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Globalization in the Periphery: Arabization and the Changing Status of Siwi Berber in the Oasis of Siwa

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Globalization in the Periphery: Arabization and the Changing Status of Siwi Berber in the Oasis of Siwa Sociolinguistic ISSN: 1750-8649 (print) Studies ISSN: 1750-8657 (online) Article Globalization in the periphery: Arabization and the changing status of Siwi Berber in the oasis of Siwa Valentina Serreli Abstract New media and communication technologies, heritage tourism and new reproductions of local identity are forms of globalization characteristic of the peripheries (Wang, Spotti, Juffermans, Kroon, Cornips and Blommaert, 2014:30). This article discusses some effects of globalization in a peripheral area of Egypt, where relative isolation delayed Arabization and favoured the maintenance of the indigenous Berber language, called Siwi. Globali- zation materialized in important socioeconomic changes that affected the linguistic attitudes and practices of the oasis dwellers. Following Milroy’s (1980) social network approach and Gumperz’ (1982) further elaboration, it is argued that such variation is not related to socioeconomic changes directly but connected to the structural variation of the community’s social network they provoked. Based on qualitative attitudinal data collected through interviews and participant observation, the study shows that although Egyptian Arabic is widespread and acquires prestige, Siwi not only remains a strong marker of group solidarity but is also becoming a symbol of the Siwan identity. KEYWORDS: SIWI BERBER, EGYPTIAN ARABIC, MINORITY LANGUAGE, GLOBALIZATION, MULTILINGUALISM, SIWA OASIS (EGYPT) Affiliation University of Bayreuth, Germany email: [email protected] SOLS VOL 12.2 2018 231–250 https://doi.org/10.1558/sols.35565 © 2019, EQUINOX PUBLISHING 232 SOCIOLINGUISTIC STUDIES 1 Introduction This article discusses the changing sociolinguistic status of Siwi and Arabic in the Egyptian oasis of Siwa, arguing that such variation follows the change in the structure of the community’s social network provoked by the advent of globalization. Globalization is characterized by processes through which ‘people in their everyday socio-cultural and socio-linguistic practices form relations across multi- ple networks […] that while locally situated involve connections with phenomena occurring at higher, translocal scale-levels, and have effects at all scale-levels involved’ (Wang, Spotti, Juffermans, Kroon, Cornips and Blommaert, 2014:25). These processes concern the entire world, but their distribution depends on the degree of availability and accessibility of ‘infrastructures of globalization’, that is, ‘instruments enabling connections between purely local events and translocal processes, patterns and developments’ (Wang, Spotti, Juffermans, Kroon, Cornips and Blommaert, 2014:29). Therefore, as central and peripheral areas are charac- terized by unequal access to infrastructures of globalization, peripheral areas might have only partial access to specific ones. Wang, Spotti, Juffermans, Kroon, Cornips and Blommaert (2014:30) argue that new media and communication technologies, the emergence of new forms of economic activity, and new (re)pro- ductions of local identity formations are infrastructures favouring globalization in peripheral areas. This paradigm is useful to describe the present case study, because these three processes correspond to the transformation of the society that represented the advent of globalization in the oasis of Siwa, namely: a major circulation of knowledge due to the massive presence of televisions and access to the Internet; the diversification of the economy; and a new awareness and understanding of group identity. Milroy (1980) pointed out the key role of social networks in processes of language variation and change. She defined social networks as ‘the informal social relationships contracted by an individual’ (1980:174), and argued that social networks characterized by density and multiplexity ‒ that is, where a great num- ber of individuals are linked to each other and are linked in several ways ‒ favour the maintenance of vernacular norms; in contrast, the weakening of these ties can create the possibility of language change. In multilingual contexts, a dense and multiplex network supports low-status languages and, on the contrary, in a weaker network the group’s sense of distinctiveness diminishes and the dominant variety is perceived as more advantageous (Milroy, 2002). In other words, as argued by Gumperz (1982), the continuation or variation of linguistic practices depends on the preservation or variation of the density and multiplexity of interpersonal networks, even when the dynamics of social change are affecting the community. ARABIZATION AND THE CHANGING STATUS OF SIWI BERBER 233 After presenting very succinctly the sociolinguistics of the Arabic-speaking