sont axées sur le renouveau culturel : théâtre, émissions radiophoniques, cours de berbère animés par Mouloud Mammeri, cycles de conférences, premiers galas de la chanson kabyle, bibliothèque, création
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de journaux parmi lesquels la première revue berbère ''Taftilt". Mohamed Sedik Benyahia, ministre de l'information, organise une conférence où il reçoit une pétition de protestation lancée par des étudiants berbérophones contre la "destruction de la radio kabyle".
1967- 1968 : Les mesures d'économie prises par le pouvoir français ont progressivement réduit la chaîne kabyle de Radio-Paris à sa plus simple expression puisqu'en 1967168 elle ne disposait que de 15 mn d'émission quotidienne sur la même longueur d'onde que la chaîne arabe.Néanmoins, on y passait souvent Slimane Azem. L'animateur de cette chaîne, Hamid, a même assuré en quelque sorte une certaine publicité à la récente "Académie berbère" dont il était membre.
02 Mai 1969 : Saïd Hanouz et Mohand Arab Bessaoud déclarent à la Préfecture de police de Paris la création de l'Académie "Agraw Imazighen". Son but est l'étude et la sauvegarde de la culture berbère. Elle diffuse un journal mensuel "Imazighen". En réalité cette Académie n'est que l'ABERC qui a changé de nom.
22 Juillet 1969 : A l'ouverture du premier Festival culturel panafricain à Alger, le président Houari Boumediene dans son discours rappelle aux Africains que "longtemps contraints de nous taire ou de parler la langue du colonisateur, c'était un devoir essentiel et premier que de retrouver nos langues nationales, les mots hérités de nos pères et appris dès l'enfance." Il reconnaît "qu'il n'y a pas de langue qui, au départ, soit plus apte qu'une autre à être le support de la science et du savoir..."Le pouvoir de Boumediene interdit à la chanteuse et romancière berbérophone Taos Amrouche ainsi qu'à d'autres chanteurs berbérophones de représenter l'Algérie à ce même festival.Amère, Taos Amrouche écrira une tribune "en marge du festival" dans le journal le Monde (ce qui vaudra à celui-ci avec les articles sur le procès de Krim Belkacem, près d'une année d'interdiction !). Néanmoins, Taos Amrouche se produira au moins une fois à la fin juin 69 à la Cité Universitaire de Ben Aknoun grâce à l'invitation du "cercle d'études berbères" qui y fonctionna avec plus ou moins de bonheur entre 68 et 70, appuyé par le comité de gestion de la cité.
Rentrée Universitaire 1969 : M. Mammeri prend la succession de G. Camps à la direction du CRAPE (Centre de Recherche en Anthropologie, Préhistoire et Ethnographie). Il est appelé à se "retirer" quelque peu de l'Université, sans pour autant mettre sérieusement à profit les structures de recherche (pourtant intéressantes) du CRAPE.
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Les Années Boumediene
1970 : Les pressions du gouvernement algérien aboutiront à faire supprimer complètement l'émission en kabyle de Radio-Paris, alors qu'historiquement il n'y a jamais eu autant de berbérophones en France! A la chaîne kabyle de Radio-Alger, on notera que les reportages sportifs réalisés en direct des stades jusque-là en kabyle seront supprimés et assurés désormais par un relais de la chaîne en arabe. De la même façon on assiste unilatéralement au passage fréquent de disques en arabe sur la chaîne kabyle, alors que la réciproque sur la chaîne arabe ou mieux à la télévision n'est pas assurée (une chanson tous les trois à six mois au plus à la TV!).
15 Janvier 1971 : Le cercle d'études berbères et l'UNEA (Union Nationale des Étudiants Algériens) sont dissous par le pouvoir de Boumediene après de nombreuses manifestations, grèves et l'arrestation de plusieurs étudiants pour "menées subversives".
1972 : La célèbre chorale féminine kabyle du lycée Amirouche de Tizi-Ouzou (ayant obtenu les premiers prix au Festival de la chanson populaire), se verra contrainte par le proviseur et les autorités locales à chanter une grande partie de son répertoire en langue arabe.Si Mohamed Baghdadi (directeur des sports) propose une réforme du sport mettant en place "la commune sportive de base" et il prétend aussi lutter contre le régionalisme et pour l'arabisation : il obtient ainsi la transformation de la JSK (Jeunesse Sportive de Kabylie) en JSK (Jamai Sarrii al Kawkabi).
Mai-Juin 1972 : Un groupe de militants de la cause berbère suggère la création d'un enseignement de la langue berbère à l'Université Paris VIII (Vincennes). Cette initiative donne naissance au Groupe d'Études Berbères (G.E.B). L'enseignement de la langue berbère ne sera effectif qu'à partir du 29 janvier 1973 quand l'Université Paris VIII décide sa création.
1973 - 1974 : On assiste à la suppression définitive de la chaire de l'université d'Alger. Mammeri ne semble alors mener qu'un vague combat d'arrière-garde. En tout cas, la suppression s'est passée "en douceur". La discipline "ethnologie" disparaît de l'Université dans le cadre de la RES de 71 mise progressivement en application et l'enseignement du berbère n'est prévu dans le cadre d'aucun des modules des nouvelles licences de lettres ou de langues.La chanson kabyle connaît un essor qualitatif très important et une production intense. Face aux multiples interdictions de l'enseignement et de l'écriture du berbère, il ne
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reste plus que la chanson comme moyen d'expression et de revendication. Durant cette année des étudiants comme Ferhat Mehenni et tant d'autres créent le groupe "Imazighen Imoula" (Les berbères du nord). A l'initiative d'Amar Mezdad, d'autres étudiants kabyles créent à leur tour le groupe "Lazouq" où se retrouvent Sid Ahmed Abderrahmane, Mokrane Ghozlane, Ali Ouabadi et Idir. Mais c'est ce dernier qui, à travers sa chanson "baba Inouba", donnera un nouveau souffle à la chanson kabyle et lui permettra de s'internationaliser. thèmes de la chanson kabyle de ces débuts des années 1970, sont essentiellement axés sur la revendication identitaire et culturelle berbère, la liberté d'expression et la situation de la femme. On ne chante plus seulement les thèmes de l'amour, l'émigration et la religion. La chanson kabyle désormais "interroge, démontre, critique, propose, dénonce, loue, affronte, polémique et provoque". La politique d'oppression est le plus important leitmotiv.Face à son engagement, cette chanson, qui véhicule un discours radical et parfois virulent envers le pouvoir en place, connaîtra la répression et vivra dans la clandestinité. Ses interprètes seront successivement arrêtés ou marginalisés.
Juin 1974 : La fête des cerises à Larbaa Nait Irathen se termine très mal puisque la police et les gendarmes n'ayant pas suffi à contenir les manifestants, on fera appel à l'armée pour les réprimer durement. La foule était mécontente en raison du remplacement de plusieurs chanteurs kabyles par des improvisations de chanteurs en arabe. Cette même fête des cerises sera d'ailleurs interdite l'année suivante Novembre 1974 : Amar Ouerdane fonde l'Association socio-culturelle berbère de Montréal (Canada) dans le but de faciliter l'adaptation des immigrants algériens berbérophones en milieu québécois et canadien et aussi de diffuser le patrimoine berbère
1974-1975 : L'interdiction est faite à l'état civil d'enregistrer les prénoms autres que musulmans, ceux-ci faisant l'objet d'une liste exhaustive. C'est toute une série de prénoms berbères qui en fait les frais.
5 Janvier 1976 : Mohamed Haroun, militant berbériste et fils de chahid est arrêté par la Sécurité militaire à Alger pour avoir posé une bombe au tribunal militaire de Constantine.Cette bombe a été désamorcée à temps.C'est aussi le cas de Lounès Kaci et de Hocine Cheradi qui ont posé une bombe au siège du quotidien "El-Moudjahid" à Alger et de Mohamed Smaïl Medjeber qui a posé une bombe au tribunal militaire d'Oran le 3 janvier avec la complicité de Daniel Paul, de Salby Jay et d'André Noël Cherid. Le choix des cibles est très significatif : El-Moudjahid connu pour son aversion pour la question de tamazight, les
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tribunaux militaires où la répression est assez symbolique, (...) la chaîne de télévision un des outils les plus monstrueux de la répression".Ces poseurs de bombes sont accusés de trahison, d'atteinte à la sûreté de l'Etat, de complicité, de trafic de devises et de jets d'explosifs. Ils sont condamnés par le tribunal de Médéa le 2 mars 1976. Trois peines capitales, deux condamnations à perpétuité et d'autres peines allant de dix à Vingt ans de prison.
Avril 1976 : "Journée du savoir" - Yaoum El-Ilm. Journée commémorative de la mort en 1940 du cheikh Abdel-hamid Ben-Badis président de l'Association des Oulémas Algériens. Le chef de l'État dans une ordonnance, publiée au JORA le 23 avril 1976, définit l'organisation de l'éducation et de la formation.Après avoir défini la mission du système éducatif qui s'inscrit dans le cadre "des valeurs arabo-islamiques et de la conscience socialiste", l'enseignement est assuré en langue nationale à tous les niveaux d'éducation et de formation et dans toutes les disciplines.La mission de l'école fondamentale est de dispenser aux élèves "un enseignement de langue arabe leur permettant une maîtrise totale de l'expression écrite et orale; cet enseignement, qui est un facteur important de développement de leur personnalité, doit les doter d'un instrument de travail et d'échange pour se pénétrer des différentes disciplines et pour communiquer avec leur milieu". L'arabisation porte aussi sur l'enseignement préparatoire qui est dispensé "exclusivement en langue arabe".Cette ordonnance met fin d'une manière très claire aux espoirs et aux attentes des berbéristes et des berbérophones. Tamazight est ainsi mise à l'écart et exclue de l'école. Le choix de l'État algérien est désormais fait. L'arabisation est décrétée. Cette décision des plus hautes instances de l'État engendre un mépris jamais égalé dans les milieux berbérophones et surtout en Kabylie. La revendication se radicalise. Les contestations s'enveniment après la promulgation de la Constitution et de la Charte nationale qui renforcent l'arabisation et la définition de l'Algérie comme nation arabo-islamique. La répression s'abattra aussi sur les berbéristes.
