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Programme: accepted abstracts

Abstract ID: 1302

Part of Session 142: Deconstructing the urban-rural dichotomy (Other abstracts in this session)

An Arabic Dialect in the Berber Town of Bejaia (Algeria). The Urban-Rural Dichotomy and Accommodation

Authors: AOUMER, Fatsiha
Submitted by: AOUMER, Fatsiha (University of Bejaia, Algeria)

The widespread language shift from Berber to the dialectal Arabic in Algeria and North Africa in general is mainly the result of the islamisation of this region and the arabicisation language policy led by the different states. Berber, the indigenous language in North Africa, is now everywhere a minority language. It has mainly been maintained in mountainous and rural areas and in the Sahara away from any contact with Arabic.

This paper deals with the evolution of the sociolinguistic situation of the Mediterranean town of Bejaia situated in the north west of Algeria and in the important berber speaking region of Kabylia, taking account of the accommodation processes  according to the urban-rural dichotomy. It is interested in the presence of an Arabic dialect in some districts of the old centre of this berber town and its relation with the kabyle dialect. This Arabic variety which is strongly influenced by Berber and spoken with a berber accent is attributed to the oldest town dwellers, the “elite families” of Bejaia considered of a foreign origin, since urbanity was not admitted as an indigenous fact. The Arabic variety which is in a diaglossic situation with the classical Arabic is connected with urbanity (high prestige) and Berber (Kabyle), with rurality (low prestige). To accede to urbanity considered as valorizing, speakers arriving to the old town center used to learn and shift towards the prestige arabic variety by accommodation. However, a changing context due to an increasingly important rural exodus which led to a geographical expansion and an economic development of the town and the social and institutional valorization of the berber language has turned the speakers’ convergence with the prestige urban variety downward and has allowed the emergence of an urban kabyle variety which in its turn is used to distinguish between the town dwellers and the arriving rural speakers.