world, and of Egypt more specifically, the article presents the current socioling- uistic situation of Siwa Oasis, pointing out the emergence, among specific brackets of the population, of new attitudes and practices that are connected to the new values and meanings acquired by the Siwi and the Arabic varieties. Based on qualitative data collected through interviews and participant observation (see section 3.1), the article accounts for the socioeconomic changes produced by globalization and the transformation they have induced in the community’s social network, and it argues that the modification of the quantity and quality of members’ interaction, that is, their interpersonal networks, significantly affects the oasis dwellers’ attitudes towards and use of Siwi and Arabic. The study shows that within the space of the oasis, although Egyptian Arabic is widespread and acquires prestige, Siwi not only remains a strong marker of group solidarity but is becoming more than ever a symbol of Siwan identity. 2 Arabic and non-Arabic languages in the Arab world 2.1 Non Arabic languages in the Arab world A number of non-Arabic languages are spoken by indigenous groups within the Arab world. Among the biggest and most transnational ethnolinguistic groups are Berbers in North Africa; Kurdish, Armenian and Aramaic speakers in the Middle East; and the speakers of the Modern South Arabian languages in the Arabian Peninsula. Regardless of their demographic weight, these languages have the status of minority languages, because Modern Standard Arabic enjoys greater prestige and has official status. This follows the policies of Arabization1 pursued by Arab countries after independence, to the detriment of the non-Arabic lang- uages spoken within the borders, because the presence of other languages besides Arabic was considered a threat to national and pan-Arab unity (Miller, 2003). So far, only Berber in Morocco and Algeria, and Kurdish in Iraq, have become official languages alongside Arabic. Let us focus on the case of Berber. Berber belongs to the Afroasiatic language family. This is a close-knit language family, whose sub-classification is debated. Kossmann (2013:19) distinguishes ten major blocks of Berber varieties, with internal divisions. Berbers are the indigenous people of North Africa. They are found in the countries of Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Mauritania, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger and Nigeria, with high percentages in Morocco, Algeria, Niger and Mali (Chaker, 2008:2). The political treatment of the Berber language has varied from one country to another. The multilingual Saharan states of Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso officially treat it as a national language (Kossmann, 2013:29). In the Arab 234 SOCIOLINGUISTIC STUDIES countries, while it has not been an issue for countries where Berbers represent a small minority of the population, such as Mauritania, Tunisia and Egypt (Koss- mann, 2013:29), in Ghaddafi’s Libya the Berber language was banned from public life altogether (Kohl, 2014). In Morocco and Algeria, Berbers suffered denial and neglect for a long time; it was only after decades of popular struggles that the language achieved legal recognition. In Morocco, Berber has been an official language alongside Arabic since the 2011 Constitution, while in Algeria the status of national and official language is claimed for Berber in the draft constitution of January 2016. Within the climate of claiming linguistic rights and identity awareness-raising, Berbers have chosen to call themselves ‘Imazighen’ and their language ‘Tamazight’ (although the term ‘Amazigh’ is often used inter- changeably). In 1995 the Amazigh associations and the Amazighs of the diaspora founded the Amazigh World Congress, an international organization whose pur- pose is to uphold the rights of the Amazigh people. Arabic/Berber bilingualism is widespread in the Maghreb, but it is generally asymmetrical, as most Berbers usually speak Arabic besides their mother tongue, while Arabs do not usually learn Berber, except in specific areas where Berber is the language of the local daily routine (El-Kirat, 2006; Kossmann, 2013; Sayahi, 2014). According to Kossmann (2013), the asymmetry is ascribed to Berber’s failure to expand in new domains, that is, to become suitable for the new contexts of use created by urbanization and mass education. 2.2 The sociolinguistic situation of Egypt Egypt is an almost homogeneous Arabic-speaking country. Egyptians conceptu- alize the sociolinguistic situation of their country in terms of the opposition between al-luġa al-ʿarabīyya al-fuṣḥā and al-ʿāmmiyya (Kebede, Kindt and Høigilt, 2013:67–69; Suleiman, 2013), the latter being a cover term indicating non-standard Arabic varieties in general. However, dialect diversification and hierarchies are very significant, especially the distinction between the urban Lower
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