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Language, Ideology and Sociopolitical Change in the
Arabic-speaking World
 For Lexun
A pearl of joy and hope
 Language, Ideology and
Sociopolitical Change in the
Arabic-speaking World
A Study of the Discourse of Arabic
Language Academies

Chaoqun Lian
Edinburgh University Press is one of the leading university presses in the UK.
We publish academic books and journals in our selected subject areas across the
humanities and social sciences, combining cutting-edge scholarship with high editorial
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information visit our website: edinburghuniversitypress.com

© Chaoqun Lian, 2020

Edinburgh University Press Ltd

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The right of Chaoqun Lian to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted
in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, and the Copyright and
Related Rights Regulations 2003 (SI No. 2498).
 Contents

List of Figures and Tables vii

Acknowledgements viii

1 Introduction 1

2 The Arabic Language Academy Phenomenon 17

The Arabic Language Academy Phenomenon Is Pan-Arab 18
The Arabic Language Academy Phenomenon Is a Form of
Language Planning and Language Policy 34
The Arabic Language Academy Phenomenon Is Symbolic 38
The Arabic Language Academy Phenomenon Is Discursive 42

3 Arabic Diglossia and Arab Nationalisms 48

Diglossia as a Sociolinguistic Problem in Western Academia 49
Diglossia as a Problem in the Arabic Language Academy
Discourse 52
Fuṣḥā and ʿĀmmiyya as Organisms 55
Fuṣḥā and ʿĀmmiyya as Instruments and Resources 66
Fuṣḥā and ʿĀmmiyya as National Symbols 77
Eliminating Arabic Diglossia 85
Arabic Diglossia, Pan-Arab Nationalism and Territorial-State
Nationalisms 89

4 Arabi(ci)sation and Counter-peripheralisation 105

Introduction: Arabi(ci)sation and Peripherality 105
Inter-language Relations and Arabi(ci)sation 108

v
 vi | language, ideology and sociopolitical change

Conceptualising Arabi(ci)sation in the Discourse of Arabic

Language Academies 111
Corpus and Status Arabicisation in the Discourse of Arabic
Language Academies 126
Conclusion: Arabi(ci)sation as Symbolic Resistance and
Symbolic Compensation 136

5 Language Modernisation between Self and the Other 144

Modernity and Modernisation between Self and the Other 144
‘Catching up with Modern Requirements’ versus ‘Revival and
Reform’ 148
Modernising the Arabic Language: A History of Conceptual
Formation 151
Conclusion: Reviving the Arab Nation and Counterbalancing
the West 192

6 Conclusion: The Ideologisation of Language via Language

Symbolism 197
Characteristics of the Ideologisation of Language via Language
Symbolism 198
Effects of the Ideologisation of Language via Language
Symbolism 201
Causes of the Ideologisation of Language via Language
Symbolism 203
Prevalence of the Ideologisation of Language via Language
Symbolism 213

Glossary 217
Bibliography 227
Index 247
 Figures and Tables

Figures
Figure 2.1 Causality of LPLP: language is instrumental in inducing
sociopolitical change 37
Figure 2.2 Language symbolism: language is symbolic in
projecting and alleviating sociopolitical concerns 40
Tables
Table 2.1 A list of Arabic Language Academies and equivalent
institutions 20
Table 3.1 Views on linguistic and functional features of fuṣḥā and
ʿāmmiyya in the ALA discourse 68
Table 4.1 Examples of translating English medical terms into
Arabic via compounding 128
Table 4.2 Two types of naḥṭ in Arabic 129

vii
 Acknowledgements

This book is a revised and updated version of the PhD dissertation I

completed at the University of Cambridge in 2015, entitled ‘Language
Planning and Language Policy of Arabic Language Academies in the
Twentieth Century: A Study of Discourse’. The book is a result of my
decade-long exploration of the Arabic language in the social world. This
exploration began with my dissatisfaction with a decontextualised para-
digm of Arabic linguistics, in which I received my early academic train-
ing. In fact, language is not merely an instrument of communication. It is
also a construct of ideology. It is deeply embedded in our sociopolitical
life, mediating our relations with both ourselves and others. This is the
general position I take in this book.
Writing this book has been a painful pleasure. While the pain lies in
the many barriers of skills and knowledge I have been faced with during
the process of research and writing, overcoming them with the valuable
help and support from my mentors, colleagues, friends and family gives
me a great sense of happiness and fulfilment. To these people I owe a huge
debt of gratitude.
My supervisor at Cambridge, Prof. Yasir Suleiman, will always have
my deepest gratitude and respect. I have benefited enormously from his
challenging and thought-provoking supervisions, his meticulous and sharp
comments on my writing, and his constant support and encouragement.
I would also like to thank him for inviting me to present my research at
the international conferences he organised in Beijing, Sharjah and Doha.
Doing so has increased my exposure to a wider academic community
beyond my libraries and fields.
I am grateful to Dr Paul Anderson, who not only read some of my draft

viii
 acknowledgements | ix

chapters, but also asked me to present my work in progress to the Modern

Middle East Research Group at Cambridge. I wish to thank Prof. Said Faiq
and Prof. Reem Bassiouney for their meticulous criticism and constructive
suggestions for revision. I also wish to thank Prof. James Montgomery, Dr
Rachael Harris, Dr Amal Morogy, Dr Alice Wilson, Prof. Sue Wright and
Dr Peter Crosthwaite for their comments on my work and suggestions for
improvement.
I am indebted to Dr Emad Abdul-Latif, who arranged my interviews
with four members of the Cairo Academy and introduced me to two
Egyptian scholars in the field of language policy. My thanks also go to
the staff at the Cairo Academy and the Arabisation Bureau in Rabat,
who helped in securing some of the documents and publications of these
institutes. Without their help, I would not have been able to carry out my
fieldwork in Cairo and Rabat.
My heartfelt thanks go to Laura Williamson and Richard Strachan, my
editors at Edinburgh University Press, whose warm and professional sup-
port has been indispensable to the completion of this monograph project
– the first in my academic career.
In Cambridge, I have enjoyed the company and friendship of Shivan
Mahendrarajah, Arshad Hadjirin, Yonatan Mendel, James Weaver,
Drew Mecham, Manar Makhoul, Ignacio Sánchez, Bruno De Nicola,
Chen Li, Zhiguang Yin, Yijie Zhuang, Jingting Zhang and Samar Samir
Mezghanni. They have been good friends and reliable sources of support.
In Peking University, I have received encouragement and support from
my colleagues in the School of Foreign Languages and inspiration from
the excellent students on my Arabic and linguistic courses. Finally, I
can never fully acknowledge the contribution of my family to this book
project. My wife, Siyuan, has sacrificed her leisure time in order to read
my drafts and has created a cosy family environment in order to support
my writing. I owe her much gratitude for this selfless, loving support. I
am also indebted to my parents’ long-term, fully committed support for
my pursuit of knowledge in often far-off locations; I hope they will be
satisfied with the completion of this book.
Yanyuan, Peking University
August 2019
 1
Introduction

O n the morning of 4 April 2018, the opening ceremony of the 84th

Annual Convention of the Arabic Language Academy in Cairo was
held in the headquarters of the Academy. Located on the banks of the
River Nile, in Cairo’s prestigious Zamalek Area, the building was receiv-
ing researchers, university professors and students, lovers of Arabic and
diplomats from the Arabic-speaking world1 and beyond, together with the
members of the Academy – ‘the eternals’ (al-khālidūn) as they are always
called, dressed in black gowns with ivory and maroon hoods to mark their
special status at this ceremonial occasion.
Ḥasan al-Shāfiʿī, the octogenarian president of the Academy among
whose predecessors are some big names of the Egyptian intelligentsia in
the twentieth century – ʾAḥmad Luṭfī al-Sayyid (d. 1963), Ṭāhā Ḥusayn
(d. 1973), ʾIbrāhīm Madkūr (d. 1996) and Shawqī Ḍayf (d. 2005), was
addressing the assembly. He reminded the audience that the Arabic
language is ‘the foundation of our physical and cultural existence, the
basis of our national identity and the anchor of our desired renaissance’
(al-Shāfiʿī 2018: 6). This language, he claimed, is now facing both internal
and external challenges, especially those calls for ‘unilateral globalisa-
tion’. He announced that the theme of the 2018 convention was therefore
‘Protecting the Arabic Language: Challenges, Means and Objectives’, and
invited the assembly to ponder and contribute. In a following speech, ʿAbd
al-Ḥamīd Madkūr, Secretory of the Academy, detailed the challenges as
coming from

foreign schools, colloquial dialects, cultural globalisation, the alienation

and exclusion of the [Arabic] language from many social fields, the

1
 2 | language, ideology and sociopolitical change

overall severance (with few exceptions) of its link with the studies of
sciences in universities and research centres, views depicting Arabic as
an obsolete, Bedouin language improper to be a language of science,
civilisation and modernity, the inaccessibility of the job market to Arabic
learners, the absence of intimacy and pride with Arabic [in the general
public], and the challenges of technological development, in that techni-
cians have not yet figured out how to make [sufficient] use of technology
to serve Arabic and facilitate its use. (2018: 9)