Mai - Juin 1976 : Lors des débats sur la Charte nationale les étudiants militants berbéristes diffusent un document de 50 pages.A ces débats, les jeunes militants berbéristes ont pris part en masse. Sept cent vingt (720) prises de parole sont semble-t-il décomptées dans Alger. Ainsi la revendication culturelle et identitaire berbère connaît une ampleur importante. Elle se pose désormais dans des débats publics. Malgré cette "tolérance" le pouvoir utilise la répression.Après une intervention dans une salle de cinéma à Alger, l'étudiant et chanteur kabyle Ferhat Mehenni est arrêté pour la première fois par la Sécurité militaire. Ces
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interventions ont sans doute permis aux services de sécurité de mettre à jour leurs fichiers concernant les berbéristes et opposants à la politique culturelle du pouvoir.
27 Juin 1976 : La Charte nationale est adoptée par référendum. Ce document qui est un texte national fondamental définit l'Algérie comme étant une partie intégrante de la nation arabe.Le peuple algérien se rattache à la patrie arabe, dont il est un élément indissociable" (...)" L'Algérie n'est pas une création récente. Déjà sous Massinissa, fondateur du premier État numide, et de Jugurtha, initiateur de la résistance à l'impérialisme romain, s'était dessiné le cadre géographique et commençait à se forger le caractère national". (...) "A ces deux caractéristiques principales se sont ajoutés progressivement à partir du 7e siècle les autres éléments constitutifs de la Nation Algérienne, à savoir son unité culturelle, linguistique et spirituelle (...)". On peut affirmer, ajoute le texte de la Charte nationale, "que ces différentes périodes de notre histoire ont constitué un creuset où se sont fondus intimement les brassages ethniques, les apports de toutes sortes, comme les créations nouvelles du génie national, tout cela pour aboutir à une expression originale de la personnalité arabo-musulmane de notre peuple...".La politique culturelle s'attellera, selon la Charte, à concrétiser un projet des plus urgents : la généralisation de l'utilisation de la langue arabe qui "est un élément essentiel de l'identité culturelle du peuple algérien. On ne saurait séparer notre personnalité de la langue nationale qui l'exprime. Aussi, l'usage généralisé de la langue arabe, et sa maîtrise en tant qu'instrument fonctionnel, est une des tâches primordiales de la société algérienne au plan de toutes les manifestations de la culture et à celui de l'idéologie socialiste".Le choix de la langue arabe est fait. Il est irréversible. "Il ne s'agit nullement de choisir entre la langue nationale et une langue étrangère. Le problème du choix étant dépassé et irréversible, le débat sur l'arabisation ne peut porter, désormais, que sur le contenu, les moyens, les méthodes, les étapes, la conception générale d'une langue".Tout en dénonçant l'étouffement de la culture algérienne, l'uniformisation, le totalitarisme culturel, le PRS (Parti de la Révolution Socialiste), pour qui la langue arabe doit être la langue nationale, critique sévèrement le pouvoir algérien qui reste silencieux sur la question berbère dans les textes de la Charte nationale de 1976."Sur la question berbère, la Charte ne dit pas un mot. Voila donc un texte qui se présente comme national et qui évacue complètement un problème auquel sont sensibles des millions d'Algériens. (...) Or la langue berbère existe. C'est la langue maternelle d'une partie des Algériens. Elle doit être reconnue, préservée et développée comme partie intégrante de notre patrimoine national. Son enrichissement, son passage à la forme écrite, son enseignement, sa diffusion doivent être garantis.".Ainsi le PRS, avec à sa tête Mohamed
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Boudiaf, est le premier parti politique algérien à se prononcer en faveur de la question berbère.
27 Juin 1976 : Mohand Cid Ali-Yahia dit Rachid, ancien acteur important dans la crise dite berbériste de 1949, lance le Front Uni de l'Algérie Algérienne (F.U.A.A.) en France. Fidèle à son combat des années 1940 pour l'Algérie algérienne, Rachid Ali-Yahia, par son mouvement d'opposition au régime de Boumediene, renouvelle son combat pour l'identité algérienne et la question linguistique et culturelle.Ce front n'aura qu'une faible influence en Algérie. Quelques-uns de ses militants seront arrêtés en mars 1980.
Été 1976 : Pour avoir tiré des textes littéraires en Tifinagh sur ronéo et aussi pour avoir été abonnés au bulletin de l'Académie berbère (Agraw imazighen) de Paris, deux cents (200) jeunes de la région de Larbaa Nath Irathen sont arrêtés et emprisonnés. Ils seront, pour quelques-uns, condamnés jusqu'à 18 et 24 mois de prison.Afin de porter le coup de grâce à l'édition berbère en Algérie, le Fichier de Documentation Berbère (F.D.B) tenu depuis 1946 par le Père Jean Marie Dallet est mis sous scellés par le pouvoir de Boumediene. Ce Fichier est considéré comme source exceptionnelle de documents concernant l'étude de l'histoire, de l'ethnographie, de la littérature, de la linguistique des communautés berbérophones de Kabylie, du Mzab et de Ouargla. Ce fichier était au début un périodique mensuel, puis bimestriel, pour devenir à partir de 1955 trimestriel. On y trouve des monographies de villages de Kabylie, des études sur l'Islam, les croyances et superstitions, la sagesse populaire, la vie quotidienne, la zoologie, la botanique et la culture matérielle..
19 Juin 1977 : Lors du match final de la coupe d'Algérie de football opposant la Jeunesse Sportive de Kabylie (JSK) et le Nasr de Hussein-Dey (NAHD), les spectateurs kabyles scandent des slogans hostiles au président Boumediene, présent dans la tribune officielle, et au régime tels que : "JSK imazighen", "la langue berbère vivra", "à bas la dictature", "vive la démocratie"... La retransmission en direct de cette rencontre à des milliers de téléspectateurs révèle au peuple algérien l'expression d'un mécontentement et d'une contestation ouverte et radicale d'une population d'une région du pays, qui souffre d'une marginalisation identitaire et culturelle...
Septembre 1977 : A la suite de la manifestation en juin 77 à la finale (remportée par la JSK) de la coupe d'Algérie, une nouvelle réforme du sport est adoptée consacrant définitivement les ASP, c'est-à-dire le sport corporatif avec des joueurs semi-professionnels d'entreprises. La
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JSK devient Jamaia Electronic Tizi-Ouzou, JET intégrée à la Sonelec.Le ministère de l'Enseignement supérieur décide de l'ouverture du centre universitaire de Tizi-Ouzou (C.U.T.O.) où se retrouvent les cadres de la région et qui se mêlent au mouvement estudiantin pour la prise en charge de la revendication identitaire. Le C.U.T.O. verra le regroupement des étudiants kabyles jusque là éparpillés sur divers instituts de la capitale. Ce centre universitaire connaîtra des mouvements de grève non connus à l'époque en Algérie.L'ouverture du CUTO permettra aussi la circulation d'une documentation dite clandestine tels que les ouvrages de l'historien algérien Mohamed Harbi, les revues berbères de l'ACB et de l'Académie berbère, édités en France et diffusés sous le manteau en Algérie.On assiste à l'interdiction par le Wali de plusieurs chanteurs comme Idir, à Tizi-Ouzou sous prétexte d'absence de salle suffisante pour contenir les spectateurs et garantir la sécurité.
Novembre 1977 : La direction du PRS met en place une cellule de réflexion pour étudier le dossier berbère et élaborer des propositions concrètes en direction des groupes berbéristes.
28 Novembre 1978 : Ait Ahmed, secrétaire général du FFS, dans une déclaration, demande la reconnaissance de la "langue berbère comme langue nationale au même titre que la langue arabe".
10 Décembre 1978 : Des armes en provenance du Maroc sont parachutées à Cap-Sigli dans la wilaya de Béjaia en Kabylie, pour un éventuel soulèvement armé contre le régime de Boumediene, dix sept jours avant sa mort. Le groupe initiateur est arrêté par la sécurité militaire, "prouvant" et montrant ainsi l'échec d'une "tentative kabyle" de renversement du régime.En réalité cette affaire est connue dès le départ par la Sécurité militaire qui avait infiltré le groupe contestataire composé de personnalités historiques, comme Mohamed Benyahia, Ferhat Abbas, Belarbi, Boudjeloud, Ahmed Kadri. Ils seront traduits en justice à l'exception de Ferhat Abbas. Ils seront condamnés par le tribunal militaire de Blida à des peines allant jusqu'à 12 ans de prison.Cette affaire est exploitée par le pouvoir pour discréditer les berbéristes, qui n'avaient aucune relation avec celle-ci. Il montre du doigt le "danger berbériste" en des termes à peine voilés, ces "anti-nationalistes, soutiens du Maroc et du néo- colonialisme".
25 Décembre 1978 : Ait Ahmed dira à propos de la question berbère, qu' "il s'agit d'un problème de survie, pour une langue, une culture combattues par le colonialisme et auxquelles l'indépendance n'a pas offert de chance. Ce n'est pas en ignorant le problème qui concerne un
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Algérien sur trois qu'on le résoudra. Il faut le prendre en charge dans l'intérêt de la collectivité nationale et de son unité".Le chanteur populaire kabyle Lounis Ait Menguellet est interdit de se produire à l'Université.
Mars 1979 : Dans son "Avant-projet de plate-forme politique le FFS se prononce sur la question berbère. Il y est notamment écrit : La langue berbère a droit de cité dans la cité berbère, droit inaliénable que le colonialisme intérieur, pas plus que le colonialisme étranger, ne peut proscrire. Elle doit être officialisée et développée comme langue nationale, elle doit bénéficier de la part de l’état de l’égalité de traitement qui lui permette de rattraper le temps et le terrain perdus depuis l’indépendance.(...) Seuls les apprentis obscurantistes et les larbins mercenaires voudraient encore opposer la langue arabe et la langue berbère.Interdiction au Centre universitaire de Tizi-Ouzou d'une pièce de théâtre, adaptation en kabyle de la guerrede 2000 ans de Kateb Yacine.Des demandes successives d'enseignement du berbère à Alger, puis à Tizi-Ouzou, tour à tour, sont rejetées sans aucun motif explicite.
17 Octobre - 13 Novembre 1979 : Troisième grève des étudiants du CUTO depuis l'inauguration du centre universitaire en 1977. Ils posent notamment le problème de la représentation des étudiants dans l'instance universitaire.
