Pandaigdigang Kumperensiya sa Nanganganib na
Wika
(International Conference on Language
Endangerment)
Manila, Philippines
10-12 Oktubre 2018, 8:00nu–5:00nh
Komisyon sa Wikang Filipino (KWF)
From Oppression to Officialisation Revival of a Language, Survival of a Culture:
The All-Out War of Tamazight (Berber) in North Africa
Salem Mezhoud
ooo
Foundation for Endangered Languages
and
King’s College London
Language Endangerment has many causes
Most scholars agree on most of them
• Stephen A. Wurm:
Economic, Cutural, political influence
• Jean Aitchison:
Language dies because another language has gradually ousted it
Language suicide occurs when two languages are similar and the less
prestigious borrows from the other one with greater social approval and may
obliterate itself entirely in the process
Language murder: the old language is slaughtered by the new
[Monolingualism - to bilingualism - to monolingualism]
Politically-induced endangerment
and death
Claude Hagège speaks of
• Language(s) sacrificed on the altar of the State
• The State as committing “linguicide”
For Hagège the State uses as instruments of the
execution:
The Military (the Army)
The Media
Administrative / legislative powers
The Politics of Language Death
In the North Africa case
• A state policy: planning language death
• Supported by the military and the media
• Uses all resources of state:
education, propaganda, discrimination,
repression
= Death foretold
NORTH AFRICA
TERRA NULLIUS
Yet
They were there
They still are!
Death of Language = Death of identity
Linguicide excludes
– accident
– “natural” course
Linguicide is reminiscent (redolent)
or equivalent to
Ethnocide (Robert Jaulin) or any form of
cultural genocide
ALGERIA’S
HEADACHE
Survival of language = cultural survival
The Amazigh people equate language with
culture
• The way to survival of their identity is
through survival of their language
(Tamazight)
• To revive/revitalise their language is to
fight to ensure the future of their culture
The Executioner’s Tools
The State has a very full toolbox
• Does not recognise existence of Berbers
• Mention of Tamazight culture and language banned and
repressed
• suppression of all education in the language (Chair of
Berber studies at University of Algiers abolished as are
schools in Morocco)
• Media prohibited, tightly controlled and initiatives curtailed
• existing radio programmes gradually reduced , in
technological features and content (vocabulary, topics)
• Berber given names prohibited
• Toponyms changed (into Arabic)
MOTIVATION
The Land is Arab
V
JUSTIFICATION
State Ideology: Arab-Islamism
(Arabo-islamisme)
Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya
(Egypt)
INSTRUMENTALISATION
Arab + Islam =
Arabisation:
importation of Classical Arabic from Middle East
North African colloquial “Arabic” not allowed
Tamazight object of repression (cf above)
Islamisation:
observance of religion brutally enforced
non-observance punished
proliferation of mosques and “institutes of
Islamic studies”
The Amazigh People’s
Response
Death of Language is Death of Culture
Death of Culture is Death of Identity
= LANGUAGE MUST SURVIVE
» Prepare for a fight
» Proceed: inside out
SURVIVAL MEANS REVITALISATION
Part instinct, part science
Part resistence, part struggle
May steps: End decline (documentation)
preserve what is left (internal effort)
Revitalisation what is dormant
Recreate what is gone
The Way of the People
“in their efforts at reviving a language, Aboriginal
people may instead be recreating it”
Nicholas Thieberger
(in David and Maya Bradley, eds. Language Endangerment and
Language Maintenance. Reviewed by Mark Turin)
The Way of the People
- Tamazight -
• In their efforts to revitalise their language
the Amazigh people didn’t object to
“re-creation”.
• They wanted to revive, revitalise,
“recreate” a tool, not an “authentic”
museum piece.
• Authenticity is for regaining pride but
• New aspects are signs of “dynamism”
Revival
David Crystal’s criteria for success of EL:
• Speakers increase their prestige within the dominant community
• Speakers increase their legitimate power in the eyes of the dominant community
• Speakers have a strong presence in the education system
• Speakers can write their language down
• Speakers can make use of electronic technology
Resistance and Rebellion
An all-out “war”
Many fronts
• Awareness raising
• Educating (younger generations)
• Informing (older generations)
• Making public stand (speaking, defending)
• “militating”, engaging in activism (political)
• Producing material (political, scientific, educational)
Revival is about Commitment
Crucial factor:
Survival / Struggle for Revival is the
responsibility of entire community
However:
Road is long and success is slow
RE-WRITING HISTORY
Winston Churchill:
“History will be kind to me
for I intend to write it”
The victors get to write history
Romans wrote history of Carthage
The Spanish wrote the history of the Aztecs
Path to survival: re-write own history
>>> Provide Counter-Narrative
Writing Up History
• Official narrative: orality is bad
• Official weapon: Tamazight is oral
Official argument: Arabic only way for the country(ies)
• National unity
• Legimitacy (religion, civilisation)
• Response:
• Develop script
• Revive civilisation: pre-Islamic cultural heritage, pre-Islamic diversity (Christian, “pagan”)
A people without the knowledge of their past
history, origin and culture is like a tree without
roots.