The scene was solemn and imposing, and the words were intense and
alarming, all heralding a determined phase of policy-making which would
rid Arabic of many of its challenges. Yet the Arabic language academies
(henceforth ALAs), of which the Cairo Academy is one, have been tackling
these ‘internal and external challenges’ for more than a century, but the chal-
lenges still persist. The language situation in the Arabic-speaking world at
the turn of the twentieth century was qualitatively similar to what al-Shāfiʿī
and Madkūr depicted: the confinement of Standard Arabic to religious,
formal and written communication, the prevalence of colloquial varieties
of Arabic in daily communication and calls for granting them official status,
the spread of English and French in both public and private education, the
imposition of Turkish in the Arab provinces of the Ottoman Empire, the
crisis of rendering neologisms and terminologies from European languages
to Arabic, and the costly adaptation of technology to print in Arabic script.
It was in this context that ALAs were called for.
Ideally, there would be only one ALA, reifying a unified, pan-Arab
language authority that tackles language issues in the Arabic-speaking
world by force and with determination. In reality, however, the authority
is divided and curtailed. Beginning with a few short-lived civil societies
at the turn of the twentieth century and later absorbed into the apparatus
of modern Arab states with the inauguration of the Arab Academy (now
the Arabic Language Academy in Damascus) in 1919, ALAs burgeoned
for a time in the Arabic-speaking world, reaching around a dozen by the
end of the last century. Syria, Egypt, Iraq, Morocco, Jordan, Tunisia,
Algeria, Sudan, Libya, Palestine and Israel – each has its own ALA(s)
or some equivalent. These ALAs are entrusted with a common mission:
‘preserving the integrity of Arabic and making it compatible with modern
civilisation’. This pan-Arab mission, however, is caught up in inevitable
tension with the interest of the territorial states in which the ALAs are situ-
ated. Competition and lack of coordination among the ALAs are common,
leading to parallel projects of neologism coinage and dictionary making.
In addition, the ALAs have power of neither legislation nor implementa-
 introduction | 3

tion. Some of them are not functional but symbolic. It is, therefore, not
surprising to see that the neologisms and terminologies they coin are
largely fading into oblivion, and the advice and rulings they issue seldom
develop into implementable language policies. The ALAs have not been
able to change the language reality. The internal and external challenges
posed to Arabic as the ALAs envision persist.
But ALAs still matter, as makers of an enduring, vibrant genre of
intellectual discourse in the Arabic-speaking world. The genre is meta-
linguistic, as it uses language to talk about language. However, it differs
from (but is surely related to or overlaps with) the scholarly meta-linguistic
discourse known as linguistics proper. Unlike the latter, the former does
not set the philosophical and empirical studies of the structure, grammar,
meaning and use of language as its only agenda, but tends to engage lan-
guage into a wider and more complex network of sociopolitical concerns
and agendas, involving, first and foremost, negotiation of identities and
power relations in situations that are conflictual and turbulent, as well as in
those that are ordinary and peaceful. Accordingly, this genre of discourse
loads language with values and meanings of sociopolitical significance
and ‘burdens’ it with missions and responsibilities beyond its communica-
tive instrumentality. I name this genre linguistics sociopolitical. The scene
of 4 April 2018 was but one of the mundane occasions recurring yearly in
the arena of ALAs to perform linguistics sociopolitical.
The endurance and vibrancy of linguistics sociopolitical is testimony
to the ideologisation of language in the Arabic-speaking world, a phe-
nomenon that has come under increasing academic scrutiny in the last
decade (e.g. Suleiman 2013a; Bassiouney 2014; Bawardi 2016). In the
Arab(ic) setting, language is not value-neutral but is always a target of
meaning making, production, reproduction and reiteration, in accordance
with attitudes, positions, views and ideologies. Language can be a source
of dignity and humiliation, a fermenter of solidarity and fragmentation,
and a marker of being and identity. It can be a site of conflict and reconcili-
ation, a cause of war and peace, and a projector of power and hierarchy. It
can also be a residue of history and memory, an outlet of exhilaration and
pain, and a symbol of hope and despair. These conceptions of language
cannot withstand rigid scientific, empirical tests. They are value-laden
and ideological. Yet they constitute a precious body of insider, indigenous
views about the Arabs, their languages and the worlds they are in. They
are a window onto what actually happens on the ground and what actually
matters to the Arabs. They are means to enrich our understanding of the
interface of language and ideology in Arab society. They deserve system-
atic description and analysis.
 4 | language, ideology and sociopolitical change

This book explores linguistics sociopolitical as is represented in

the discussions and debates of five leading and functional ALAs (the
Damascus, Cairo, Iraqi and Jordanian Academies, and the Arabisation
Bureau in Rabat). They run regular seminars and conferences and publish
periodicals and collections of research papers. Some of them hold public
lectures. By doing so, they become platforms of meta-linguistic discus-
sions and debates on the situation and future of Arabic and its entangle-
ments with the political and social lives of the Arabs. These discussions
and debates are defined in this book as the Arabic Language Academy
discourse (henceforth ALA discourse). Publications of the five academies
and minutes of the Cairo Academy, which record a large and representa-
tive portion of the ALA discourse, are the texts the book draws on. More
coverage is given to the discourse of the academies in Damascus and Cairo
due to their overall weight in the history of the ALAs.
The ALA discourse is one among many interconnected strands of lin-
guistics sociopolitical in Arabic. However, this does not reduce its value
as representative data of the genre in question to explore the interface of
language and ideology in the Arabic-speaking world. In fact, the ALA
discourse can be regarded as the mainstream of the genre for the following
reasons. First, Arabic language academies are part of the apparatus of
modern Arab states, modelled on the Académie française to incorpo-
rate intellectuals of cultural and political influence under state patronage.
Being a member of or having affiliation to the academies is seen as a
public acknowledgement of one’s intellectual status and achievement.
This is naturally attractive, making the academies important sites for lead-
ing intellectual voices to mingle, exchange and converge.
Second, under state patronage, views articulated at the platforms of
the academies are inevitably framed by the agendas and ideologies of
their hosting states concerning language and its role in politics and soci-
ety. Since the majority of these agendas and ideologies are, generally
speaking, not coercive (i.e. relying on state machinery to enforce them in
society), they tend to reflect those mundane, ‘politically correct’ views on
language by public consent. In this sense, the ALA discourse reflects col-
lective rather than parochial perceptions of language in the communities
of their hosting state.
Third, for the integrity of Arabic as a common asset of all Arabs to be
a shared concern of the academies, their orientations tend to be pan-Arab,
notwithstanding the different agendas of their hosting states. The plat-
forms they set up are open to the whole Arabic-speaking world. Scholars
who are citizens of different Arab and non-Arab states are invited to join
or affiliate to the academies, to speak at their conferences and to publish in
 introduction | 5

their journals. Accordingly, the ALA discourse often expresses concerns

and attitudes of a pan-Arab character.
Lastly, this discourse has exhibited a long-term stability in terms of its
themes and arguments. This is due partly to the unchanged objectives of
the academies and partly to certain enduring sociopolitical circumstances
in the Arabic-speaking world that continuously frame perceptions of lan-
guage, as I will explain below. The diachronic stability of the discourse
makes it a key source to uncover the most enduring and resilient language
ideologies in Arab society.
Focusing on the ALA discourse, this book sets out to answer the fol-
lowing question: how and why does the genre of linguistics sociopolitical
continuously ideologise language in the Arab(ic) setting? By answering
this question, the book aims to reveal a mechanism of language-ideology
interface in the Arabic-speaking world.
Three features of the ALA discourse are the key to revealing this
mechanism. The first is incompatibility between discourse and imple-
mentation in language planning and language policy (LPLP) of Arabic
language academies. The discourse they produce is vibrantly replete with
diagnosis of language problems in the Arabic-speaking world, criticism of
language misuse and deviation, well-thought-out language policy advice,
narration of the glorious past of Arabic and envisioning of the should-
be language situation. In contrast, the academies have not so far managed
to turn their discourse into concrete language policies that could be imple-
mented in order to change the language situation and match it to the state-
ments and perceptions made in the discourse. Weakness in policy-making
and implementation only works to detach the ALA discourse from actual
language practice on the ground, while fostering its ideological function as
a distortion of reality (in the Marxist sense) and a compensation for what
the academies cannot achieve.
The second feature is language symbolism, which ideologises lan-
guage further to drive it out of the seemingly value-neutral linguistic world
and into the bog of sociopolitical complications. Symbolism can be roughly
understood as a ‘stand-for’ type of projection. Language symbolism projects
what happens in the social world onto language, so languages and language
varieties become symbols that stand for social agents, groups and institu-
tions, and intra- and inter-language relations become symbols that stand for
power relations between agents, groups and institutions. Synthesising two
theories of the social meaning of language – indexicality (Silverstein 2003;
Eckert 2008; Johnstone 2010) and language symbolism (Suleiman 2011a;
2013a) – this book understands the symbolism of the ALA discourse as
consisting of two processes: indexication and proxification.
 6 | language, ideology and sociopolitical change