Extraits de "Chronologie du mouvement berbère, un combat et des hommes" de Ali Guenoun, Alger : Casbah, 1999
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Centres universitaires
1 Centre universitaire de Ghairdaia 2 Centre universitaire de Khémis Méliana 3 Centre universitaire El Taraf 4 Centre universitaire Bordj Bou Arreridj 5 Centre universitaire de Souk Ahras 6 Centre universitaire de Bouira 1 Ecole Normale Supérieure de Kouba 2 Ecole Nationale Supérieure d’architecture 3 Ecole Nationale Supérieure Agronomie 4 Ecole Normale supérieure de Bouzéreah 5 Ecole Normale supérieure de Commerce 6 Ecole Nationale Supérieure d’Hydraulique Blida 7 Ecole Nationale supérieure Vétérinaire 8 Ecole Normale supérieure de Constantine 9 Ecole Nationale supérieure polytechnique 10 Ecole Nationale supérieure des Sciences Commerciales et Financières 11 Ecole Nationale supérieure en Statistiques et en Economie appliquée 12 Ecole Nationale supérieure des Sciences de la mer et de l’aménagement du Littoral 13 Ecole supérieure des Beaux Arts 14 Ecole Nationale supérieure des Travaux Publics 15 Ecole Normale Supérieur d’Enseignement Technologique d’Oran Les Instituts Nationales
1 Institut National de Formation Supérieure en Sciences et Technologie du Sport 2 Institut des Télécommunications d’Oran 3 Institut Algérien du Pétrole
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Higher education infrastructuredevelopment
1 Université de Blida 19 Université D’Alger 2 Université de Boumer des 20 Université de Tizi- ouzou 3 Université de Mostaganem 21 Université de Djelfa 4 Université de Sidi-Bel-Abbès 22 Université de Tlemcen 5 Université de Mascara 23 Université de Médéa 6 Université de Chalef 24 Université d’Oran 7 Université de Laghouat 25 Université de Batna 8 Université de Sétif 26 Université de Constantine 9 Université de Tébessa 27 Université de Tiaret 10 Université de Oum El Bouaghi 28 Université d’Adrar 11 Université de Souk-Ahras 29 Université de Bechar 12 Université d’Annaba 30 Université de Saida 13 Université El Oued 31 Université de Msila 14 Université d’Ouargla 32 Université de Jijel 15 Université de Bejaia 33 Université de Guelma 16 Université de Skikda 34 Université de Biskra 17 Université des Sciences et de la 35 Université des Sciences et de Technologie d’Oran la Technologie Houari Boumediene 18 Université des Sciences Islamiques Constantine
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Plan d’études et programme de l’enseignement primaire
indigénes en Algérie en 1898
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II. PLAN D'ÉTUDES ET PROGRAMMES DE L'ENSEIGNEMENT PRIMAIRE DES INDIGÈNES EN ALGÉRIE. 1898
L'instruction donnée aux indigènes a pour but de faire d'eux des hommes honnêtes, éclairés, prévoyants, amis du travail, disposés à se rapprocher de nous par l'usage de notre langue et la constatation des progrès auxquels nous leur offrons de participer, en vue d'améliorer leur bien-être, leur hygiène, leurs pratiques agricoles, leurs travaux industriels, leurs relations commerciales.
Les programmes de 1890 lui avaient déjà donné ce caractère, ceux de 1898 l'accentueront encore. Ils mettent à profit l'expérience acquise, introduisent dans tous les enseignements plus d'ordre et de précision, font appel à des méthodes plus efficaces, et, tout en laissant une part suffisante et nécessaire aux études d'un caractère éducatif, donnent un nouveau développement aux connaissances d'une utilité pratique immédiate.
Le jeune indigène formé dans nos écoles est préparé à améliorer les conditions d'existence de sa famille; il n'est pas poussé à chercher une autre situation. Ses préoccupations sont tournées vers les travaux des champs ou de l'atelier, et pas du tout vers les emplois publics. Ceux d'entre nos élèves qui, exceptionnellement, se dirigeront vers les lycées ou collèges, les médersas, le cours normal, ne le feront que pour obéir aux désirs de leurs familles; l'école ne fera rien pour leur suggérer cette ambition.
Les programmes ne sont qu'un cadre, une charpente, le corps, si l'on veut, de l'enseignement: ce sont les maîtres qui lui donnent une âme. Ce sont eux qui en assurent la vie et la fécondité par leur initiative, la logique personnelle avec laquelle ils combinent leurs moyens d'action, leur persévérance à poursuivre les résultats qu'ils attendent et aussi, il faut bien le dire, par leur patriotisme, qui ne laisse jamais s'obscurcir devant leurs yeux l'idée de la France, pour laquelle ils travaillent.
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Langue française
But:
L'instruction des indigènes de l'Algérie doit comprendre avant tout l'enseignement de la langue française; c'est le point de départ indispensable. A l'école tous les autres enseignements sont subordonnés à celui-là; après l'école, ce sera la langue française qui facilitera les relations entre Français et indigènes, et qui seule rendra possible entre eux le rapprochement que tous désirent. Il est superflu de faire remarquer que l'école primaire n'a pas pour mission d'initier les jeunes indigènes aux beautés de notre langue littéraire, aux richesses de notre langue scientifique, aux spécialités de notre langue industrielle ou commerciale, ni même aux exigences savantes de notre grammaire. La langue usuelle, réduite à l'expression de quelques connaissances élémentaires et de quelques idées d'ordre pratique ou d'ordre éducatif, tel est l'objet du programme qui va suivre.
Education morale
But:
Il ne suffit pas d'instruire les indigènes, il faut aussi les moraliser. S'il est utile de leur apprendre notre langue, de leur enseigner du calcul, du dessin, quelques connaissances usuelles, des notions d'agriculture, d'en initier même quelques-uns au travail du bois et du fer, il faut, avant tout, développer en eux ce qui fait l'honnête homme. L'éducation morale aura donc une part importante dans l'œuvre de l'école.
Méthode:
1. Le programme de chaque cours fait connaître la méthode à suivre. Pas de leçons didactiques, de définitions froides, de démonstrations abstraites, mais des exemples vivants, des récits de belles actions, des portraits de caractères louables et blâmables, ce qui est de nature à toucher le cœur, à éveiller, à affermir les bonnes résolutions. C'est un peu ce qu'on appelait autrefois la morale en action. C'est peut-être la plus efficace.
2.Le conseil suivant, donné à l'instituteur des écoles françaises, en tête des programmes de 1882, s'applique aussi au maître de nos écoles indigène~; « Pour lui, qu'il se borne à accumuler dans l'esprit de l'enfant, qu'il entreprenne de façonner à la vie morale, assez de beaux exemples, assez de bonnes impressions, assez de saines idées, d'habitudes salutaires et de bonnes inspirations, pour que cet enfant emporte de l'école, avec son petit patrimoine de connaissances élémentaires, un trésor plus précieux encore, une conscience droite. » 3. Nos instituteurs ont prouvé qu'ils savaient respecter les convictions religieuses des populations au milieu desquelles ils vivent. Les maîtres indigènes n'ignorent pas qu'ils peuvent être pour nous d'excellents collaborateurs, tout en restant bons musulmans. Les instituteurs français ne se permettent jamais la moindre critique. À l'égard des doctrines du Coran. Ils continueront à regarder la religion comme chose d'ordre privé, d'ordre intime, comme chose aussi inviolable et sacrée que la conscience même.
4. Mais ils n'ignorent pas qu'il y a une idée de Dieu commune à toutes les religions et à la plupart des philosophies, et dont ils peuvent parler. Ils n'oublieront pas que la morale s'appuie
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sur cette idée de Dieu, qui lui donne à la fois son idéal de perfection et son caractère d'obligation et d'universalité, et qu'aimer le bien, au fond, c'est aimer Dieu; Ils n'hésiteront donc pas à insister fréquemment sur le lien qui existe au fond de nos âmes, entre la conscience, la loi morale et l'idée de Dieu, mais sans s'égarer dans des explications que leurs jeunes élèves seraient hors d'état de comprendre.
5. Pour mieux faire saisir le caractère universel des vérités morales, il sera utile de montrer que le Coran et l'Evangile, les moralistes anciens et les moralistes modernes sont souvent d'accord pour recommander les mêmes actions et condamner les mêmes défauts. Quelques maximes extraites de ces diverses sources seront communiquées aux instituteurs.
Programme
Cours préparatoire:
Le maître s'appliquera à donner à ses élèves des habitudes de propreté, d'exactitude, d'obéissance, de politesse, de sincérité, de franchise, de probité et de bonté.
Il observera individuellement chaque élève, de façon à bien connaître son caractère. Il encouragera les bons sentiments et s'efforcera de réprimer avec douceur les mauvaises tendances.
Il inspirera le dégoût des actions et des paroles grossières et indécentes.
Il fera apprendre aux élèves, à Il1esure qu'ils seront en mesure de les comprendre, en se servant au besoin des expressions arabes ou kabyles, quelques-unes des maximes morales les plus importantes, telles que: «Les enfants doivent obéir à leurs parents. Les élèves doivent respecter leur maître. On ne doit pas mentir. On ne doit pas voler. On ne doit ni tuer, ni frapper, ni injurier un autre homme. On doit secourir les malheureux. Les hommes doivent s'aimer les uns les autres. »
A l'appui de ces maximes et des jugements qu'il portera sur telle ou telle action particulière, le maître ne donnera pas d'autres explications que les suivantes: c'est bien ou c'est mal, en français ou dans la langue indigène.
Il fera en sorte que les enfants soient pénétrés de bonne heure de cette vérité fondamentale: Nous devons faire ce qui est bien et éviter ce qui est mal. Et pour faire sentir le caractère obligatoire de ce commandement, ne pouvant pas entrer dans des explications que des élèves d'un cours préparatoire ne comprendraient pas, il se bornera à dire que c'est Dieu qui nous l'ordonne.
Cours élémentaire:
Continuer à observer les caractères individuels, pour développer les qualités et corriger les défauts, sans dureté.
Appliquer la discipline scolaire comme moyen d'éducation. S'efforcer d'obtenir le respect sincère de l'autorité du maître, le respect de la règle, la vraie obéissance. Distinguer la faute commise avec intention de celles qui sont dues à l'étourderie, à l'ignorance. Eveiller le sentiment de la responsabilité. Faire saisir le rapport de la faute à la punition. Dans le
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gouvernement de la classe, donner l'exemple d'un scrupuleux esprit d'équité; inspirer l'horreur de' la dissimulation, de l'hypocrisie, de la délation; mettre au-dessus de tout la franchise et la droiture.
Faire souvent les élèves juges de leur propre conduite. Savoir, dans une certaine mesure, les laisser dire et les laisser faire, sauf à les amener à reconnaître eux-mêmes leurs torts ou leurs erreurs. Développer, encourager l'effort pour s'amender, la résolution ferme, la volonté persévérante.
Compléter cette éducation pratique par des récits, des historiettes, des anecdotes, des lectures propres à éveiller, à fortifier chez les jeunes indigènes le sentiment du bien et du mal. Choisir des récits où les enfants aient ordinairement le principal rôle, afin d'amener les élèves à faire naturellement un retour sur eux-mêmes et à prendre plus facilement la résolution d'imiter ou d'éviter les exemples qu'on leur présente.