Marcus Garvey
Writing Up History
Tamazight script 8th – 5th century BC
• Contemporary of Punic (Phoenician)
• Bilingual Latin
Writing Up History
History Past and Present
WRITING THE LANGUAGE
• Tamazight written in Arabic script (mainly
Morocco)
• French script
• Latin/Roman script
- French “spontaneous”
- French scientific
- Latin phonological
Scripting the Present
New Script, New Narrative
• Tuareg Tifinagh
• Neo-Tifinagh
- The “bricolage” period
- Kabyle phonetic /semi-scientific
- Pan-Berber phonological =
Kabylia + Morocco + Tuareg = Everywhere
> Linguistics is SEXY
- The technological period (ISO, unicode)
Preserve vs revitalise
• Governments promote “folklore”, tourist attactions: arts, crafts
• + Morocco: a revenue boon
• + Algeria: an eraser exercise
• + Elsewhere: under the carpet
• Governments stage death: falsify history, forbid archeology / anthropology (colonial sciences) invent origins, impose symbols (national anthem, flag)
• Choice or Opportun(ism)ity
• Eg Survival International vs Cultural Survival
Voicing the Revival: The Media
• Radio
• Underground journals
- diaspora
- national
+ Kabylia, Algeria
- Morocco
• Modernising the music
• Ethnographic publications
- academic
- lay publications
• Newspapers
Printing the Revival
• Literature
- poetry – modern
- preservation (folktales, legends, songs)
- new forms (novel, short story)
- translation (Becket, Molière, Brecht)
• Theatre
- Translation
- performance
Voicing the Revival
• Television – satellite (political/cultural)
• Cyberworld
Images of a Renaissance
• The Arts
– Painting
– Sculpture
– Decoration, illustration (motifs, symbols)
Film
– State films: Arabised
– Underground, independent in Tamazight
Remembering the Forgotten Hills
Spring is for Revivals
• The Berber Spring (1980)
• Human Rights
• Democracy
• Freedom of culture
• Freedom of belief (State religion, state
ideology)
The State and the Extremists: superficial
enemies but natural allies against Tamazight
Questioning the Ideologies
• Human rights (LADH)
• Democracy
• Tamazight vs The State, the Army, the
Bureaucracy, the Religious extremists …
• Pan-Amazigh union(s)
eg Amazigh World Congress (UN, EU)
• From the Forgotten Hill to a pan-North African
vision (aqbayli, acawi, acelhi, amzabi)=Amazigh
Rebels for the Cause
MCB – Berber Cultural Movement
• “Tamazight di lakul” (Tamazight in the schools)
• La grève des cartables (the school bag strike)
• Giant protest picnics during Ramadan
• Linguistics is SEXY
Schoolboy’s War
• Wildcat strikes
• Wildcat teaching
– University
– Primary schools
+Teaching materials
+Educational support
• “Black Spring” riots (2001) 162 deaths
• Civil society movement on ancient instituti
Teaching Materials
Teaching Materials
Teaching Materials
La Lucha Continua
• 1988 Riots opened way for democratisation
• Only possible because of Amazigh Spring
• Since 1992 – regression, even if not total retrogression to status quo ante 1980
• State and Islamists united against anything Amazigh
• 2001. “Black Spring” in Kabylia. Departure of Gendarmes form region.
• Revival of ancient social organisation (Aaruc- arouch) – new model of democracy
• Cultural autonomy
A Solid Constitution
• Language recognised and legalised
• Enshrined in the Constitution (Algeria)
• Taught in schools (Morocco)
• Taught at universities – very timidly
• Research at high level
• Morocco: Royal Research Institute for Tamazight Culture (IRCAM)
• Algeria: High Commissioner for “Amazighness” (HCA)
EPIGENESIS OR EMBRYOLOGY
OF REVIVAL
Steps of the stairway to Resurrection
1. Berbers and Tamazight do not exist
2. Ok. They exist, but only in folklore
3. Ok. They exist, but only as one foundation of our history / culture
which is now Arab and Islamic
4. Introduced as a subject in – some – schools in Morocco (2003)
and Algeria (semi-legal since 1980)
5. In Algeria becomes constitutionally a “national language” in 2002
(Arabic is “national and official”)
6. In Morocco, institutional progress: establishment of a Royal
Institute for Amazigh Culture – discussed during FEL Conference.
7. Algeria creates a High Commissioner for “Amazighness” (HCA)
EPIGENESIS OR EMBRYOLOGY
OF REVIVAL II
8. Algeria 2004. President in a speech “Tamazight will never be official
language”
9. Morocco 2011. New Constitution: Tamazight National Language
10. Algeria. 2016.Tamazight will be Official Language under revised
Constitution
11. Libya, post-Kaddhafi, recognises Tamazight (Kaddhafi denied its
existence)
12. Libyan Berbers refuse status of “second official language” with no
role in governmental institutions
13. Morocco, Algeria, Libya: Official but on paper only.
LA LUCHA CONTINUA!
From the Wise
“One does not resuscitate lost horizons. What needs to be done is to define the new horizons.(…) The greatest favour that one can do those likely to be subjected to ethnocide is to abstain from civilising them and from defining their happiness for them.”
Mouloud Mammeri
The Banquet or the Absurd Death of the Aztecs