I use indexication to refer to the construction and reconstruction of

indexical meanings of language. ‘A sign is indexical if it is related to
its meaning by virtue of co-occurring with the thing it is taken to mean’
(Johnstone 2010: 30–1). Language variation at various levels, includ-
ing accents, vocabularies, phrases, grammatical patterns, patterns of
discourse, language varieties and languages per se, can index identities,
social categories, power relations and sociopolitical realities. A language
form or variety can have multiple indexical meanings, constituting what
Eckert (2008) calls an ‘indexical field’. Moreover, an indexical meaning
of a given language form or variety, once constructed, is liable to endless
ideological reiteration and reconstruction, thus producing multiple orders
of indexicality (Silverstein 2003). For example, a feature of the speech of a
given community can be noticed and then used to index a character shared
by members of the community. It can then be used to index membership
of the community and demarcate boundaries with other communities. In
conflictual situations, it can be further used to index common history and
pride of the community to boost morale and solidarity, and it can also be
used by adversaries as a stereotype to express contempt and enmity. The
process goes on.
The male code-switching from [ʔ] and [k] to [g] – three dialectal
allophones of the Arabic phoneme [q] in Jordan in the 1970s – can be
illustrative (Suleiman 2004: 96–136). In Jordan [ʔ] was by 1970 associ-
ated with the urban communities of ‘Palestinians and Syrians who came to
Jordan in the 1920s and early 1930s’ (ibid.: 102), [k] was associated with
the rural Palestinians who were forced en masse into Jordan as a result of
the 1948 and 1967 wars with Israel, and [g] was associated with indig-
enous Jordanians who were linked by the collective memory of a largely
obsolete Bedouin lifestyle. [ʔ] and [k], due to their Palestinian association,
were seen by the Jordanians as ‘alien’, in contrast to the ‘indigenous’ [g].
After the confrontation between the Jordanian army and the Palestinian
guerrilla fighters in September 1970, male Palestinians began to switch
from [ʔ] and [k] to [g] when speaking with Jordanians in order to be identi-
fied in public with Jordan rather than Palestine. The allophonic difference
became a de facto boundary setter between nationals and non-nationals.
In the language of Silverstein, the allophone-community association is an
n-th order indexicality, the allophone-indigeneity association is an n+1st
order indexicality and the allophone-nation association is an n+2nd order
indexicality. Higher-order indexicalities are built upon and developed
from lower-order ones. The theory of ‘orders of indexicality’ explains
how the allophonic variation of [q] participated in Jordanian national
politics and the struggle over Jordanian national identity.2
 introduction | 7

Indexication in the ALA discourse mainly works on named languages

and language varieties used in the Arabic-speaking world, such as fuṣḥā
(Standard Arabic), ʿāmmiyya/dārija/lahja (Colloquial Arabic), Turkish,
French, English and so on. It juxtaposes what happens among these lin-
guistic entities with what happens among peoples, states, nations and
civilisations, as if the linguistic and the sociopolitical were naturally cor-
related. This constructed, naturalised correlation justifies the former being
an index of the latter. As will be detailed in this book, some recurrent
strands of the ALA discourse (1) correlate the widening gap between
fuṣḥā and ʿāmmiyya as polarised levels of Arabic (a phenomenon known
as diglossia) with social division and political fragmentation in the Arabic-
speaking world; (2) correlate the spread of foreign languages, especially
English and French, with the perceived continuation of Western colonial/
imperial hegemony over the Arabs; and (3) correlate the impotence of
Arabic as an instrument of modern communication, notably in science
and education, with the internal decline of Arab-Islamic civilisation and
the external threats from Western colonialism and imperialism. These are
not conclusions of scientific, empirical research, but products of ideology.
Indexication constructs an inalienable link between the linguistic and the
sociopolitical and makes the link seem as real and natural as facts. Those
who are living in the same ideological environment are ready to accept the
link on factual bases and to reproduce and develop it further.
Indexication naturalises correlation and co-occurrence of the linguis-
tic and the sociopolitical, so the former can ‘stand for’ the latter. Yet
language symbolism does not stop at indexication. It involves a second
move that exploits indexical meanings of language to use it as a proxy
‘to do politics through language, in the sense that talk about language
becomes talk about the extra-linguistic world’ (Suleiman 2013a: 5). In
the case of the ALA discourse, the above strands suggest that, first,
intra-language integration towards fuṣḥā is necessary to foster intra-state
cohesion and inter-state solidarity in the Arabic-speaking world; second,
recovering the historical status of Arabic and curbing foreignness in the
corpus of the language are necessary to reverse asymmetrical power rela-
tions between the Arabs and the West; and, lastly, modernising Arabic is
both catching up with Western modernity and reviving the Arab-Islamic
tradition to counter Western hegemony. It is clear that, for those who
produce these strands of the ALA discourse, their final target is not lan-
guage per se but the sociopolitical world that language ‘stands for’. They
call for an ideal type of intra- and inter-language relations that ‘stands
for’ the ideal world-system and sociopolitical order in their mind. By
doing so, they hope either to change the world via language change or to
 8 | language, ideology and sociopolitical change

compensate symbolically for what they cannot change in reality. In both

cases, language serves as a proxy.
Both indexication and proxification are symbolic because, empirically
speaking, language is not responsible for sociopolitical wrongs, nor does
language change necessarily lead to the betterment of politics and society.
It is through this symbolism that language starts to assume ‘burdens’ and
responsibilities beyond being merely an instrument of communication.
The third feature of the ALA discourse is its routinisation evident in
the repetition, reproduction and reiteration of certain statements in the
above strands of discourse on the situation of Arabic and its sociopolitical
significance and correlations. It is further evident in that these statements
are constantly made in similar ways. The issue of fuṣḥā and ʿāmmiyya is
often discussed within a tripartite framework that sees the Arabic language
as an organism that co-evolves with the Arab nation, an instrument that
contributes to the political and social cohesion and progress of the Arabs,
and a national symbol that signposts and constitutes Arab national identi-
ties. Opinions on foreign language influence and restoring the status of
Arabic are often articulated in line with the notion of inalienability between
Arabic and the Arab people, on the one hand, and that of equilibrium in
inter-language relations as a cover for de facto Arabic/Arab centrism, on
the other. The issue of the impotence of Arabic and its maintenance and
development is often located in a dyad of endogenous and exogenous
narrative of modernisation.
These stable ways of discourse-making indicate the existence of a set
of ‘discursive habiti’ in the ALA discourse. Habitus is a notion the French
sociologist Pierre Bourdieu proposes to account for the reproduction of
social actions in similar contexts. According to him
as an acquired system of generative schemes [or dispositions, tenden-
cies, etc.] objectively adjusted to the particular conditions in which it
is constituted, the habitus engenders all the thoughts, all the percep-
tions, and all the actions consistent with those conditions, and no others.
(Bourdieu 1977: 95)
Following Bourdieu and seeing discourse as a type of social action, I
define ‘discursive habitus’ as socially embodied dispositions to habitually
perform discursive acts in particular ways under particular circumstances.
Habitus captures the complicated relations of social agents, actions
and circumstances that underneath the routinisation of the ALA discourse.
Habitus is a property of social agents (including both individuals and
institutions), and this property is a ‘structured and structuring structure’
(Bourdieu 1994: 170). According to Maton,
 introduction | 9

It is ‘structured’ by one’s past and present circumstances . . . It is ‘struc-

turing’ in that one’s habitus helps to shape one’s present and future
practices. It is a ‘structure’ in that it is systematically ordered rather than
random or unpatterned. This ‘structure’ comprises a system of disposi-
tions which generate perceptions, appreciations, and practices. (2008:
51)

