Description
Book SynopsisIn modern-day Mauritania, as in several multilingual states, tensions over language policy and identity between the two ethnic groups—Arab and afro-Mauritanian—have been flaring ever since the nation’s independence. In Language Policy and Identity in Mauritania: Multilingual and Multicultural Tensions, El Hacen Moulaye Ahmed investigates the issue of language policy and identity in this North African country. Moulaye Ahmed traces the past and the present Mauritania’s identities and language policies and reveals Mauritanians’ language policy preferences and the relationship between their identities and their preferences.
Table of ContentsPreface
Acknowledgments
Notes on Translation and Transliteration
General Introduction
Chapter One: General Issues in Language Policy and Identity
Chapter Two: The Interplay between Language and Identity and Some Issues in Multilingualism and Multiculturalism
Chapter Three: Socio-political and religious portraits of Mauritania
Chapter Four: language policy and identity in Mauritania
Chapter Five: Language Policy and Identity in Mauritania: A Contemporary Empirical Investigation
General Conclusion
Appendices
Bibliography
About the Author
