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Yasir Suleiman: A War of Words: Language and Conflict in the Middle East Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004, 286 pages, ISBN: 0521546367.
The repertoire of books dealing with Middle Eastern issues available in Central Europe is generally limited to historical reviews or analyses of Islam. However, the reality of the Arab world and the Jewish state is more complex than the chronology of the events described in these books. This is why I am drawing attention to Yasir Suleiman's "A War of Words", which aspires to offer Central Europe a much broader perspective of the Middle Eastern affairs.
Yasir Suleiman is professor of Arabic and Middle Eastern Studies, and Director of the Edinburgh Institute for the Advanced Study of the Arab World and Islam at the University of Edinburgh. His professional interest lies in the field of politics of identity in the Middle East, particularly in linguistics and nationalism. He is a Palestinian Arab, enabling him to offer an authentic picture of the differences in Arab society, and especially in the Arabic language.
The aim of this book is to show the connection between language (especially Arabic) and conflicts. Suleiman focuses on matters of national identity in relation to language and describes the differences between intra-state linguistic groups. He also deals with intra- and inter-state dissimilarities related to language, and studies the interaction between language and national/ethnic identities in situations of inter- and intra-state conflict. The analyses of these two phenomena, language and conflict, are undertaken from three different perspectives, according to which the book is structured.
In the introductory part "Language, power and conflict in the Middle East" Suleiman puts forward the main theoretical concepts of the study, based on the interaction between language and conflict, as well as between language and power. The key chapters explain the linguistic collisions between (1) a language and its dialects: "When language and dialects collide: Standard Arabic and its Opponents'", (2) the dialects of a language: "When dialects collide: language and conflict in Jordan" and (3) two languages in contact: "When languages collide: language and conflict in Palestine and Israel".
Suleiman sees language as a link connecting people sharing a common identity, rather than as a means of communication. It is not only a technical instrument of...