In the case of the ALA discourse, the agents that produce this discourse
comprise both individual members of ALAs and the academies per se as
institutions. They together reify a common role as language authority in
the modern Arabic-speaking world, giving authoritative assessment of
the language situation and issuing prudent guidance on language main-
tenance, revival and modernisation. As will be detailed in Chapter 2, this
role is framed by two sociopolitical circumstances that have endured in the
Arabic-speaking world from the early twentieth century onwards. One is
the rise of modern Arab states that vertically reshape Arab society and
horizontally instil a duality of pan-Arab and territorial-state nationalisms,
and the other is the peripherality of the Arabs in the modern world-system.
As a key property of this role, the above-mentioned set of discursive
habiti is also structured by these two longue dureé circumstances. In the
meantime, these habiti structuralise the ALA discourse, producing those
recurrent strands of discourse that, through indexication and proxifica-
tion of language, respond to the longue dureé circumstances. Without a
profound change of these circumstances in real terms, this response would
reinforce the ways of perceiving and receiving these circumstances among
members of the academies, which would strengthen the discursive habiti
further. It follows that the recurrence of the strands of the ALA discourse
would continue until the discourse goes into the state of routinisation.
The above three features of the ALA discourse together reveal a
mechanism of language-ideology interface embedded in the genre of
linguistics sociopolitical in the Arabic-speaking world. This mechanism
consists of three intertwined dimensions of ideologisation. The first is
the divorce of meta-linguistic discourse from actual language practice.
Since no compatibility can be attained between the envisioned and the
real language situations, the discourse becomes an autonomous site where
an alternative language reality is constructed, in words not in deeds. The
second dimension is the association of this alternative reality with the
sociopolitical world through two processes of language symbolism: (1)
indexication – projecting the sociopolitical onto the linguistic through
naturalisation of the correlation and co-occurrence of the two; and (2)
proxification – using the linguistic as proxy to negotiate identities and
 10 | language, ideology and sociopolitical change

power relations in the sociopolitical world. The third dimension is habitual

repetition, reproduction and reiteration of such processes of indexication
and proxification over a long period of time to make them a routine of
discourse that responds to the longue dureé sociopolitical circumstances
engulfing the Arabic-speaking world.
By highlighting the role of the longue dureé sociopolitical circum-
stances in the working of the above mechanism that culminates in dis-
cursive routinisation, this book aims to show that the ideologisation of
language in the Arab(ic) setting is an accumulative effect of continu-
ous stimulation from similar sociopolitical stimuli over a long period of
time. This, however, does not suggest that the Arabic-speaking world
is stagnant and has witnessed little sociopolitical change over the past
century until now. Nor does it suggest that short-term, epochal events,
such as regime changes, orientation turns, policy adjustments, wars and
conflicts, uprisings and movements, and revolutions and restorations,
exert little influence on the ideologisation of language. Quite the contrary,
the modern Arabic-speaking world has been volatile if not turbulent, and
its modern history is replete with all kinds of the above-mentioned epochal
events. Yet these events have not so far changed but only reinforced the
two longue dureé circumstances. These events, accordingly, become those
stimuli that continuously drive the ideologisation in similar directions.
Temporally, this book sets the twentieth century as the main span
of its investigation. This is because ALAs, together with the ideologisa-
tion of language unfolding in their meta-linguistic discourse, are mainly
a twentieth-century phenomenon continuing into the present. The last
century witnessed the rise, spread, development and routinisation of this
phenomenon, largely determining its essence and contour. Any serious
study of this phenomenon should begin with this formative period, before
delving into its contemporary development.
Geographically, the book studies the discourse of five ALAs together
in order to address the common themes of linguistics sociopolitical that
concern both the eastern (Mashriq) and western (Maghrib) parts of the
Arabic-speaking world. In other words, the book aims to explore language
ideologies of a pan-Arab relevance. This is because only on this pan-Arab
scale can we approach the full complexity of the interface of language
and ideology in the ALA discourse, especially concerning the linguistic
projection of the duality of pan-Arab and state-territorial nationalisms and
of the common experience of Arabs in a changing world order not in their
favour.
Methodologically, the book adopts the general perspectives of critical
discourse analysis (CDA). These focus on making transparent the link
 introduction | 11

between discourse making and its sociopolitical and ideological surround-

ings. CDA is a label for a plethora of research agendas and approaches
that are bound by such notions as discourse, critique, ideology and power
(Wodak and Meyer 2009: 4–10). The overall purpose of CDA is to make
transparent the overt and covert semiotic, meaning-construing activities
(discourse) and their interaction with the circulation of ideology and the
distribution of power in a given social environment. It is this purpose of
‘making transparent’ that endows CDA with the sense of ‘critical’ and
distinguishes it from other approaches of discourse analysis. I also adopt
this sense of ‘critical’ in this book. Unlike some CDA scholars, I use CDA
for the purpose of analysis rather than that of uncovering social inequali-
ties, correcting social wrongs and improving the human condition.
Although CDA is a powerful analytical tool, it lacks fixed approaches,
models and agendas (Fairclough et al. 2011: 357). Among the three leading
approaches of CDA, van Dijk’s (2009) sociocognitive approach focuses
on the triangle of discourse, collective/social cognition (or socially shaped
perceptions in the forms of knowledge, attitudes and ideologies) and
social structure in CDA; Wodak’s (2006; 2009 with Reisigl) discourse-
historical approach (DHA) ‘attempts to integrate a large quantity of avail-
able knowledge about the historical sources and the background of the
social and political fields in which discursive “events” are embedded’
and ‘analyzes the historical dimension of discursive actions by exploring
the ways in which particular genres of discourse are subject to diachronic
change’ (2006: 175); Fairclough’s (2009) dialectical-relational approach
investigates (1) dialectical relations between different semiotic practices
(Fairclough considers that every social practice, including the use of lan-
guage, has a semiotic element) and between semiotic and non-semiotic
elements of social practices and (2) how these relations form ‘the semiotic
aspect of social order’ (Wodak and Meyer 2009: 27). My use of CDA
in this book exhibits a synthesis of all three approaches. As will become
clear in the following chapters, I explore the diachronic continuity of
the ALA discourse within the long-term contexts of duality of nation-
alisms, counter-peripherality and modernisation in the Arabic-speaking
world (discourse-historical). I also establish habitual, repetitive patterns of
discourse-making that reflect the operation of a set of language ideologies
in modern Arab society (sociocognitive) and reveal parallels between the
ALA discourse on the one hand, and the semiotic aspect of the institution-
alisation of ALAs (see Chapter 2) and other genres of Arab discourse (e.g.
the discourse of Arab nationalism in Chapter 3) on the other (dialectical-
relational). My synthesis confirms a common observation about CDA,
which suggests that it is a multifaceted and ‘multimethodical’ framework
 12 | language, ideology and sociopolitical change

and should thus be tailored to different research questions and agendas

(Wodak 2006: 171; Fairclough 2009: 167).
Since the current study is designed to explain the longue durée repro-
duction, reiteration and routinisation of the ALA discourse throughout
the twentieth century (see Chapter 2), CDA is modified to serve this
research design in the following ways. First, the ALA discourse will be
examined in line with the sociopolitical and ideological changes in the
Arabic-speaking world. Since diachronically the ALA discourse exhibited
more continuity and overlap than difference, it would be wrong to apply
a rigid periodisation to this discourse. In order to reflect how the socio­
political and ideological changes have affected the ALA discourse without
subjecting the latter to uncritical historicism, I adopt a flexible strategy
when examining the interaction between the ALA discourse on different
language issues and its relevant sociopolitical contexts. For example, in
Chapter 3 on Arabic diglossia, when less diachronic turns can be identi-
fied from the ALA discourse on this issue, I analyse three habiti of this
discourse without ‘periodisation’ and then link the uneven diachronic
vibrancy of these tendencies to three periods of Arab nationalisms. In con-
trast, in Chapter 4 on Arabi(ci)sation (taʿrīb) and Chapter 5 on language
modernisation, when the ALA discourse on these two issues exhibited
clearer diachronic features, I examine this discourse in line with several
historical ‘sites’. As will be shown in these two chapters, my division
of the ‘sites’ considers both the continuance of the ALA discourse and
the chronic sociopolitical and ideological changes in the Arabic-speaking
world to avoid rigid periodisation.
Second, my use of CDA in the book combines content analysis – iden-
tifying statements explicitly made – and semantic analysis – e­ xcavating
agendas, intentions and attitudes hidden behind these statements by ana-
lysing the use of semantic devices such as vocabulary, metaphorics and,
to a lesser extent, semantically salient morphosyntactic elements. By
doing so, I choose to pay less attention to other linguistic and discursive
devices such as pronouns, demonstratives, deixis, negation, quantifica-
tion, tense, aspect, modality and phonological and syntactic variations.
Analyses of these devices, together with content and semantic analyses,
are useful for thoroughly and rigorously examining the production of
a limited number of discourses within their local contexts, but are dif-
ficult and uneconomic to carry out if the object of analysis is discursive
reproduction and reiteration across a number of institutions and over a
large time span, as in the case of the current study of the ALA discourse.
In the latter case, it is better to focus on the circulation and reiteration,
both synchronically and diachronically, of key concepts in the ALA
 introduction | 13

