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The language that unites and the language that divides us: Why was Arabic kept and Serbo-Croatian abolished?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

Dareg A. Zabarah
Dareg A. Zabarah*
Affiliation:
Humboldt Universität zu Berlin, Berlin, Germany
*
* Email: [email protected]
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Abstract

This article explores why the Arabs chose to keep a common language, while the Serbs, Croats, Bosniaks and Montenegrins chose not to. The study argues that the main reason for this can be found in the ideological constrains resulting out of the salience and interaction between different religious and ethnic group building projects in former Yugoslavia and the Arab states. Political elites in both regions favored the ethnic and religious category to different extents. Language planning reflected and implemented the respective ideological imperatives resulting out of these processes. This led to different approaches in defining the common language and its subsequent standardization.

Keywords

language standardizationsociolinguisticsnation-buildingnationalismYugoslaviaArab countriesIslamOrthodoxyCatholicism
Type
Articles
Information
Nationalities Papers , Volume 40 , Issue 4 , July 2012 , pp. 545 - 559
Copyright
Copyright © 2012 Association for the Study of Nationalities 

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