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Benrabah Mohamed , Language Conflict in Algeria: From Colonialism to Post-Independence . Bristol : Multilingual Matters , 2013, xiv +199 pp., 978 1 84769 964 0 (hardback)
Addressing an audience in Beirut in 1961, as Algeria's war for independence was ending, the Algerian essayist and revolutionary activist Malek Haddad apologized for his lack of Arabic proficiency by explaining that 'the French language is my exile' (137). Haddad's comment hinted at the identity crisis that afflicted Algerians as they tried to shake off French colonialism. This identity crisis, which continues today, reflected crippling uncertainties about which language or languages Algerians should be using - most authentically, or most legitimately - to read, write, think, speak in public, study science, pray to God, or even whisper to their lovers (78). The main contenders included French (the language of the colonizers), classical and literary Arabic (the language of the Koran and Islamic high learning) and colloquial forms of Arabic and Berber (which Algerians had traditionally spoken but never written).
In Language Conflict in Algeria, Mohamed Benrabah surveys nearly two centuries' worth of language politics and linguistic culture in Algeria, from the eve of the French colonial conquest of 1830 until 2012. He calls his book a study of 'the use of language as a proxy for conflict' (xiv) and examines three periods. These are, first, the era of France's colonial subjugation of indigenous Algerians (1830-54), when French rulers propagated French; second, the years of Algeria's war for...