A titre d'indication, voici des sujets qui conviendront pour le cours élémentaire: l'enfant obéissant, l'enfant désobéissant; le bon fils; un trait d'amour filial; le bon frère; les enfants gâtés; l'élève assidu; l'élève studieux; le bon écolier; le bon camarade; le rapporteur; le paresseux; le gourmand; l'envieux; l'hypocrite; le menteur; l'enfant sincère; se méfier des flatteurs; le vaniteux; ne jamais remettre à demain; réfléchir avant d'agir; soyez bons pour les animaux; l'enfant grossier; l'enfant qui se met en colère; l'enfant poli et bien élevé; l'enfant juste, honnête, le petit égoïste; le petit garçon qui a bon cœur ; tous les hommes sont frères.
Chacun de ses sujets pourra donner lieu à plusieurs récits, à plusieurs historiettes, à plusieurs lectures. Les leçons orales seront complétées par des maximes, des résolutions, écrites au tableau noir, puis copiées sur les cahiers et apprises par cœur ; par de petits résumés, des réponses à des questionnaires.
Mais, avant tout, le maître cherchera à émouvoir, à éveiller les bons sentiments, à faire entendre à chacun la voix de sa conscience. Il fera comprendre que celui qui sait bien écouter cette voix entend les ordres de Dieu lui-même.
Cours moyen:
Comme au cours précédent, observer les caractères et agir sur chaque élève individuellement; appliquer la discipline scolaire comme moyen d'éducation; profiter des incidents journaliers de l'école pour exercer le jugement moral des élèves et fortifier leurs bonnes résolutions.
Eclairer leur -conscience et développer leurs bons sentiments en appelant leur attention sur les points suivants, non pas au moyen de 'froides définitions ou d'explications abstraites, mais à l'aide d'exemples concrets pris dans la réalité, ou présentés sous une forme vivante, dans des récits, des historiettes, des fables, des poésies apprises par cœur, des lectures, suivant la méthode déjà employée dans le cours élémentaire:
La conscience. Les joies de la conscience, le remord. Le sentiment de la responsabilité. La satisfaction de la conscience est la meilleure des récompenses.
La loi morale. Loi non écrite que l'homme n’à point faite et qu'il ne saurait modifier, $on caractère obligatoire et universel.
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Le devoir et l'intérêt. Montrer combien ils diffèrent par leurs caractères. Ils sont souvent d'accord, mais quand ils sont opposés, la conscience commande de sacrifier l'intérêt au devoir.
Devoirs dans la famille. Envers les parents: obéissance, respect, amour, reconnaissance. Envers les frères et sœurs: affection, protection des plus âgés, à l'égard des plus jeunes. Envers les serviteurs: politesse et bienveillance.
Devoirs dans l'école. Envers le maître. Envers les camarades. Assiduité, docilité, soumission à la règle, travail.
Devoir envers soi-même. Ils dérivent de l'obligation fondamentale de respecter en soi et d'augmenter la dignité de la personne. L'homme seul est une personne, parce qu'il est seul libre et raisonnable. Son premier devoir est de cultiver sa raison et d'affranchir sa liberté du joug des passions et des habitudes mauvaises.
De là, envers le corps, des devoirs de conservation de la santé, de sobriété, de tempérance, et de devoir de commander au corps.
Envers les biens extérieurs, les devoirs de prévoyance, d'épargne, de désintéressement; prodigalité, avarice, funestes effets de la passion du jeu; obligation du travail; merveilles opérées par le travail des hommes; laideur et lâcheté de la paresse et de l'inertie. Aide-toi et le ciel t'aidera.
Envers l'âme, fuir l'ignorance, le mensonge, l'hypocrisie, l'orgueil et la vanité, .l'envie, la colère. Sincérité et franchise, modestie, courage dans le péril et dans le malheur; patience. L'homme doit être maître de soi et avoir du caractère. Il doit respecter en lui-même la dignité de la personne humaine, autrement il s'abaisse au rang des bêtes.
Il doit suivre les bons sentiments -qui lui commandent de ne pas maltraiter les animaux, de ne pas les faire souffrir inutilement.
Devoirs envers les autres hommes. Ne pas faire de mal à ses semblables, respecter leur personne et leurs droits, rendre à chacun ce qui lui est dû, c'est la justice. Aimer ses semblables, leur faire du bien, leur venir en aide, compatir à leurs peines, c'est la charité, qu'on appelle aussi la bonté, l'humanité, la fraternité.
A chaque devoir de justice envers les autres correspond un droit chez les autres. Il n'en est pas de même pour les devoirs de charité.
Les droits dérivent de la liberté de la personne humaine. La liberté· et les droits des uns sont nécessairement limités par la liberté et les droits des autres. Reconnaître cette limite c'est le principe de la justice.
Parmi les devoirs de justice, insister sur le respect des faibles, des femmes et des vieillards; sur le respect de l'honneur d'autrui; sur la liberté de -conscience et la tolérance; le respect de la propriété; la fidélité aux engagements, le respect de la parole donnée; la probité dans le commerce et les affaires; la loyauté dans les rapports avec les autres hommes. Faire sentir combien sont coupables les médisants, les calomniateurs, les voleurs de bestiaux, de récoltes, les faux témoins et ceux qui se font justice eux-mêmes.
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Il ne suffit pas d'être juste et honnête, il faut avoir bon cœur. Les hommes n'aiment que ceux qui les aiment. Il faut considérer que devant Dieu tous les hommes sont frères. Expliquer qu'ils deviennent de plus en plus solidaires entre eux à mesure que la civilisation fait des progrès. L'assistance bien entendue. Reconnaissance, ingratitude. Laideur de l'égoïsme, beauté du dévouement.
Devoirs envers la France. Ce que les indigènes de l'Algérie doivent à la France, en retour de la protection qu'elle leur accorde, de la paix et de la justice qu'elle fait régner parmi eux, et des bienfaits de l'instruction et de la civilisation auxquels elle les fait participer.
Respect dû à ceux qui gouvernent et administrent au nom de la France. Respect dû au drapeau français et à l'armée.
La loi écrite est l'expression de la volonté nationale. Elle se perfectionne à mesure que la nation s'élève à une idée plus parfaite de la justice et de l'intérêt général. Le premier devoir de tout homme, dans un Etat civilisé, c'est le respect de la loi et des autorités. Insister tout particulièrement sur cette vérité fondamentale.
L'impôt, sa nécessité; combien la fraude est blâmable.
Devoirs envers Dieu. Une idée est commune à toutes les religions, c'est de vénérer en Dieu l'auteur de l'univers et le père des hommes. Notre premier devoir envers Dieu, c'est d'obéir à la loi morale, qui vient de lui. Aimer le bien c'est aimer Dieu.
Les sujets importants pourront donner lieu à plusieurs entretiens, à plusieurs récits, à plusieurs lectures. Les leçons orales seront complétées non seulement par des maximes, des résolutions écrites, des résun1és, des réponses à des questionnaires, comme au cours précédent, mais aussi par de petites rédactions.
Calcul et système métrique But Sous la désignation usuelle de calcul et système métrique, nous comprenons non seulement l'exercice du calcul mental et du calcul écrit sur les quatre règles, sur les additions et soustractions des fractions, sur la règle de trois avec ses diverses applications, l'explication des poids et mesures, mais aussi des notions sur la mesure des surfaces et des volumes, l'arpentage d'un terrain, le cubage d'une maçonnerie, l'évaluation d'une distance. Cet enseignement n'a pas seulement pour but de rompre l'enfant à la pratique des opérations de l'arithmétique, il doit surtout l'amener à résoudre des questions qui se présentent fréquemment dans la vie des indigènes, et donner ainsi à l'élève de nos écoles une supériorité qui sera promptement· reconnue autour de lui.
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Dessin But Donner à l'œil de la justesse, développer l'habileté de la main, former le goût. Le dessin est une préparation au travail manuel; il sera utile dans plusieurs industries indigènes.
Agriculture But
Mettre l'indigène en état d'améliorer sa situation matérielle par une culture plus intelligente de son jardin et de sa terre. Le maître n'enseigne pas pour que les élèves sachent, mais pour qu'ils fassent, et c'est dans les jardins et les champs des indigènes que se constateront les résultats de ses leçons.
Travail manuel But Dans les écoles d'indigènes, l'enseignement du travail manuel a un caractère à la fois pédagogique et pratique. Il est destiné non seulement à développer la dextérité de la main, mais aussi à donner aux indigènes le goût du travail et à leur apprendre à se servir des outils français pour confectionner des objets qui pourraient leur être utiles. II prend même dans les cours d'apprentissage, annexés à certaines écoles principales, un caractère professionnel. S'il ne suffit pas encore pour former des ouvriers, il prépare au moins des apprentis, il prédispose aux professions manuelles, il ébauche des aptitudes que quelques-uns de nos élèves pourront aller compléter ensuite et perfectionner dans une école d'apprentissage ou dans un atelier.
Connaissances usuelles But Sous le nom de connaissances usuelles sont réunies un certain nombre de leçons, diverses par leurs objets, mais semblables par leur but, qui est l'utilité pratique et l'amélioration des conditions de la vie: conseils d'économie domestique, d'hygiène, notions scientifiques élémentaires sur quelques grandes lois de la nature, éléments de la législation usuelle applicable aux indigènes.
Le programme des connaissances usuelles est un de ceux qui marquent le mieux le caractère pratique de notre enseignement.
Notion sur la France et l'Algérie But II ne s'agit pas d'enseigner l'histoire en tant que récit des événements mémorables. La suite des rois, les -traités, les récits de batailles sont bannis de notre programme. Nous nous proposons' de montrer l'état des populations de la France et de l'Algérie "aux principales époques de leur histoire, pour faire saisir le progrès de 1a civilisation, le développement des idées de justice et d'humanité, et enfin faire comprendre rôle bienfaisant de la France en Algérie.
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III. RAPPORT SUR LA RÉORGANISATION DE L'ÉCOLE NORMALE DE L'ENSEIGNEMENT DES INDIGÈNES 20 novembre 1923 du directeur de l'Ecole normale à Monsieur l'inspecteur d'Académie d'Alger.
1. Nécessité de cette réorganisation
Actuellement, en effet, et sous l'influence de multiples causes, le niveau intellectuel des instituteurs appelés à exercer dans l'enseignement des indigènes, n'est pas susceptible d'offrir toujours les garanties désirables. La préparation des maîtres d'origine indigène se poursuit sensiblement sur le même pian qu'au début de l'institution.