discourse. For that reason, content and semantic analyses are prioritised
in this book.
Third, since CDA has offered few satisfying approaches to explaining
discursive reproduction, reiteration and routinisation, I bring in the notion
of ‘discursive habitus’. The discursive habiti identified from the ALA dis-
course are key to understanding the reproduction and routinisation of this
discourse, because they have often reflected the dominant but taken for
granted beliefs and ideologies – what Bourdieu (1977: 164) calls ‘doxa’ –
that have led to ALA members continuing to openly describe Arabic and
its situation in modern society in certain ways. It follows that the major
aim of my use of CDA is to extract from the analyses of the content and
the semantic devices of the ALA discourse its enduring discursive habiti.
Finally, I will link these discursive habiti to the sociopolitical contexts
of the twentieth-century Arabic-speaking world to see what aspects of
these contexts were temporal-spatially persistent that might contribute to
the persistence of these discursive habiti.
Three clarifications need to be made concerning the use of CDA in
this book. First, I use CDA to excavate ideological connections between
conceptions of Arabic and their sociopolitical contexts in the ALA dis-
course. However, because of the ubiquity and banality of language ideolo-
gies, these connections are often covert. In many cases, I have to set them
out by carefully analysing the choice of vocabulary and rhetorical devices
in selected discourse and linking them to the sociopolitical contexts of
their production. This mode of exploration does not mean that the con-
nections I establish in this book are in any way fabrications of fertile
imagination, for the following reasons: (1) LPLP scholars have conducted
a large number of case studies revealing the ideological and sociopolitical
nature of intervention into language situation across different language
communities (e.g. nation-building and decolonisation as motivational and
structuring factors in ‘classical language planning’; see Chapter 2). The
Arabic-speaking world is not exceptional. (2) ALAs are clearly shaped
in the sociopolitical environment of the Arabic-speaking world. As will
be discussed in the next chapter, ALAs are part of state structure in a
number of Arab states. Like the banal existence of national flags, anthems,
airlines, stamps, national holidays and so on, in these states ALAs carry a
similar degree of banality, marking state authority over the representation
of Arabic in public discourses. As a constituent of the state system, an
ALA, especially its ideological orientation and membership composition,
is naturally open to political and ideological considerations that respond to
the political imperatives of the state. These external factors by extension
also affect the conceptualisation of Arabic in the ALA discourse. (3) Some
 14 | language, ideology and sociopolitical change

events in modern Arab history, such as the Arab defeat in the 1967 war
with Israel, had a wide-ranging impact on the social life of the Arabs,
which catapulted the Arabic-speaking world into long-term sociocultural
malaise and trauma (Abu-Rabiʿ 2004; Ṭarābīshī 2005: 15–35, quoted in
Suleiman 2011a: 130–1; Kassab 2010: 48–115). It would be counter-
intuitive to dissociate the ALA discourse from the impacts of these events.
Second, as will be seen in the following chapters, my use of CDA
attends to metaphors or metaphorical use of language in the ALA dis-
course. This is justifiable not only because metaphors are commonly used
in the ALA discourse but also because they are devices of symbolic con-
struction and ideological persuasion. ‘Metaphor’ is used here not merely as
a collective term for figurative expressions but more broadly as ‘a pattern
of conceptual association’ which Lakoff and Johnson (1980: 5) describe
as ‘understanding and experiencing one kind of thing in terms of another’.
Following this view, Fauconnier and Turner (1994) develop a theoretical
model depicting metaphor as ‘blending’ of ‘selected conceptual material
from two or more distinct sources’ (Grady 2007: 198), a process involving
at least four cognitive ‘spaces’. For example, ʿAbd al-Qādir al-Maghribī
(d. 1956), a member of the Damascus Academy, describes borrowings
in Arabic as the offspring of Arab fathers and non-Arab ‘concubines’
(see also Chapter 3). In making this metaphor, al-Maghribī blends two
‘input spaces’ – one is lexical borrowing in Arabic and the other is ethnic
interbreeding – into a ‘blend space’: borrowings are hybrids.3 This ‘blend
space’ is rationalised by an abstract ‘generic space’ – language is ethnicity,
which reveals al-Maghribī’s hidden intention: constructing an inalienable
link between Arabic and Arab people, and conveying this link to his audi-
ence and readers. As will be discussed in Chapter 3, this link is ideological
by nature because it is connected with considerations of Arab nationalism.4
The above example shows that the making of metaphors can be ideo-
logical. Metaphors are more than figurative expressions at the literal level
and more than conceptual blends at the cognitive level. They are used to
express new realities out of the familiar, or new relations between existing
entities to concretise, support or propagate specific ideologies. This view
of metaphor conforms to what Charteris-Black (2004: 21) calls the ‘prag-
matic criteria’ of metaphor, which he describes as follows: ‘A metaphor is
an incongruous linguistic representation that has the underlying purpose of
influencing opinions and judgements by persuasion; this purpose is often
covert and reflects speaker intentions within particular contexts of use’.
It follows that metaphors are windows onto the embodied sociopolitical
concerns and ideological intentions behind discourse-making, and are thus
valued in this book.
 introduction | 15

Finally, CDA is essentially a method of qualitative analysis and will

be used accordingly in this book. I use qualitative analysis here because
the ideological elements (for example, values, attitudes, sociopolitical
agendas and so on) in the symbolism of Arabic in the ALA discourse are
too elusive and subjective to quantify in line with the so-called ‘objec-
tive’ and ‘scientific’ principles. I believe qualitative analysis, if properly
applied, can reveal subtle but nonetheless deep links between Arabic and
its sociopolitical surroundings, and the prevalence of language ideologies
in Arab society. However, I am also aware of the subjective nature of
qualitative analysis. It should, therefore, be noted that my analysis of the
symbolism of Arabic in the ALA discourse is just one way of approaching
this phenomenon and cannot be the only way.
A synopsis of the contents of the following chapters is in order here.
Chapter 2 gives a historical introduction and a sociological analysis of
ALAs as institutional sites where the ALA discourse is produced. It
explains how the rise and maturation of modern Arab states and the endur-
ance of Arab peripherality have shaped and routinised a role of ALAs as
not only language planners but also purveyors of language symbolism.
This paves the way for the analysis of the ALA discourse. Chapter 3 inves-
tigates how Arabic diglossia is conceptualised in the ALA discourse from
organic, instrumental and symbolic perspectives, and how the duality of
pan-Arab and state-territorial nationalisms is projected onto the complex
relationship between fuṣḥā and ʿāmmiyya, ranging from polarisation to
re-integration. Chapter 4 discusses how Arabi(ci)sation is formulated in
the ALA discourse as a symbolic resistance to and compensation for the
spread and dominance of foreign languages in sections of Arab society
as a symptom of the overall Arab peripherality in the modern world-
system. It identifies two discursive habiti: one highlights the inalienability
between Arabic and the Arab people, and the other argues for equilibrium
in language contact and exchange. Chapter 5 examines how the moderni-
sation of Arabic was discussed in the ALA discourse in accordance with a
persistent dyad of exogenous and endogenous understandings of moderni-
sation. A number of important themes, including language maintenance
and reform, language and imperialism, and Arabic as a transnational world
language, are addressed in this chapter. The conclusion gives a systematic
description of language symbolism as a mechanism of language-ideology
interface in and beyond the ALAs and the Arabic setting. It includes
a comparison of the script Romanisation movements in China and the
Arabic-speaking world to place the ideologisation of language in a global
context of the evolvement of the hierarchical modern world-system and to
dialogue with Orientalism from the perspective of language as part of the
 16 | language, ideology and sociopolitical change

signage of global power relations. In the appendix, a glossary of the key

terms and phrases of the ALA discourse discussed in this book is provided
for reference.
A final note about the translation and transliteration of Arabic: all
Arabic quotations are rendered into English; but in cases where the
English translation cannot deliver nuances in Arabic, transliterations are
provided as complements. My transliterations follow the standard of the
International Journal of Middle East Studies (IJMES); all pronounced
consonants, including the initial strong hamza (hamzat al-qṭʿ), and vowels
are represented, but not the case endings. Proper nouns are transliter-
ated in the same way unless they have conventional English spellings.
Some Arabic terminologies, such as fuṣḥā and ʿāmmiyya, are kept in
their original form because no proper English equivalents can be found.
Individual explanations will be given whenever I choose to keep the origi-
nal terminologies.
Notes
1. I use ‘Arabic-speaking world’ rather than the commonly used ‘Arab world’
to emphasise the language-centred definition and demarcation of Arab collec-
tive identity and locality. The former term has two advantages: (1) it fits the
extra-linguistic, identity-related symbolic functions of Arabic that are studied
in this book; and (2) it includes both the Arabic-speaking communities living
in the Arab world and those in diaspora, who share similar ideological think-
ing on the role of Arabic in the social world.
2. Gender also constitutes the indexical difference between [k] and [g] and is
interwoven with national politics in Jordan. See Suleiman (2004: 96–136) for
a detailed analysis.
3. It should be noted that the metaphor ‘borrowings are hybrids’ is not an
invention of al-Maghrībī but a well-established conventional metaphor in the
Arabic linguistic tradition (see the discussion of muwallada in Chapter 3).
However, its conventionality cannot deny its creativeness when it was first
made nor its ideological saliency when it was reiterated in new sociopolitical
contexts, as will be seen in the case of al-Maghrībī (Chapter 3).
4. This link has its root in the ‘wisdom of the Arabs’ principle long observed
in the Arabic grammatical tradition, which served as a backbone for the
symbolic link between Arabic and Arab nationalisms in the nineteenth and
twentieth centuries (see Suleiman 2003).
 2
The Arabic Language Academy
Phenomenon

