What is Happening to "Lughatunā l-gamīla"? Recent Media Representations and Social Practice in Egypt

Authors

  • Gunvor Mejdell

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.5617/jais.4592

Abstract

In one of his later papers (Carter 2006), Michael Carter traced the linguistic arguments and sources according to which the early grammarians based their description and rules of the Arabic language, and how with time this language came to be sanctified and given additional authority by identifying it as the language of the Qurʾān. Carter ends his article by addressing the challenges facing it, as the authority of grammar and of grammarians to control the language of the community fades away, and the ‘language of the people’, that is the vernacular varieties, takes over the domains of the classical ʿArabiyya. This article presents views and arguments found in Egyptian printed media over the past decade and relates them to earlier studies on the language debate. Finally, it discusses the extent to which these media representations reflect observed linguistic practice and social processes at work in the Egyptian language community.

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How to Cite

Mejdell, G. (2017). What is Happening to "Lughatunā l-gamīla"? Recent Media Representations and Social Practice in Egypt. Journal of Arabic and Islamic Studies, 8, 108–124. https://doi.org/10.5617/jais.4592

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