Friday, September 29, 2006

Tamazight cartoon

Dissertation all over, submitted, etc. - just enrolling for PhD...

On a different note, I just found a spot-on cartoon about Tamazight (Berber) language activism: Tamaziɣt nni. The speaker is saying, in French: "Azul fell-awen (greetings) - We have the grave duty of not letting Tamazight disappear... is ineluctable to..." The audience member in front of him is saying, in Tamazight (Kabyle): "What's 'ineluctable' mean?"

To my mind, this is perhaps the single biggest problem of some branches (certainly not all) of the Tamazight movement: they talk about developing Tamazight, but they talk and write and think in French. Tizi-Ouzou's walls are covered in aza signs (the Tifinagh letter resembling a man that has become a symbol of Amazigh activism), but its shopfronts and signs are covered in French, even though Arabic signs are regularly vandalised. This gives many other Algerians who would otherwise look more favorably on the idea of developing Tamazight the impression that it's simply a cover for maintaining or extending the (frankly negative) role of French in public life - an impression that is not always false. Personally, I favour a coherent policy: more use of Algeria's native languages - Arabic and Tamazight - in all spheres of life, and less use of foreign ones except in dealing with foreigners.

(And yes, the fact that I am writing this in English is somewhat ironic - but then, I'm writing for an international audience here, and from an English-speaking country.)

17 comments:

Lameen Souag الأمين سواق said...

Thanks! Here's a picture - and rotating, no less:
http://membres.lycos.fr/massensen2/hpbimg/AMAZIGH.gif

Anonymous said...

Congratulations, lameen and welcome back :o)
Any ideas on what the PhD thesis will be about?

Anonymous said...

And yes, the fact that I am writing this in English is somewhat ironic
Ironic, perhaps. But certainly as not detrimental to the movement as writing this in French would be. After all, English has become a sort of meta-language.

Dave said...

Congrats on the thesis, Lameen! I'm envious--I still have to do a thesis before I can even officially enroll in the PhD program at KU. But the journey should be good!

In my Ethnolinguistics course we have a lot of discussion about revitalization issues, some of which I hope to post on my blog. The BIG question in language revitalization is HOW MUCH the now dominant colonial language (English of course in the case of Hawaiian and many Amerindian languages) should be used in revitalization efforts (except of course in cases, as with extinct or almost extinct languages where there are no native speakers of the native language and revitalization efforts MUST be in English, the language now common to them all). There is a big split, in fact, in the Hawaiian revitalization community stemming from those who want NO English spoken to those who want more English. It's an issue that I'll have to wrestle with in my eventual attempts to help revitalization efforts along.

Anonymous said...

(And yes, the fact that I am writing this in English is somewhat ironic - but then, I'm writing for an international audience here, and from an English-speaking country.)

A question: why are you writing for an international audience? It seems to me that most of the reasons one can have to write in English about Tamazight can be used in support of writing in French, though since the French-speaking world is smaller, not to the same extent.

Anonymous said...

Mabrouk!

I share your concern.

Anonymous said...

Salam Alikoum;

Si je peux me permettre cette question (un peu) en rapport avec le billet.

Pourquoi en Algérie systématiquement les arabophones et ceux des intellectuels s'exprimant dans cette langue, sont ils à ce point "allergiques" à la recherche sur l'identité, l'histoire et la langue bérbere?

Et au delà de ça, pourquoi systématiquement encore une fois, le reste des régions algériennes ne soutiennent-elles pas les revendications kabyles quand à un meilleur avenir pour l'Algérie? pendant les evenement de 2001, je n'ai pas souvenir d'avoir lu oubien entendu une seule declaration de soutien émannant de l'élite arabophone algérienne. (!!!)

Je pense personnellement que les explications se trouvent dans la sphère des politiques algériens et de leurs alliés dans la société , qui ont usé et utulisé à outrance cette prétendue opposition arabe/français pour diviser le peuple et l'affaiblir.

Et je pense enfin que les vraies victime de ce genre de politique sont les authentiques langues et vraies identités algériennes passées en tout derniers des priorités de nos gouvernants (!!!)

Mabrouk pour la thèse, bravo pour le blog et désolé si j'ai redigé ce commentaire en français, mon anglais étant too ridiculous :-)

Saha remdankoum

Anonymous said...

Maybe my comment went into moderation, or maybe I was just too incompetent to push 'preview.' Anyway, congratulations on the disseration!.

(If this is already in moderation, just delete this one. I really don't remember.)

Lameen Souag الأمين سواق said...

Thank you all for your comments! Aidan: the cartoon is alluding to the common use of French within a purely Algerian context; for international purposes is quite another story.

Hchicha: c'est une longue histoire, mais je pense que la division entre la laicisme et l'islamisme est la principale cause de la division - intellectuelle et populaire - entre le mouvement berbere kabyle et les autres algeriens, pas la langue. Certes je ne connais aucun algerien qui prefere ecrire en arabe qui serait pret de soutenir un mouvement auquel le RCD joue une grande role, malgre que j'en connais plusieurs qui aiment le tamazight... Wallahu a`lam.

(pardon my appaling French!)

Anonymous said...