Le cours normal est bien devenu, à la désignation, une Ecole normale, mais ce changement de dénomination, n'a pas encore été suivi de modifications réelles dans l'organisation des études. Si, par suite de la concurrence, les candidats qui franchissent le concours d'admission ont reçu une préparation plus solide qu'autrefois, ils n'en suivent pas moins exclusivement à l'Ecole normale le programme des cours complémentaires. De sorte que si, pendant deux années, les élèves révisent et approfondissent en vue du B.E., qu'ils obtiennent d'ordinaire dans de bonnes conditions, les connaissances qu'ils ont antérieurement acquises, ils n'abordent aucune étude nouvelle capable d'étendre leur horizon. Et comme leur troisième année de scolarité est surtout consacrée à leur formation professionnelle, le niveau de culture des maîtres indigènes reste trop modeste pour qu'on puisse attendre d'eux des services de valeur certaine.
Le recrutement des maîtres d'origine française ne s'opère pas dans des conditions beaucoup plus favorables.
L'ancienne «section spéciale» devenue la «section française de l'Ecole normale indigène» reçoit bien encore quelques rares instituteurs ou anciens élèves-maîtres d'Ecole normale, ayant une culture suffisante et les titres requis pour fournir une carrière honorable, mais elle se peuple surtout de postulants parfois âgés, sans aucune vocation que celle de se créer une situation, pourvus d'un seul B.E. acquis depuis longtemps, qui n'a, le plus souvent, consacré que des études superficielles dont les traces sont bien fugitives. Le nombre des élèves-maîtres français pourvus du B.S. devient infime et le niveau intellectuel des autres est fréquemment inférieur à celui de beaucoup d'élèves indigènes. Dans de telles conditions, l'année unique de section consacrée, en principe, à l'adaptation à une tâche spéciale de maîtres ayant reçu une formation à peu près complète, devient d'utilité restreinte, sinon parfois illusoire.
Une réforme générale et profonde de la préparation du personnel de l'enseignement des indigènes s'impose donc, si l'on veut ne point laisser péricliter, mais au contraire, asseoir sur des fondements plus solides encore, l'œuvre admirable de pénétration française poursuivie en ce pays, avec un dévouement dont l'opiniâtreté et l'intelligence ne sont plus à démontrer, par les créateurs, les administrateurs et les pionniers de l'enseignement des indigènes.
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2. Avantages qu'il convient d'en attendre
Cette réforme doit avoir pour objet essentiel d'élever le niveau intellectuel des maîtres afin d'accroître la portée de leur enseignement et l'efficacité de .leur action sur les masses.
En particulier, le gain réalisé par les maîtres indigènes devrait être de premier ordre. Les enseignements nouveaux de la sociologie' et de la logique, l'étude plus scientifique des phénomènes géographiques, celle de la littérature, et celle de l'histoire, la pratique de la méthode-expérimentale dans l'étude des sciences physiques et naturelles, doivent non seulement secouer le fond de leurs consciences, atteindre les sources de leur vie mentale et leur révéler une nouvelle échelle des valeurs, mais, en leur donnant plus de solidité de jugement et de rectitude de pensée, les pénétrer un peu de ce véritable esprit critique qui seul pourra, en dissipant leurs préjugés les plus tenaces, transformer leur mentalité.
Actuellement on peut soutenir qu'ils sortent presque intacts de nos mains, et seulement préoccupés d'utiliser, avec une mentalité spécifiquement berbère ou arabe, l'outil délicat et parfois dangereux que représente un maigre savoir. Une culture plus haute doit changer leurs habitudes d'esprit, et leur faire découvrir une vérité plus large que celle qu'ils avaient conçue jusqu'ici, en faire des échantillons d'humanité moins repliés sur eux-mêmes, plus accessibles aux influences vivifiantes de la pensée française, généreuse et tolérante, plus conscients de leur solidarité avec cette source intellectuelle et morale, plus aptes, par conséquent, en même temps que plus décidés à en diffuser les bienfaits dans le milieu d'où ils sont issus. Si, en place de moniteurs inhabiles et souvent réfractaires, nous avons des maîtres d'esprit plus ouvert et de conscience plus probe, la cause française n'en sera-t-elle pas mieux servie? Qu'importe dès lors qu'une jactance un peu juvénile puisse pousser ceux qui seront les plus enivrés de leur récent savoir à élever parfois des prétentions excessives.
Ne serait-ce pas manquer de confiance dans l'excellence de la mission civilisatrice de la France que de croire qu'en rapprochant de nous par une plus forte culture les agents les plus actifs de transformation de la société musulmane, et en les pénétrant de la grandeur de la tâche que la France leur confie, loin de nous les attacher davantage, nous semions en eux je ne sais quel ferment de révolte qui nous autorise à mettre en doute leur loyalisme? L'aveu ne s'est-il donc pas imposé, au cours de la guerre, que l'influence de l'école avait été décisive pour cimenter l'union de l'Algérie et de la France?
Et serait-il permis d'oublier que, parmi les indigènes ayant bénéficié de la culture française, les élèves-maîtres de l'Ecole normale de Bouzaréah ont été les plus empressés à servir le pays en danger? Résolue à traiter tous les siens avec le souci de justice qui lui est propre, la France, loin de redouter les effets de la diffusion de l'instruction, peut avoir foi dans la séduction de son génie.
5. Régime
Quel régime conviendrait-il d'organiser pour un établissement aussi complexe d'une part et aussi volumineux d'autre part? En admettant que la section spéciale puisse continuer, selon le mode actuel, à vivre de sa vie propre, il reste deux Ecoles normales qui peuvent être ou complètement séparées ou plus ou moins étroitement associées, et, dans la seule Ecole normale indigène elle-même, deux sections, la française et l'indigène, qui peuvent être fusionnées ou dont le fonctionnement peut être au contraire parallèle et indépendant.
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La solution donnée à la question de la dissociation des deux Ecoles normales peut dépendre de considérations fort variées. Si la grosseur des contingents ne peut constituer un argument décisif en faveur de l'une ou de l'autre des thèses qui peuvent s'opposer, peut-être n'en irait-il pas de même des motifs tirés de la destination différente de chacun des deux personnels formés à Bouzaréah, des divergences de leurs programmes, des cloisons tendues entre leurs cadres administratifs et de l'utilité qu'il pourrait y avoir à doter chaque service distinct d'un établissement spécial pour la formation de son personnel. L'examen de ces divers points de vue me paraissant toutefois avoir plutôt un intérêt doctrinal que pratique, je n'en aborde point la discussion qui, du reste, ne semble pas inactualité. Les arguments qui, sans contestation, dominent la question sont d'un autre ordre, et sans nul doute de caractère autrement impérieux: la séparation des deux Ecoles normales aurait fatalement pour conséquence une augmentation considérable des frais de personnel et des frais généraux, puisque chacun des deux établissements devrait recevoir des dotations sensiblement équivalentes à celles qui seront attribuées à une école unique.
On peut donc supposer que les deux écoles normales de Bouzaréah seront appelées à vivre quelque temps encore en communauté. Serait-il dès lors opportun de prendre le contrepied du projet de séparation envisagé plus haut, et, puisque l'objet des deux écoles normales est, somme toute, identique, d'organiser un système unique de préparation pour tout le personnel primaire? Peut-être une telle mesure-ne serait- elle pas sans danger, si l'on admet que, destinés à exercer dans des milieux différents, les maîtres de l'enseignement européen et ceux de l'enseignement des indigènes doivent recevoir des formations qui, pour être à un même plan, n'en ont pas moins un caractère propre, et peuvent comporter, dans l'adaptation des programmes, des nuances que le souci des réalités ne peut qu'imposer. D'ailleurs, le chiffre de 70 élèves atteint pour chaque promotion permet de saisir les difficultés que susciterait une telle mesure: la division de chaque promotion en deux classes parallèles donnerait un contingent de 35 élèves par section, trop élevé pour la superficie de nos salles, trop lourd pour permettre un contrôle suivi du travail de tous les élèves, impossible à outiller et à faire agir de concert dans la plupart des exercices pratiques et notamment dans ceux des laboratoires. On devrait fatalement en arriver à organiser trois sections par promotion, et l'on ne réaliserait aucun gain sur le système de la division en deux écoles ayant des programmes un peu spéciaux parce qu'adaptés à des besoins différents, pouvant au surplus avoir de nombreux points de contact et même de pénétration.
En ira-t-il de même des deux sections de l'Ecole normale indigène? Faut-il, parce qu'ils sont d'origine et de mœurs différentes, mais pour cela seulement, alors que, destinés à collaborer à une même œuvre, ils ont sur les bancs de l'Ecole normale les mêmes soucis immédiats et les mêmes préoccupations d'avenir, élever une cloison fort étanche entre élèves-maîtres français et élèves-maîtres indigènes et les parquer, en dépit des lourdes charges qui en résulteraient, en des cours distincts? Est-il au contraire possible de les associer dans leurs études, comme ils le seront dans leur carrière? La question est d'extrême importance et doit être examinée sous tous ses aspects. Le côté financier, sans être ici le plus important, a néanmoins sa valeur: la séparation des deux sections imposant des frais doubles de personnel, créerait une charge qu'il n'est guère permis d'envisager. Mais le côté moral du problème est pourtant d'autre importance.
Je ne me dissimule pas du tout les multiples inconvénients qui résulteront de la réunion dans une même classe d'élèves-maîtres indigènes et de français. Il pourra, en effet, arriver qu'avec leurs qualités de travail, un ou plusieurs indigènes tiennent la tête de la classe, qu'un élève français se trouve humilié de recevoir, en présence de ses condisciples indigènes, des
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observations parfois pénibles pour son amour-propre; il pourra se trouver des indigènes que le succès grise et dont l'attitude se fasse narquoise ou même insolente à l'égard des Français.
Au fond, ces rivalités d'écoliers n'ont qu'une importance relative, et on ne peut les empêcher de se juger même quand ils ne font que se côtoyer; d'ailleurs les Français, mieux servis par la pratique, de leur langue maternelle, non moins doués pour le labeur intellectuel n’auront qu’à fournir l’effort de travail et de tenue qui leur assurera de sérieux titres de succès et d'estime.
Ces inconvénients inévitables, mais .de peu de portée, ne peuvent faire échec aux avantages de premier ordre que la vie en commun doit présenter tant pour les Français que pour les indigènes.