T he diffusion of Arabic language academies (ALAs) in the twentieth-

century Arabic-speaking world is a linguistic-cum-sociopolitical phe-
nomenon.1 ‘Arabic language academy’ (majmaʿ al-lugha al-ʿarabiyya) is
used here as a generic term for all official consultative bodies specialising,
exclusively or partially, in preserving, regulating, promoting and modern-
ising the Arabic language in individual Arab states or the Arabic-speaking
world. These duties are often considered as state-led language planning
and language policy-making, of which the evaluation concerns whether
ALAs succeed in affecting the actual status and use of language to serve
intra-state (e.g. state building and nation formation) and inter-state (e.g.
decolonisation and regional competition) agendas. This understanding
suggests a direct, unmediated, to some extent mechanical causality, prem-
ising that top-down language change will induce anticipated sociopoliti-
cal change. The actual situation is more complicated. The causality, for
the most part as in the case of ALAs, is mediated. It is mediated through
ideology-driven and discursively realised language symbolism that pro-
jects sociopolitical concerns onto language and uses the latter as a proxy to
tackle the former. It follows that ALAs are not just authoritative language
planners but also purveyors of language symbolism. This symbolism is
framed by a role lodged in the mission and orientation of ALAs. The
formation, evolvement and routinisation of the role is conditioned by the
sociopolitical circumstances of the Arabic-speaking world. This chapter
adopts four perspectives – pan-Arab, LPLP, symbolic and discursive – to
reveal and explain this complicated entanglement between the linguistic
and sociopolitical dimensions of the ALA phenomenon.

17
 18 | language, ideology and sociopolitical change

The Arabic Language Academy Phenomenon Is Pan-Arab

The ALA phenomenon is pan-Arab because it involves and affects the
whole Arabic-speaking world. The foundation of ALAs could be seen
as the diffusion of an institutional model in the Arabic-speaking world.
Towards the end of the nineteenth century, there were sporadic calls for
and experiments in ALAs modelled on the Académie française, mainly in
Egypt (Chejne 1969: 104; Ḍayf 1984: 19–20; al-Ḥamzāwī 1988: 36–41;
Fāyid 2002: 91–2; Sawaie 2007: 634).2 Although all the precursors of
ALAs failed to persist, the ALA as an institutional model became well
known. The first ALA, the Arabic Language Academy in Damascus
(Majmaʿ al-Lugha al-ʿArabiyya bi-Dimashq),3 was established in 1919.
Since then, a number of ALAs have been founded on both state and cross-
state levels, as shown in Table 2.1.4
These ALAs are institutionally related in three further ways. First,
they learn from each other in the matter of institutional organisation. For
example, Iraq followed Syria by creating a department within the Ministry
of Education to manage language affairs before developing it into an
academy (al-ʾĀlūsī 1997: 13–53). The Jordanian government sent delega-
tions to the ALAs in Syria, Egypt and Iraq to seek advice on the organi-
sational structure and working methods of the Jordanian Academy before
its establishment (Khalīfa 1987: 88). Similarly, the Cairo Academy made
its administrative archive and database available to the Libyan Academy
for its reference (al-Ahrām 2002). Second, these ALAs co-opt their mem-
bers throughout the Arabic-speaking world. Some Arab intellectuals are
members of two or more ALAs. Third, these ALAs organise pan-Arab
conferences and seminars and disseminate their reports and periodicals to
sister institutes and interested readers across the Arabic-speaking world.
These institutional commonalities have turned these ALAs into a de facto
pan-Arab communion of intellectuals who care about the Arabic language.
The diffusion of ALAs is due to the consolidation and routinisation of
a role in Arab society. Role theory understands a role as a set of expected
rights and duties, associated with a social position (Turner 2001: 233). The
role of ALAs is a modern language authority called on to tackle concerns
over the state of the Arabic language. For the Arabs, the Arabic language,
or Arabic, or al-ʿarabiyya, is ‘a cover term which refers to Arabic in its
various forms, both synchronically and diachronically’ (Suleiman 2006:
173). Synchronically, Arabic designates both fuṣḥā (the standard variety of
Arabic used across Arabic-speaking communities) and ʿāmmiyya/dārija/
lahja5 (regional colloquial varieties of Arabic). Fuṣḥā enjoys a high status
in Arab society, because it is the variety of Arabic in which the Qur’an was
 t h e t the ar t the arab t the ara t t h e arabic | 19

revealed verbatim, it has a long literary tradition, it is regarded as the most

elegant and eloquent variety of Arabic, and it is considered to be a symbol
of the Arab nation (whether it is primordial, constructed or both) and
national identity (Suleiman 2003). Owing to this high status, the Arabs
tend to equate Arabic with fuṣḥā. On most occasions when they speak of
Arabic, they are referring to fuṣḥā. They distinguish between fuṣḥā and
ʿāmmiyya only in discussions about internal differences in Arabic. This
usage of ‘Arabic’, ‘fuṣḥā’ and ‘ʿāmmiyya’ will be followed in this book.
From the mid-nineteenth century onwards, concerns over Arabic
arose across Arabic-speaking communities, focusing on three language
situations. The first was Arabic diglossia, or the linguistic and functional
disparity between fuṣḥā and ʿāmmiyya. The second was the spread of
foreign languages, such as Turkish (before the collapse of the Ottoman
Empire), French and English, in Arabic-speaking communities as well as
foreign influences on the vocabulary, syntax and style of Arabic. These
two language situations were often correlated and perceived as a dete-
rioration in the status and standard of fuṣḥā. The third was the perceived
archaic complexity of fuṣḥā and its unsuitability for expressing modern
concepts and ideas. ALAs were called on for a collective response and
a coordinated remedy. They were entrusted with the expected duties of
the integration of fuṣḥā and ʿāmmiyya (to the advantage of the former) to
develop a unified modern standard available to all social strata and appli-
cable to all domains of public communication, as well as Arabi(ci)sation
and the modernisation of Arabic. Nowadays, concerns over Arabic are still
widely attested in public discourses, within ALAs and beyond, and these
concerns still revolve around the language situations perceived as those
above. The three duties, accordingly, are continuously demanded as such.
They have crystallised into the long-articulated, unmodified agenda of
ALAs: ‘preserving the integrity of Arabic and making it compatible with
modern civilisation’. The role of ALAs, therefore, is now well established
in Arab society and has become a routine component of Arab modernity.
The diffusion of ALAs is also due to certain recurring and enduring
sociopolitical circumstances across the Arabic-speaking world that drive
the institutionalisation of ALAs along similar lines. It is admitted that
epochal and country-specific circumstances, such as financial difficulties,
partisan conflicts, regime changes, wars, reforms and protests, do affect
the institution of the ALA, as they might prevent ALAs from performing
their duties or impact on their stances towards Arabic in the short term.
However, they did not usually massively recast the institution of ALAs.
For example, administrative and financial difficulties forced the Damascus
Academy to suspend its work for nearly a year between 1919 and 1920
 Table 2.1 A list of Arabic Language Academies and equivalent institutions
Year of Name English rendering Location
foundation
1919 Majmaʿ al-Lugha al-ʿArabiyya bi-Dimashq The Arabic Language Academy in Damascus Damascus
1932 Majmaʿ al-Lugha al-ʿArabiyya bi-l-Qāhiraa The Arabic Language Academy in Cairo Cairo
1947 al-Majmaʿ al-ʿIlmī al-ʿIrāqī The Iraqi Academy Baghdad
1961 al-Maktab al-Dāʾim li-Tansīq al-Taʿrīb fī al-Waṭan The Permanent Bureau for the Coordination of Rabat
al-ʿArabī bi-l-Rabātb Arabisation in the Arab World in Rabat
1976 Majmaʿ al-Lugha al-ʿArabiyya al-ʾUrdunnī The Jordanian Arabic Language Academy Amman
1983 al-Majmaʿ al-Tūnisī li-l-ʿUlūm wa-l-ʾĀdāb wa-l- The Tunisian Academy of Sciences, Letters and Arts Tunis
Funūn – Bayt al-Ḥikma – Beit al-Hikma
1986 Majmaʿ al-Lugha al-ʿArabiyya al-Jazāʾirī The Algerian Arabic Language Academy Algiers
1993 Majmaʿ al-Lugha al-ʿArabiyya bi-l-Kharṭūm The Arabic Language Academy in Khartoum Khartoum
1994 Majmaʿ al-Lugha al-ʿArabiyya al-Lībīc The Libyan Arabic Language Academy Tripoli

