Language Conflict and Identity Malaise in Algeria and the Maghreb

Many books and articles have been published on the sociolinguistic profile of Algeria and the Maghreb. Yet few have ever focused attention on the ideological and identity decisive aspects that underlie and determine the persisting language conflict. Based mainly on the macro-sociolinguistics’ methodology, this book focuses on questions such as: how do the different languages organise their co-existence within society? How are these languages represented by people and by the State? Why did the Maghrebi States try vehemently and time after time to “substitute” a second language (namely Scholarly Arabic), less mastered by the elites, to French as well as to the first languages throughout the postcolonial period? Why has the Algerian State decided recently to substitute Scholarly Arabic and English to French? Why has the postcolonial political trend in power mistreated the sociolinguistic manifold reality of these multilingual and multicultural societies?
Heated debates have also flared recently on the methodology to approach language planning of Tamazight and Algerian or Maghrebi Arabic upon their respective places in the Maghrebi socio-functional space and language market.