Le contact suivi avec les indigènes doit être profitable aux élèvent maitres français qui, ayant de multiples occasions d'apprendre à connaître la tournure d'esprit de leurs condisciples. indigènes, leur manière de raisonner, la valeur relative qu'ils accordent aux pensées et aux sentiments qui dictent notre conduite et la leur, en un mot de mieux pénétrer la mentalité indigène, sauront par la suite régler, leur attitude avec beaucoup plus de discernement, s'épargneront les déceptions qui suivent les enthousiasmes irréfléchis, comme les hésitations qui accompagnent les préventions injustifiées. C'est donc à l'Ecole normale même que les -- élèves-n1aÎtres français pourront acquérir l'expérience du milieu indigène.
En ce qui concerne les élèves-maîtres indigènes, je fonde de réels espoirs sur une communauté de vie de tous les instants avec les Français. Actuellement, l'on peut dire qu'indigènes et Français, vivant côte à côte sans se mêler, connaissent surtout les aspérités respectives de leurs caractères.
De même que l'enseignement élémentaire que reçoivent les indigènes reste impuissant à atteindre les sources de leur vie mentale, de même leur contact superficiel avec les Français est à peu près sans action sur leurs mœurs, comme sur leurs habitudes. Groupés en un bloc compact qui prend nettement conscience de son individualité en s'opposant au groupe des Français, ils se défendent contre toute emprise de notre part, et. Subissent passivement au contraire la contrainte des meneurs de leur clan. Si les rivalités entre indigènes et Français ne présentent d'ordinaire aucun caractère de gravité à l'Ecole, la raison profonde en est sans doute que le parallélisme de leur existence ne leur réserve que fort peu de points de contact ou de friction; mais ils demeurent proprement étrangers les uns aux autres et restent sur leurs positions antérieures, à moins qu'il n'y ait régression chez les uns comme chez les autres. Cette constatation attristante mais indiscutable explique peut-être le peu de prise qu'a l'Ecole normale actuelle sur les sentiments, les habitudes et les mœurs des élèves indigènes.
Je suis persuadé qu'un régime différent, astreignant Français et indigènes non seulement à suivre en commun les exercices scolaires, mais encore à vivre en contact plus réel au réfectoire, au dortoir et en récréation, dissiperait bien des préventions, créerait des relations plus cordiales et briserait cet esprit de corps ou de caste qui, s'il ne les érige· pas en adversaire, les empêche au moins de sympathiser.
Ce n’est .pas le seul bénéfice qu'on serait en droit d'espérer de cette. vie commune: à mon sens, ou la transformation morale des élèves maîtres, indigènes, déjà amorcée par les études poursuivies, se' complètera par ce contact quotidien avec les Français, ou elle restera superficielle et éphémère. On peut espérer, semble-t-il, que leur embarras à s'adapter à des
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conditions nouvelles d'existence, à table, au dortoir, disparaîtra vite sous l'influence\ de l'exemple de leurs camarades français; et l'on peut soutenir aussi que leurs. Habitudes, et leurs mœurs mêmes ne seront vraiment influencées que par l'action incessante du spectacle d'habitudes et de mœurs différentes. N'avons nous pas vu tout le bénéfice que ceux de nos élèves indigènes qui furent officiers pendant la guerre, ont retiré de la fréquentation d'un milieu d'une certaine distinction de tenue et de manières? N'est-il donc pas permis de compter que leur contact avec les élèves-maîtres français aura sur les élèves indigènes une influence aussi heureuse? Peut-on, au surplus contesté qu'au même titre que les Français, ils prendront, par ce contact même, une opinion plus exacte des hommes avec lesquels ils sont appelés à collaborer? Qu'ils ne pourront se défendre, en appréciant les qualités de loyauté, de sincérité et de' franchise de leurs condisciples français, d'éprouver pour la droiture de leur caractère. Une estime qui rendra plus facile l'union des esprits et des cœurs ? Placés sur un pied de stricte égalité avec les Français, traités par eux avec justice, ne prendront-ils pas plus nettement conscience de la solidarité qui les unit à des collègues appelés à remplir, à travers les mêmes difficultés d'existence et au prix des mêmes sacrifices, la même tâche, les mêmes devoirs à l'égard de populations dont le progrès matériel et moral dépend, pour une large part, de la conscience et du zèle avec lesquels instituteurs français et indigènes s'acquitteront de leur mission patriotique.
Certes il faut se tenir en garde contre les illusions; il serait trop beau que le seul contact scolaire des élèves français et des élèves indigènes pût résoudre tous les problèmes que pose la question du rapprochement des deux races qui vivent sur le sol de l'Algérie. Mais il importe de ne se point méprendre sur notre opinion, ce n'est pas d'une transformation miraculeuse des hommes et des choses qu'il est question ici: il s'agit simplement d'unir un faisceau d'influences pour multiplier leur action; il s'agit seulement par l'action simultanée et concertée d'une éducation intellectuelle plus pénétrante et d'une formation sociale plus rationnelle, d'orienter les esprits et les cœurs des futurs maîtres indigènes vers des idées, des sentiments et des habitudes, qui en leur permettant de mieux comprendre la grandeur de la civilisation française, les inciteront à aimer davantage la France et à la servir avec plus de probité et de dévouement.
Si la création d'une Ecole normale indigène réunissant sous la même discipline, en dépit de la diversité de leurs origines et de leurs caractères, tous les futurs maîtres de l'enseignement des indigènes, a quelque chance de créer en eux un sentiment plus vivant de solidarité, de les amener à collaborer plus joyeusement à une tâche dont ils mesureront plus justement la grandeur, l'essai ne vaut-il pas d'être tenté, puisque, au surplus, ne pouvant rien compromettre, son succès sera tout au bénéfice de la cause française en Algérie.
6. Mesures à prendre
Programmes
La question des programmes d'études de l'Ecole normale indigène demande un examen attentif. Il faut tout d'abord, me semble-t-il, spécifié nettement que si les programmes de l'Ecole normale indigène peuvent être différents de ceux de l'Ecole normale française, ils doivent être établis dans le même esprit, à savoir qu'un utilitarisme imprudent n'y doit point prendre le pas sur la culture désintéressée. S'il faut avant tout former des hommes d'un certain niveau intellectuel, afin de permettre à ces hommes d'adhérer librement et loyalement à des idées et des sentiments qui, malgré tout, doivent couper quelques-unes des racines qui les rattachent à leur milieu séculaire trop lent à évoluer, qu'on ne croie pas y parvenir avec de
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seules notions utilitaires, celles-ci étant sans doute susceptibles de créer un outil perfectionné, et de maniement délicat, mais non de transformer la volonté qui doit le mettre en œuvre. C'est l'éducation libérale seule qui peut atteindre ce résultat, et, en l'espèce, c'est la seule qui compte essentiellement.
Cette réserve n'empêche point qu'on puisse entreprendre à la fois de former pour l'enseignement des indigènes des instituteurs possédant le niveau de culture du B.S, et de les adapter utilement à des fonctions spéciales et à des conditions particulières d'existence. Il n'est point dit que l'esprit scientifique, dans la mesure où un instituteur s'en doive imprégner, ne puisse être acquis à tous que parles mêmes constatations ou les mêmes expériences; il n'est pas écrit non plus que la finesse littéraire ou le sens historique soient le bénéfice exclusif de l'étude de telle œuvre ou de telle civilisation.
Ne pourrait-on concevoir que le programme scientifique de l'Ecole normale indigène, rédigé dans le même esprit que celui de l'Ecole normale française, fît néanmoins une place plus importante aux études intéressant l'agriculture, qu'à celles qui concernent plus spécialement l'industrie?
L'étude de la sociologie, tout en restant générale, ne pourrait-elle pas se préoccuper particulièrement de l'évolution des mœurs de la société indigène? Celle de l'histoire ne pourrait-elle point accorder une place prépondérante à l'histoire de l'Algérie et de l'Islam?
Sans qu'il soit besoin d'insister davantage, on peut conclure qu'il paraît souhaitable que des programmes spéciaux soient établis pour l'Ecole normale indigène, tant pour les études à l'Ecole que pour l'examen du B.S. qui les couronne, ces programmes n'étant que le résultat d'un effort d'adaptation des programmes généraux des Ecoles normales à des besoins bien déterminés. Il va sans dire que ces programmes ne sauraient être que l'oeuvre d'une commission pénétrée à la fois de l'esprit des programmes officiels et des besoins particuliers de l'enseignement des indigènes.
Une fois ces programmes établis, l'organisation des études ne' soulèvera que des questions de détail aisées à régler. Il est évident que les cours seront communs aux élèves indigèJ.les et aux élèves français; mais le classement, si l'expérience l'exige, pourra, au lieu d'être unique et d'englober tous les élèves, devenir spécial à chacune des deux sections.
De mêmes les détails de la vie matérielle s'organiseront sans idées apriori : si des cas embarrassants se posent, comme celui par exemple de servir parfois nourriture différente à des élèves assis à la même table, il ne sera pas plus impossible, sans violenter aucune conscience, de triompher de ces petites difficultés, qu'il ne l'est d'offrir' aux goûts différents des convives d'une table d'hôte, des artichauts cuits ou des artichauts crus, du vin, de la bière, du café ou même de l'eau. Si ces diversités de régime d'ailleurs exceptionnelles puisqu'elles ne visent que la consommation du porc et du vin, avaient pour résultat de rendre tangible à nos jeunes gens la nécessité de tolérance, leur bénéfice éducatif ne serait pas contestable.
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IV. RÈGLEMENT INTÉRIEUR DE L'ECOLE NORMALE D'INSTITUTEURS DE BOUZARÉAH. 1921
Chapitre 1. Dispositions générales
Art. 1. Les élèves-maîtres d'Ecole normale, ayant à faire l'apprentissage de leurs prochaines responsabilités, se gouvernent eux-mêmes sous le contrôle de leurs professeurs et de leur directeur.
Cette liberté n'est pas anarchie. A l'Ecole et hors de l'Ecole, dans leurs relations entre eux ou avec autrui, les élèves-maîtres doivent observer ces règles de la politesse qui font le charme et la valeur morale des sociétés civilisées. Ils doivent éviter de troubler l'ordre sans lequel il n'y aurait, dans un établissement scolaire, ni travail, ni progrès. Ils doivent obéir d'autant plus strictement à la loi de la maison qu’elle est pour eux plus libérale.
Art. 2. Le bon ordre dans l'Ecole, la bonne tenue intérieure de l'établissement sont placés sous la sauvegarde des élèves-maîtres. Chacun d'eux doit se considérer comme directement intéressé à ce que les divers services de l'Ecole fonctionnent avec exactitude et facilité. Il en résulte pour chacun l'obligation d'éviter tout ce qui est de nature à apporter le moindre
trouble dans la marche de ces service comme. aussi d'accomplir tout ce oui peut en aider le fonctionnement régulier.