Salam Alikoum et saha ramadankoum!
L'islamisme et le laicisme comme difference entre kabyles et reste de l'algérie?

Si je peux me permettre cette question, le reste des algériens seraient ils tous islamistes? et l'es kabyles tous laicistes?

Personnellement cela m'etonne que cela soit le cas.

Je pensais que la majorité des algeriens aspiraient à la democratie et à la libre expression. Et ce en dehors de toute reference à la laicité et à la religion. Les documents officiels de ces mouvements (aarouchs) le prouvent d'ailleurs et la fameuse manifestation de juin 2001 vers la presidence ne comportait à ma connaissance que des revendications citoyennes et sociales.

De plus, ni Said Sadi ni le RCD ni aucune autre formation politique d'ailleurs n'était derieres les revendications de citoyens de cette region de l'algérie... (me trompe je?)

Je comprend que le simple citoyen fasse l'amalgame mais que les intellectuels arabophones honnetes n'aient pas relevé ou remarqué l'amalagame me choque beaucoup.

Perso, cela me choquera toujours que par la langue arabe on ne voudra en algérie faire passer que le discours officiel... (!)

Voilà, cela ne releve biensur pas de la discipline linguistique et je suis désolé de ramener la chose à la sphère politique. Car vous devez surement avoir raison, la langue ne devrait pas avoir grand chose dans ça, ni la religion d'ailleurs me semble t il....

Wallahu a`lam ,

Saha ramdnakoum

Lameen Souag الأمين سواق said...

Bien sur, je parlais des stereotypes populaires, pas de la realite; mais les stereotypes (correctes ou faux) sont puissants. Le plateforme d'El-Kseur ne comporte aucun reference a la laicisme.

Je n'ai pas lit beaucoup des articles des intellectuels algeriens de l'annee 2001 (ni arabe ni francais), donc je ne peux pas bien commenter sur leurs opinions.

Anonymous said...

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Je m'appelle Anissa, et mes parents sont originaire de grd Kabylye, Dra El Mizan, J'essai actuellemt de faire des recherches sur L'histoire de la Kabylie, Les differents Mythes Kabyles et Les differentes tribues....
Please, si vs pouvez me guider ds mes recherches en m'indiquant des titres de livres, journaux, associations.....ca serait genial!!!!!!!!!
Mon addresse e-mail is:

Anissakahira@hotmail.com

Merci!!!!!

Anonymous said...

Hi
First of all, you need to make a difference between the arabic language and Thamazight. They are not the same. Arabs in Africa are just invadors like all the others. They came there to take away the rights of Imazighen and impose their language and their Islam. They teach kids in Tizi Ouzou, that they are born Arabs, and their God is allah or whatever that is. It is really a lost case. As French tortured les Bretons, so are Arabs torturing Les Berberes, and so is US torturing Iraq today. The story of an Amazigh is similar to the native americans that are fading and hardly we talk about them. Stop preaching that Berberes are arabs or originally arabs. You can easily undertand by studying the language that it is not a semetic one. It is written as Latin, very similar alphabet, but not from left to right as arabic. chinese is closer to arabic than Thamazight. Political reasons killed this big civilisation of all times, when a woman was a leader and not a man. The first time in history of all ages. Arabs can never have a woman leader due to their religion, how dare you say now that imazighen are arabs. Unfortunatly Europe, America and Arabs are all tight together fot political reasons and agreed to give away the freedom of an Amazigh to put them underneath the arab power.
Books, history all written to suite the political system. writers are tied, have no freedom to write the truth. The truth if spoken you die as many Imazighen who are dying everyday for saying the truth. Look at Matoub Lounes, is killed for being the real amazigh, despite that the names are mostly under arabic controll...

Lameen Souag الأمين سواق said...

What idiocy. With all the Chaoui generals and Kabyle prime ministers Algeria's had, you dare to talk about how Berbers are being put "under Arab power?" You think only Imazighen have problems in Algeria? Never mind your linguistic mistakes (the oldest dated Tifinagh inscription is written right to left just like Arabic, and Tamazight, though not Semitic, it is far more closely related to Arabic than to Chinese) or your inability to read (who here said Berbers were Arabs - and frankly who cares?) - it's your grasp of contemporary reality that needs the most work. Algerians speak different languages, but we share a lot of common ancestors and common culture, and we're all in the same boat.

Anonymous said...

French language is a tool, we need it to go away with Arabic. There is a time to contest and an other one to build. We still are xontesting and in Algeria it's very hard to fight for something different from Arabic and islam. In Kabylia, youth tried to boycott schools, protested pacifically, or riotted. The rest of Algeria refuses to follow the movement and I think Kabylia is running to separate from Algeria.

Lameen Souag الأمين سواق said...

A frank answer, though not a laudable one. If you decide to build your platform on fighting "Arabic and Islam" in a majority Arabic-speaking, overwhelming majority Muslim country, don't be too surprised if the majority refuses to rally to you. If I were concerned with the success of the arouch movement, I would be working overtime to try to dispel the impression that their purpose is to fight Arabic and Islam rather than to defend Tamazight and civil liberties; but comments like yours remind me that at least some wings of the protesters are more concerned with the former than the latter.

quran blog said...

its is a great thing to promote Tamazight and it will never disappear.