20
1994 Majmaʿ al-Lugha al-ʿArabiyya al-Filasṭīnī – Bayt The Palestinian Arabic Language Academy in Ramallah
al-Muqaddasd Jerusalem
2007 Majmaʿ al-Lugha al-ʿArabiyya fī Ḥayfāe The Arabic Language Academy in Haifa Haifa
2008 Majmaʿ al-Qāsimī li-l-Lugha al-ʿArabiyya Al-Qāsimī Academy for the Arabic Language Baqa al-
Gharbiyye
2013 Majmaʿ al-Lugha al-ʿArabiyya al-Filasṭīnī – Ghazza The Palestinian Arabic Language Academy in Gaza Gaza
2017 Majmaʿ al-Lugha al-ʿArabiyya bi-l-Shāriqaf The Arabic Language Academy in Sharjah Sharjah
a The Cairo Academy changed its name several times. It began as Majmaʿ al-Lugha al-ʿArabiyya al-Malakī ‘Royal Arabic Language Academy’ in 1932. It
changed its name to Majma‘ Fuʾād al-ʾAwwal li-l-Lugha al-ʿArabiyya ‘Fuʾād I Academy for the Arabic Language’ in 1938 in memory of the late king of
Egypt. After the 1952 Revolution, the Academy gained a new name in 1954: Majmaʿ al-Lugha al-ʿArabiyya ‘the Arabic Language Academy’. In 1960,
following the 1958 union of Egypt and Syria, the name changed to Majmaʿ al-Lugha al-ʿArabiyya bi-l-Qāhira ‘the Arabic Language Academy in Cairo’
which has been used since then.
b The founding of the Bureau was initially a Moroccan initiative. It is now attached to the Arab League’s Educational, Cultural and Scientific Organization
(ALECSO). The Moroccan government established the Kingdom of Morocco Academy (ʾAkādīmiyyat al-Mamlaka al-Maghribiyya) in 1977. According
 to its charter, this Academy does not specialise in language affairs (AMM 2013), although it has been a member of the Union of Arabic Language and
Science Academies since 1996 (MLAU 2008). A government decree (no. 10.02) was issued in 2003, announcing the establishment of the Mohammed
VI Academy for the Arabic Language (ʾAkādīmiyyat Muḥammad al-Sādis li-l-Lugha al-ʿArabiyya) in Morocco (al-Fāsī al-Fihrī 2010: 21). There is no
evidence that this Academy is currently functional.
c The Libyan government issued a decree announcing the establishment of the Libyan Academy in 1994 (MMU 46: 244). For unknown reasons, this
Academy was not opened until 2002 (al-ʾAhrām 2002; Fāyid 2002: 97).
d A preparation committee was organised in Jerusalem in September 1987 to discuss the foundation of the Palestinian Language Academy, but soon stopped
working due to a lack of funding and difficulties committee members had in travelling to Jerusalem (ʿAmrū 1999: 184–5). The committee resumed its
work in 1994 and the founding decree of the Academy was passed on 24 June 1994 (ibid.: 186). It is worth mentioning that the Palestinian National
Authority was officially formed in the same year, indicating a close link between ALAs and state-building in the Arabic-speaking world. This Academy is
now temporarily based in Ramallah (ibid.: 193). In 2013, the foundation of another Palestinian Arabic language academy was announced in the Hamas-
controlled Gaza Strip (Ṣawt al-ʾAqṣā 2013). This Academy also claimed Jerusalem as its permanent location. The two Palestinian language academies
mirror the division of political authority between Fatah and Hamas in Palestine.
e There are two ALAs in Israel: the Haifa Academy, established in 2007 under the aegis of the Israeli government, and Al-Qasemi Arabic Language
Academy (Majmaʿ al-Qāsimī li-l-Lugha al-ʿArabiyya), established within Al-Qasemi Academic College of Education in 2008 (Muṣṭafā 2013).
f The Arabic Language Academy in Sharjah is the first of its kind in the Arab Gulf states. Yet it differs from other, major ALAs in two respects. First, it

21
was established by the Emirate of Sharjah rather than the State of UAE. Second, its charter does not stipulate that its working members need to hold UAE
citizenship or residency. These two differences indicate that this Academy is not yet a state institute, as many others are. It is most probably an initiative
of the al-Qāsimī ruling family of Sharjah to patronise and collaborate with other ALAs on some grand language and cultural projects such as the Arabic
historical dictionary (al-Kharīj al-Jadīd 2017). The fact that Qatar, the regional adversary of UAE, announced its own Arabic historical dictionary project
in 2013 and launched the first part of the dictionary online (www.dohadictionary.org) in 2018 has made the Sharjah Academy initiative more urgent. Once
again (as I will show in the history of ALAs), the ALA seems to have become a proxy of competition for regional ascendency.
 22 | language, ideology and sociopolitical change

(Sawaie 2007: 635). A tight budget and a shortage of supplies during

and after World War II caused the Cairo Academy to suspend its journal
for eleven years (ibid.: 635). Power struggles between political parties in
Egypt in the 1930s prevented prominent reformist Arab intellectuals, such
as Ṭāhā Ḥusayn (d. 1973) and ʾAḥmad Lutfī al-Sayyid (d. 1963), who
at that time belonged to the opposition block, from acquiring member-
ship of the Cairo Academy in its early years (al-Ḥamzāwī 1988: 62).
Difficulties of international travel (Ḍayf 1984: 154; Fāyd 2004: 27) and
the reluctant but eventual collaboration of the Egyptian government with
the British during World War II (Marsot 2007: 119–20) kept August
Fischer (d. 1949), the German member of the Cairo Academy, from trav-
elling to Cairo to complete his Historical Dictionary of Arabic project.
These are neither major nor decisive factors in understanding the ALA
phenomenon, but they show that ALAs can be affected by immediate
sociopolitical concerns.
By contrast, enduring and pan-Arab sociopolitical circumstances tend
to exert deeper and more profound influences on the institution of the
ALA. Two of these circumstances are most relevant here. One is the emer-
gence and consolidation of modern Arab states; the other is the continuing
peripheralisation of the Arabs as a whole in the modern world-system. The
former posits the ‘state’ as the new centre of gravity in the political, social
and cultural life of the Arabs on the one hand, and perpetuates the dual-
ity of pan-Arab and territorial-state nationalisms on the other. The latter
causes the spread of a feeling of coloniality in Arab society beyond the
colonial period, making the relation between Arab Self and the hegemonic
Other (mainly the West) a constant problem. A brief survey of the history
of the ALA phenomenon shows how the institution of the ALA was
shaped and conditioned along the above lines.
Arabic Language Academies between Pan-Arab and Territorial-State
Nationalisms
Throughout the history of ALAs, tension has always existed between
establishing a unified ALA as the only language authority in the Arabic-
speaking world in line with the expected political unification of the Arabs
and multiple ALAs in accordance with territorial Arab nationalisms. This
tension was already manifest in the precursors of ALAs in Egypt in the
late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. These early ‘ALAs’ were
pan-Arab oriented because they were expected to assume language author-
ity in the Arabic-speaking world mainly with regard to correct usage and
lexical coinages. They appeared in Egypt not because the Egyptian ruling
elites ardently support their activities, but because, at that time, Egypt was
 t h e t the ar t the arab t the ara t t h e arabic | 23

a major hub of Arab intellectual life. Noticeably, these ALA precursors

often defined themselves as civil and cultural rather than as official and
political institutions, in order to eschew interventions of the Egyptian state
in their activities. However, lacking financial and administrative support
from the Egyptian government, these early ‘ALAs’ only existed for a short
period (al-Ḥamzāwī 1988: 36–41; Sawaie 2007: 634).
The failure of the early ALAs shows that government support is vital
for an ALA’s survival. The connection between ALAs and territorial
Arab states became inevitable, starting from the Damascus Academy.
In 1918, Prince Fayṣal (d. 1933), son of Ḥuṣayn ibn ʿAlī al-Hāshimī
(the Grand Sharif of Mecca who led the Arab Revolt (1916–18) against
the Ottomans), captured Damascus and formed an Arab government in
Syria (Cleveland and Bunton 2009: 161). This government created the
Department of Translation and Compilation (shuʿbat al-tarjama wa-l-taʾlīf)
to support its Arabicisation campaign of replacing Turkish with Arabic
in administration and education. This department became the Damascus
Academy in 1919 (Futayyiḥ 1956: 3; Subḥ 1970: 9; al-Faḥḥām 1996: 23;
Murād 1996: 50–1; Marwān 2009: 1152–3; al-Mubārak 2009: 1165). The
Academy was entrusted with cultivating a national language based on
fuṣḥā and creating a national museum and a national library in Syria (Kurd
ʿAlī 1921: 2; Subḥ 1970: 10; Murād 1996: 52–3). In doing so, it was, in
fact, charged with constructing national symbols – language, history and
literary tradition – for the young Syrian state and national community.
The Academy relied on government funds, and its founding members
were exclusively Damascus-based – two further pieces of proof of its
association with the territorial Syrian state. However, the Academy was
also pan-Arab oriented. It used the name ‘the Arab Academy’ (al-Majmaʿ
al-ʿIlmī al-ʿArabī)6 until 1960, showing that it was not restricted to Syria
but belonged to the Arabic-speaking world as a whole. In other words,
this territorially based academy had a pan-Arab ambition, seeing its work
as having an effect extending beyond Syria. This pan-Arab ambition was
in accordance with Syria’s consistent endorsement of pan-Arabism under
Fayṣal’s Arab Kingdom of Syria and the following regimes.
The foundation of the Damascus Academy ushered in an era of state-
sponsored ALAs. Territorial Arab states appearing after World War I
competed to establish ALAs to vie to control the linguistic and cultural
authority in the Arabic-speaking world. Lebanon, Iraq and Transjordan
all tried in the 1920s to create ALAs similar to the Damascus Academy
in their territories, but failed due to limited financial and intellectual
resources (Fāyid 2002: 92–3; Khalīfa 1987: 87–8; al-ʾĀlūsī 1997: 13–33;
al-Rāwī 2002: 7; Maṭlūb 2008: 5). Only Egypt was able to counterbalance
 24 | language, ideology and sociopolitical change