Art. 3. Les mouvements, les changements d'exercice se font aux heures indiquées par l'en1ploÎ du temps. Ils sont annoncés par un coup de cloche.
Art. 4. La mise en rangs, le silence ne sont point prescrits pour l'entrée dans les salles d'études et de cours, l'arrivée au réfectoire et au dortoir: mais la liberté de ces mouvements ne doit entraîner ni désordre, ni bruit, ni précipitation, ni retard
Art. 5. Les communications des élèves-maîtres avec le dehors ont lieu par les sorties, les correspondances et les visites qu'ils reçoivent.
Les sorties sont réglées comme il est dit au chapitre 7.
La correspondance des élèves est libre, le directeur restant, juge toutefois de l'opportunité qu'il pourrait y avoir à faire ouvrir en sa présence et à se faire communiquer les lettres qui lui paraîtraient entretenir des relations suspectes. Sous cette réserve, les élèves maitres déposent eux-mêmes dans la boîte aux lettres de l'école les correspondances qu'ils écrivent; celles qui leur sont adressées sont remises par le facteur au bureau du directeur et distribuées aux intéressés, à chaque courrier, par les soins d'élèves désignés à cet effet.
Les élèves-maîtres peuvent, avec l'agrément du directeur, recevoir des visites pendant les récréations de 12 h 30 il 13 h ct de 17 h à 17 h 30. Ces visites ont lieu dans, 1a cour J'honneur.
Il est expressément défendu aux élèves-maîtres d'introduire qui que ce soit dans l'intérieur de l'Ecole.
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Art. 6. Il est recommandé aux élèves-maîtres d'être très réservés dans leurs rapports avec les employés et de ne leur adresser la parole que pour des nécessités de service. Ils ne doivent ni réclamer ni accepter de leur part aucun service personnel.
Art. 7. Toutes les réclamations des élèves-maitres sont soumises au directeur. Sauf clans les cas urgents, les démard1L's des élèves auront lieu pendant les heures de récréation.
Chapitre III. Service de surveillance
Art. 13. La surveillance de l'Ecole est exercée, sous l'autorité du directeur des Ecoles normales:
1° par le directeur de l'Ecole normale de l'enseignement des indigènes pour ce qui a trait à la discipline générale de l'établissement qu'il dirige;
2° par l'économe et son secrétaire pour tout ce qui concerne la tenue et l'hygiène de l'Ecole et des élèves;
3° par les professeurs pendant leurs heures de présence à l'Ecole aussi bien pour ce qui est de la tenue des élèves-maîtres que de leur travail.
4° par les professeurs ou maîtres-surveillants chargés de la discipline générale de l'Ecole et spécialement du contrôle des études, des récréations, des repas, du lever et du coucher, des entrées et des sorties des élèves ;
5° par des élèves-maîtres choisis: pour l'Ecole normale de l'enseignement .des Européens, parmi les élèves-maîtres en troisième année, de préférence; pour l'Ecole normale de l'enseignement des indigènes, parmi élèves-maîtres de la section française et comprenant notamment
a) deux surveillants généraux, un pour chaque école, élus respectivement par les élèves- maîtres des troisième et deuxième années d'une part, et la section, d'autre part, avec l'agrément du directeur, et dont les attributions comportent la direction générale et le contrôle des divers services confiés aux élèves-maîtres;
b) des surveillants de service, élus dans les mêmes conditions, avec l'approbation du directeur, et chargés, sous le contrôle de l'économe, de son secrétaire et du surveillant général, d'assurer le bon fonctionnement des services de propreté;
c) des surveillants d'étude, désignés dans les mêmes conditions et chargés, sous le contrôle des professeurs ou maîtres surveillants et du surveillant général, de la tenue des études;
d) des surveillants de dortoir, chargés dans les mêmes conditions que les précédents, de la surveillance de nuit d'un dortoir;
e) des surveillants de salle, choisis par leurs camarades de promotion, avec l'approbation du directeur, et chargés de veiller à l'observation des prescriptions concernant la tenue des salles d'études, des pupitres et des casiers des élèves.
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Art. 14. Si l'objet immédiat de cette surveillance est d'assurer le bon ordre dans la maison et la ponctualité dans les services, son but essentiel est d'ordre éducatif; elle vise à exercer une action directrice sur toute l'Ecole, à faire prendre le pli des bonnes habitudes morales et mentales, à discipliner vraiment les esprits par la pratique confiante d'un régime de liberté réglée. Traitant les élèves-maîtres en hommes et non plus en enfants, elle s'efforce d'exciter en eux des sentiments généreux par la foi en leur existence et en leur vertu; elle réprime moins les fautes qu'elle ne les prévient et elle conseille plus qu'elle ne punit. Ce contrôle à la fois discret et effectif doit en un mot incliner chaque jour les élèves « à bien penser et à bien agir, non de force, mais de leur plein gré ».
Art. 15. Chaque surveillant est, dans la limite de ses attributions, responsable de la bonne marche du service qui lui est confié.
Chapitre V. Etudes
1. Marche des études
Art. 19. Le silence doit régner en tout temps dans les salles; d'études; Cependant les élèves-maîtres ont la facilité de se déplacer pour prendre un livre dans leur casier, consulter un ouvrager de la bibliothèque de classe ou demander un conseil à un condisciple pourvu, que tout se passe discrètement, avec la préoccupation de ne pas troubler l'ordre ni le travail des autres.
Art. 20. Un élève-maître ne peut quitter la salle d'études sans avertir de son absence l'élève-maître surveillant ou le maître de service.
Art. 21. La surveillance des études est exercée, sous le contrôle ~des maîtres de service :
1° pour les études régulières du matin et du soir, par les élèves maîtres surveillants désignés au paragraphe c de l'article 13 du présent règlement;
2° pour les études ordinaires ou accidentelles du reste de la journée par les deux élèves- maîtres surveillants de salle désignés au paragraphe e du même article.
Art. 22. Les surveillants d'études signaleront rigoureusement sur le cahier de surveillance spécial au fur et à mesure qu'ils se produiront, tous les incidents de quelque importance, notamment: les entrées en retard avec la durée de ce retard, les sorties d'élèves et la durée de l'absence, les déplacements fréquents et prolongés, les conversations à haute voix, le temps perdu, les bavardages, et tous les faits imprévus qui provoqueraient le moindre désordre.
Art. 23. Chaque semaine, une étude du soir sera entièrement et exclusivement consacrée aux «lectures personnelles ».
Art. 24. Le surveillant d'étude est responsable de la bonne marche de l'étude dont il a la charge. Il doit également veiller à l'aération des salles et à l'extinction de la lumière.
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2. Tenue de la salle et des pupitres
Art. 25. Il est prescrit aux élèves-maîtres de renfermer avec soin et dans le plus grand ordre, dans leurs pupitres ou casiers, les livres et les cahiers dont ils se servent. Chaque élève maître affichera à l'intérieur de son pupitre la liste signée par lui et le surveillant de salle et visée par le directeur, des ouvrages qui y seront déposés.
Art. 26. Il est interdit aux élèves-maîtres d'introduire à l'Ecole, sans l'autorisation du directeur, un livre, quel qu'il soit, en dehors de ceux dont la liste leur est fournie officiellement, ou qui pourraient leur être prêtés par leurs professeurs. Il leur est également défendu de ranger dans leurs pupitres ou leurs casiers du tabac, des provisions de toute nature.
Art. 27. Les élèves-maîtres pourront s'abonner à des publications d'enseignement, à des revues ou à des journaux, pourvu qu'ils aient préalablement obtenu l'autorisation du directeur.
Art. 28. Ni le pupitre, ni les casiers ne seront fermés à clef. Tout-\ouvrage qui disparaîtra sera, après avis de la promotion et sur autorisation du directeur, remplacé par l'économe aux frais de la promotion, ou, après enquête, aux frais de tous les élèves-maîtres de' l'Ecole normale intéressée.
Art. 29. 'L'entrée des salles d'étude est interdite, en principe, pendant les récréations; aucun élève ne pourra y demeurer ou y pénétrer sans une autorisation spéciale de l'élève- maître surveillant de salle. Ces autorisations ne pourront être accordées que pour des motifs sérieux.
Art. 30. L'élève maître surveillant de salle est chargé, sous sa responsabilité de veiller à la stricte application des dispositions concernant la tenue de la salle et des pupitres.
Art. 31. Le surveillant d'étude et le surveillant de salle consignent leurs observations, au fur et à mesure qu'elles se produisent sur le cahier de surveillance des études, cahier qui sera remis au directeur tons les 'samedis à 8 heures, par le surveillant général.
Chapitre VL Récréations
Art. 32. Les récréations ont lieu, soit dans les cours de l'établisse· ment, à l'exception de la cour d'honneur, soit dans le petit bois. Il est interdit aux élèves de sortir sans autorisation de la partie de l'Ecole qui leur est assignée.
Art. 33. La liberté la plus grande est laissée aux élèves-maîtres pour l'emploi de leurs récréations. Toutefois les jeux de cartes, jeux de hasard, tous ceux qui entraînent une perte ou un gain sont défendus, comme aussi les cris et les chants de mauvais goût.
Art. 34. L'élève-maître qui est appelé par le concierge pour une visite ou qui s'absente pour une raison quelconque, doit remettre au professeur de service «un permis de sortie» signé du directeur.
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Chapitre VIII. Réfectoire
Art. 41. Les élèves-maîtres sont autorisés à parler au réfectoire; mais il convient qu'ils s'abstiennent d'y élever la voix ou de s'interpeller d'une table à l'autre.
Chapitre IX. Dortoir
Art. 47. Le silence est la règle au dortoir. Les élèves quittent le dortoir le matin au coup de cloche qui suit celui qui sonne le lever, après avoir fait leur toilette. Il leur est recommandé d'ouvrir les fenêtres et de laisser leurs lits entièrement découverts. Les surveillants de dortoir ont la charge d'assurer l'exécution de ces prescriptions.
Art. 48. Après le déjeuner de 7 heures, les élèves montent au dortoir, font leur lit et complètent leur toilette. Ils doivent soigner leur tenue journalière, avoir des effets propres et non déchirés, un col de chemise propre et une cravate, des chaussures cirées. Il est défendu de mettre dès pantoufles après huit heures, sans autorisation.
V. SITUATION FAITE A L'INSTITUTEUR DE TRIBU
Je voudrais pouvoir donner une idée exacte et complète de l'existence que mène l'instituteur de tribu. Mais je -crains fort de ne pas y réussir. Je m'estimerais heureux si je réussissais à faire ressortir la disproportion qui existe entre les sacrifices imposés à nos collègues du « bled» et les maigres avantages dont ils jouissent.
