Sacred Language, Ordinary People: Dilemmas of Culture and Politics in Egypt [Paperback]

Niloofar Haeri (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 15, 2003 | ISBN-10: 0312238975 | ISBN-13: 978-0312238971

The cultures and politics of nations around the world may be understood (or misunderstood) in any number of ways. For the Arab world, language is the crucial link for a better understanding of both. Classical Arabic is the official language of all Arab states although it is not spoken as a mother tongue by any group of Arabs. As the language of the Qur'an, it is also considered to be sacred. For more than a century and a half, writers and institutions have been engaged in struggles to modernize Classical Arabic in order to render it into a language of contemporary life. What have been the achievements and failures of such attempts? Can Classical Arabic be sacred and contemporary at one and the same time? This book attempts to answer such questions through an interpretation of the role that language plays in shaping the relations between culture, politics, and religion in Egypt.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“The book is a welcome contribution to the field of Arabic linguistics.”--International Journal of Middle East Studies

“[T]his is one of the most interesting books I have ever read on language. It is certainly unique insofar as the study of Arabic is concerned, for no linguistic ethnography exists for Classical Arabic.”
-Steven C. Caton, Professor of Contemporary Arab Studies, Harvard University

“I don’t know of anyone who has carved out the subject Haeri is pursuing in such original fashion. She writes clearly about a very complicated set of issues, and she has a wonderful way of blending theory with empirical work.”
-Philip S. Khoury, Professor of History, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

“Haeri’s fine book explores one of the most fundamental distinctions in human communication systems-formal versus informal-by examining one of the world’s most important official languages-Classical Arabic. She shows that understanding the role of formal language in society is crucial to an understanding of the state and its relation to symbolic capital. This subtle and well-written analysis is only possible because Haeri relies on concrete ethnographic data of language in practice for her examples.”
-Joel Kuipers, George Washington University, Institute for Ethnographic Research

About the Author

Niloofar Haeri is Professor of Anthropology at Johns Hopkins University. She was a Bunting Fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University (1999-2000) and is an internationally recognized scholar of Arabic. She has conducted research on language change and its relation to class and gender in Egypt. Among her publications are The Sociolinguistic Market of Cairo: Gender, Class, and Education (Kegan Paul International, 1996) and Structuralist Studies in Arabic Linguistics: Papers Published by Charles Ferguson 1948-1992, with K. Belnap (E. J. Brill, 1997).

Product Details

• Paperback: 208 pages
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan (January 15, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312238975
• ISBN-13: 978-0312238971
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 6.1 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #829,679 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Spoken Arabic: The Sacred and Profane, July 22, 2005

By 

Ali Aldailami (Chicago-Bahrain) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Sacred Language, Ordinary People: Dilemmas of Culture and Politics in Egypt (Paperback)

This is a very intelligent book about a topic that has been plaguing Arabic philoloigists and thinkers. How do you modernize a language that is considered sacred? Is there a difference between the modern Classic Arabic and the Quran's Classic Arabic? What are people's attitudes towards Classical Arabic? Perhaps one of the best passages in this study is when an Egyptian would explain the ease and the relaxed state of mind he is in upon hearing or reading the Quran (which is written in Classical Arabic), yet at the same time would describe the same language as "diffcult", and a burdan to write and communicate in within other spheres. Other topics explore the efforts made to transfer a sacred language into print and media and how it defines social heirarchies within Egyptian society.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Egyptians Speak a Language they do not Respect and Respect a langauge they do not speak, September 24, 2006

By 

AA "ashour001" (Newton, MA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Sacred Language, Ordinary People: Dilemmas of Culture and Politics in Egypt (Paperback)

Niloofar Haeri is an Iranian American; she studied Arabic Language in the USA and went to Egypt to further her studies. On arrival she realized that the language she learnt "modern Arabic" is very different from the language spoken by the Egyptians. The difference was more than just accent or dialect; it was far more fundamental than that. Haeri set out studying the Egyptian "Arabic" language in great detail and studying its role in the society.

Haeri describes contradictions galore in the way the society deals with the language issue and the way the whole language question is suppressed virtually by the entire nation. Egyptians are trapped unable to develop their language because any such development would be a departure from the sacred language of the Quran; a language the Egyptians never spoke and need to learn. Even the Copts, Egypt's Christians see Egyptian Arabic as an inferior language. Some of the amazing findings of Haeri include her analysis of the language of the newspapers which follows the sentence structure of Egyptian Arabic, political speeches and language on the TV. It was interesting to see how presidential speeches in Egyptian Arabic are often "translated" into proper Arabic for official news purposes.

I first heard of this book from a very negative review of the Al Ahram Weekly that was written by an American woman living in Egypt. The negative review was front page of the book review supplement of the Ahram. I was fascinated by it, so on my return to the US I ordered and truly loved it. Outstanding work, very highly recommended!

0 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Christmas present, January 11, 2007

By 

Jeanne E. Gale - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Sacred Language, Ordinary People: Dilemmas of Culture and Politics in Egypt (Paperback)

This book was for the same Egyptology student, who is taking her studies further in Social Anthropology. Makes a good case for a bridge between Ancient Egypt and the culture of today.