L'éloignement des postes, la difficulté des communications, l'absence de routes carrossables, les obstacles que l'on rencontre à travers les chemins muletiers rendent les voyages longs, pénibles et coûteux. Nombreux sont ceux. d'entre nous qui, pour rejoindre leur poste, doivent parcourir des centaines et des centaines de kilomètres, à travers des pays plus ou moins déshérités, utilisant divers modes de locomotion, tantôt le train, tantôt la patache ou l'autobus, tantôt le mulet, le cheval ou le chameau. Lorsqu'il faut faire véhiculer ainsi une femme, plusieurs enfants et de nombreux bagages, on devine les frais qu'il faut supporter et les tourments qu'il faut endurer. Arrivé à destination, on n'est pas au bout de ses peines; il faut soutenir une lutte incessante pour assurer l'existence de sa famille et pour s'acquitter honorablement de ses obligations professionnelles.
D'une façon générale, on ne trouve pas de provisions sur place le pain, la viande, l'épicerie, les légumes, le vin font défaut; il faut aller les chercher au marché voisin, c'est-à- dire à quinze, vingt ou trente kilomètres.
L'approvisionnement! Voilà le cauchemar des instituteurs de tribu, surtout quand il n'y a pas de routes carrossables. Comment faire pour résoudre ce problème angoissant? Un a souvent recours à quelques muletiers indigènes qui, moyennant une modeste rétribution, vont une ou deux fois par semaine chercher les provisions de la famille. Mais c'est là un pis-aller, car, pour certains achats, le commissionnaire tait souvent «danser l'anse au panier ». Un a un compte ouvert chez le boucher, le boulanger et l'épicier ; là il est Impossible de lorcer.la note; mais quand Il s'agit de faire acheter des légumes et des fruits, on paie cher des produis qui sont rarement de bonne qualité. Autrefois, on pouvait se procurer à très bon compte des poulets et des œufs; mais il y a longtemps que le mécanisme a envahi la tribu des revendeurs moulants parcourent les douars, raflant les poulets et les œufs, donnant en
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échange des étoffes et divers Objets de mercerie. .Pour l'instituteur, Il ne reste rien ou le peu qui reste atteint un prix inaccessible.
L'eau potable manque généralement à l'école; il faut aller souvent loin pour en trouver. Il faut donc un chercheur d'eau: nouvelle dépense, nouveau sujet d'ennuis! La fontaine est rarement protégée, bêtes et gens la souillent. Si l'eau n'est pas saumâtre, elle est souvent boueuse; parfois, elle sent le fumier. Réduit à consommer de l'eau malsaine, on s'expose à de graves dangers. L'absence d'eau à récole rend tout jardinage impossible; les arbres dépérissent. D'ailleurs le Jardin est totalement ravagé par les troupeaux de chèvres, faute d'une clôture suffisante; c'est la encore un Sujet d'ennuis avec la population.
L'instituteur de tribu doit savoir tous les métiers, car il ne peut compter que sur lui- même. Voici une porte qui ne ferme plus: il faut la réparer de suite si l'on veut se mettre à l'abri des voleurs. Voici qu'un coup de vent emporte la toiture: vite, il faut trouver une couverture de fortune pour se préserver de la pluie. Voilà que le mauvais temps persiste et que les provisions s'épuisent: impossible de se rendre au village Voisin, à cause de la neige ou d'un oued démesurément grossi par les pluies. Va-t-on mourir de faim? Il faut s'improviser boulanger i bien ou mal fait, le pain sera toujours le bienvenu. On pourrait citer bien d'autres cas où l'ingéniosité, l'esprit d'initiative, le sang-froid, permettent seuls de se tirer d'affaire. Le secours ne peut arriver que trop tard, quand il arrive.
Bien souvent les autorités locales ne répondent même pas aux requêtes les plus urgentes; quand on vous répond, on soulève des objections, on vous fait des promesses évasives, on vous berne. S'agit-il d'obtenir une réparation de toiture; vous avez beau écrire qu'il pleut sur votre tête et sur celle de vos élèves, vous avez beau insister et supplier; on vous répond «Pas de crédits: il faut un vote}) ; ou bien «Bonne note est prise de" votre demande; on fera le nécessaire le plus tôt possible.» Les jours, les semaines, les mois se passent; les dégradations s'aggravent; alors il faut des subventions, des paperasses, des formalités à n'en plus finir. Et l'instituteur attend toujours!
Toutes ces souffrances, toutes ces privations sont peu de chose à côté des tourments qu'on éprouve en cas de maladie grave. L'intervention du médecin est impossible ou tardive à cause de l'éloignement. Il faut donc se soigner soi-même. Voilà donc l'instituteur improvisé médecin, voire même accoucheur. .
Les difficultés d'ordre professionnel compliquent singulièrement la tâche de l'instituteur de tribu. De toutes les causes de tracas, il n'en est pas de plus sérieuse que la fréquentation scolaire, notariin1è~t en pays arabe. Par besoin, le paysan indigène garde' son fils à la maison pour lui confier de menues besognes et il ne se résigne à l'envoyer à l'école que lorsqu'il se voit menacé d'amende ou même de prison. Pour lui, l'intérêt matériel immédiat prime, toutes considérations d'avenir. Le fils se fait berger, va chercher de l'herbe, ramasser du bois mort, reste à la maison pour garder le plus .jeune frère ou la plus jeune sœur: tous ces menus services rendus journellement sont fort appréciés. D'ailleurs, l'école française n'inspire pas une grande confiance aux indigènes de tribu. Les marabouts, qui ont tout intérêt à ce que leurs coreligionnaires restent ignorants pour les mieux exploiter, entretiennent habilement des préventions et des préjugés contre l’instruction française. D'après eux, la porte du paradis est fermée pour un musulman instruit et pour les siens, et, si on impose l'obligation scolaire aux jeunes indigènes, ce n'est pas pour leur bien, c'est pour en faire de bons soldats. L'école idéale, c'est l'école, coranique; l'école française, c'est l'école des « m'tournis », c'est l’école des renégats, de ceux qui « boivent du vin et qui mangent .du cochon ». Tel est, sans exagération,
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l'état d'esprit contre .lequel se heurtent inévitablement les maîtres de tribu. On conçoit qu'il soit si difficile d'assurer la fréquentation scolaire sans recourir à la contrainte. Quelle que soit la valeur pédagogique du maître, quelle que soit son habileté, il lui est difficile de retenir à l'école des enfants que leur entourage s'efforce d'y arracher. Une mauvaise fréquentation rend stériles les efforts du maître; à moins d'avoir un caractère bien trempé, celui-ci finit par se décourager. S'il redoublé de zèle, il se crée des ennemis parmi la population; s'il-se relâche, il s'expose à être mal noté et à compromettre son avancement; s'il se plaint de la situation pénible qui lui est faite, il passe pour un mécontent et un grincheux. Tel est l'inévitable dilemme.
Les collègues qui ont parcouru la tribu savent combien peu l'instituteur est soutenu par l'autorité locale. Sans généraliser ni· pousser le tableau au noir, on peut affirmer que les communes sont pour la plupart peu disposées en faveur des écoles de tribu. Si l'on ouvrait une enquête à ce sujet, on se rendrait mieux compte de toutes les difficultés auxquelles on se heurte lorsqu'il s'agit de faire exécuter des réparations ou d'obtenir des fournitures et du matériel. Sans doute, il y a des maires et des administrateurs qui font tout ce qu'ils peuvent pour faciliter la tâche de l'instituteur, mais je crois qu'ils sont plutôt l'exception.
Cette vie de privations et de soucis, qui est le lot de l'instituteur de tribu n'est compensée par aucun avantage, ni par aucun agrément. Il est aisé de célébrer les charmes de la vie champêtre quand on ne manque de rien et qu'on a toutes les commodités désirables. Les pauvres maîtres, exilés dans les tribus reculées, privés de toute distraction, ne voyant que très rarement des personnes à qui ils peuvent causer, savent seuls combien est pénible leur isolement. Bien heureux sont ceux qui reçoivent régulièrement leur courrier, ils peuvent au moins connaître les événements les plus importants. Mais bien souvent, les écoles de tribu ne sont pas desservies par la poste. Les instituteurs reçoivent leurs correspondances par des moyens de fortune, ordinairement par l'intermédiaire du caïd, du garde champêtre ou de quelque indigène; il arrive que des journaux ou des lettes s'égarent et parviennent avec des retards considérables, ce qui entraîne parfois de graves ennuis.
La sécurité des maîtres n'est pas garantie; il est bien heureux que les populations indigènes soient, dans leur ensemble, très paisible; mais les années de famine sont fréquentes et les voleurs, affamés, peuvent profiter de ce que l'école n'est pas gardée pour faire un mauvais coup. Qu'importe le danger pour ceux qui sont à l'aise, et en sécurité ? L'instituteur du bled n'a qu'à se défendre comme il peut. Tant pis pour lui s’il se laisse tuer ou si, -en son absence son école est cambriolée et son jardin dévasté. On insinuera même que si on lui fait du tort, c'est parce qu'il n'a pas su plaire à tout le monde. Or, seul fait de veiller à la fréquentation scolaire, de signalé aux autorités les parents qui retiennent leurs enfants à la maison, suffit pour susciter bien des inimitiés à l'instituteur.
Le séjour en tribu est limité par des considérations sérieuses. Quand le maître a des enfants jeunes, il peut les instruire lui-même; mais il arrive un moment où leur entrée dans une école s'impose. Ecole primaire supérieure, cours complémentaire, collège ou lycée ne se trouvent que dans les centres importants; on hésite à mettre des enfants en pension pour ne pas se séparer d'eux et pour éviter des frais onéreux. Voilà une des raisons qui poussent les instituteurs de la campagne à solliciter des postes en ville.
Est-il nécessaire d'insister davantage sur les sacrifices qui incombent aux maîtres du bled? Je ne le crois pas, car il ressort suffisamment de ce qui précède que les postes de tribu sont très pénibles. Une tâche ingrate devrait procurer des avantages sérieux. Que donne-t-on
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à l'instituteur de tribu? Une indemnité de résidence qui n'est pas toujours en rapport avec les difficultés qu'offre chaque poste et qui est réduite de moitié pour l'instituteur indigène. C'est là un avantage dérisoire.
Pour faire œuvre utile en tribu, il faudrait des maîtres d'élite et des avantages sérieux pour les maintenir dans des postes déshérités. Voici, à cet égard, quelques vœux qui pourraient être soumis à l'administration…
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