Syria in this matter. King Fuʾād of Egypt (d. 1936), who wrestled with
the Hāshimite family to claim pan-Arab leadership and reintroduce the
Caliphate demolished by the Turks, founded a number of cultural and edu-
cational institutes in the 1920s and 1930s to extend the cultural influence
of the Egyptian royal family over the Arabic-speaking world (al-Ḥamzāwī
1988: 43–6). Among them was the Cairo Academy, then named the Royal
Arabic Language Academy (Majmaʿ al-Lugha al-ʿArabiyya al-Malakī).
This Academy was designed to be pan-Arab and cosmopolitan. Its mem-
bership was not confined to Egyptian citizens and Muslims; among the
first academicians, Christian, Jewish and non-Egyptian Arab intellectu-
als and European Orientalists were included (al-Ḥamzāwī 1988: 73–99;
Fāyid 2002: 94). Nonetheless, this Academy was still closely tied to the
Egyptian state. It was founded by a royal decree (Madkūr 1964; 1978:
7) and included in its name a reference to the Egyptian monarchy until
1954 (see note 4). Appointment of its members was influenced by politi-
cal disagreements among the king, the parliament and opposition groups
(al-Ḥamzāwī 1988: 58–63). The proportion of non-Egyptian members
might serve as a barometer showing how the Academy swayed between
territorial and pan-Arab orientations. Half the total members were non-
Egyptian in the 1930s; this figure dwindled to one-third in the 1940s, due
partly to the travelling difficulties caused by World War II and partly to
the popularisation of ‘supra-Egyptian nationalism’7 that entailed expan-
sive representation of Egypt’s various professional and intellectual strata
among members of the Academy. The proportion rose again slightly in
the 1950s to match, most probably, the pan-Arab agenda of the Egyptian
regime led by Gamal Abdel Nasser (d. 1970).8
Syria and Egypt were ahead with regard to establishing ALAs. The
original names of the two ALAs there – the Arab Academy and the
Arabic Language Academy – clearly indicated that they were meant to
represent the whole Arabic-speaking world. This discouraged other Arab
states from creating their own ALAs. After all, the Arabic-speaking world
ideally needed one unified ALA rather than several territorial ALAs. This
situation changed in the late 1940s, and was foreshadowed by the founda-
tion of the League of Arab States in 1945. As a loose confederation of
Arab states rather than a reification of the expected political unification
of the Arabs, its foundation indicated the acknowledgement of the multi-
state system in the Arabic-speaking world. In line with this political
development, more territorial ALAs began to appear. In 1947, the Iraqi
Academy (al-Majmaʿ al-ʿIlmī al-ʿIrāqī) was founded (al-Rāwī 2002:
7; Maṭlūb 2008: 6). Including in its name a reference to its host state –
which was not the case with the ALAs in Damascus and Cairo – the Iraqi
 t h e t the ar t the arab t the ara t t h e arabic | 25

Academy identified itself openly with the orientations and interests of the
Iraqi state.
The three ALAs in Syria, Egypt and Iraq began to seek collabora-
tion with each other from the 1950s onwards. In 1956, the Arab League
organised the first conference of ALAs in Damascus, which ended with
a proposal to establish a union (ittiḥād) of territorial ALAs to coordinate
their work (Chejne 1969: 122; Ḍayf 1984: 17; al-Rāwī 2002: 9). This
initiative was temporarily abandoned after the merger of the Cairo and
Damascus Academies into Majmaʿ al-Lugha al-ʿArabiyya ‘the Arabic
Language Academy’ in 1960 as a result of the unification of Egypt and
Syria in 1958 (al-Rāwī 2002: 9). The two ALAs became two branches of
this unified Academy, renamed as the Arabic Language Academy in Cairo
(Majmaʿ al-Lugha al-ʿArabiyya bi-l-Qāhira) and the Arabic Language
Academy in Damascus (Majmaʿ al-Lugha al-ʿArabiyya bi Dimashq)
respectively. With this institutional merger, the ideal of the unified ALA
seemed realised and thus no union of ALAs was needed. However, this
unified ALA soon broke up when the political unification of Egypt and
Syria ended in 1961. The Cairo and Damascus Academies became once
again independent from each other, but they retained their new names as
though symbolically they were still branches of the same ALA.
With the failure of the unified ALA, the idea of the union of territo-
rial ALAs regained its momentum (Chejne 1969: 123–4). In this regard,
the Arab League made another attempt to coordinate the work of ALAs
and similar language-related work carried out in Arab states. In 1961,
the League organised the First Arabi(ci)sation Conference (al-Muʾtamar
al-Awwal li-l-Taʿrīb) in Rabat (ʾAfsaḥī 1990: 194; ʾAḥmad 1999: 207),
acknowledging the importance of North African Arab countries to the
Arabi(ci)sation campaign commonly pursued across the Arabic-speaking
world. This Conference called for establishing an Arabi(ci)sation com-
mittee9 in every member state of the Arab League and creating, in Rabat,
the Permanent Bureau for the Coordination of Arabisation in the Arab
World to coordinate the work of these committees and the ALAs (Khalīfa
1987: 88; ʾAḥmad 1999: 207). The Bureau was formed in 1961 under the
patronage of the late King Muhammad V (d. 1961) of Morocco but was
collectively funded by a number of Arab states (ʾAfsaḥī 1990: 194). It
was officially attached to the Arab League in 1969 and then to the Arab
League Educational, Cultural and Scientific Organization (ALECSO) in
1972 (ʾAḥmad 1999: 204). The creation of the Bureau marked the con-
solidation of the multi-ALA system in the Arabic-speaking world. This
system was further confirmed by the foundation of the Union of Arabic
Language and Science Academies (Ittiḥād al-Majāmiʿ al-Lughawiyya
 26 | language, ideology and sociopolitical change

al-ʿIlimiyya al-ʿArabiyya) in Cairo in 1971 (Ḍayf 1984: 17; al-Rāwī 2002:

9).10 This Union was dominated by the Cairo Academy. The consolidation
of the multi-ALA system led to a growth of territorial ALAs from the
1970s onwards. Jordan, Tunisia, Algeria, Sudan, Libya, Palestine and
Israel established their own ALAs in various forms. Most of these ALAs
incorporated in their names a reference to their host states. The single,
unified ALA now seemed like a distant dream.
Arabic Language Academies, Territoriality and Sovereignty
The multiple ALAs founded in line with the demarcation of states in the
Arabic-speaking world show a close congruity between ALAs and territo-
rial states. This indicates that, in the states previously mentioned, the ALA
seems to be an indispensable constituent of state infrastructure and a repre-
sentation of state sovereignty over language use. Indeed, as will be shown
below, the formation of the institution of the ALA is tied to the penetration
of the ‘state’ as a central, regulative ideology into society – another effect
of the rise of modern states in the Arabic-speaking world, in addition to the
duality of pan-Arab and territorial nationalisms discussed before.
It should be noted that the ‘state’ is understood here as more than a
bounded institutional ensemble acquiring and maintaining its inviolable
territoriality and sovereignty through mechanisms of violence, coercion
and regulation. The ‘state’ is also more than what Sharma and Gupta
(2006: 5) call ‘a cultural artefact’ that is ‘culturally embedded and discur-
sively constructed, [i.e.] produced through everyday practices and encoun-
ters and through public cultural representations and performances’ (ibid.:
27). These institutional, performative and discursive ‘artefacts’ are all
manifestations of the ‘state’ rather than the ‘state’ per se, which is, essen-
tially, an ideological reality deeply rooted in our minds, rationalising and
regulating the organisation and (self-)identification of political subjects
and communities along the lines of territoriality and sovereignty. This
ideological reality manifests itself in various ‘artefacts’, mentioned above,
but is also shaped, reinforced and reproduced through the making of these
‘artefacts’. The rise of modern Arab states is an institutional manifestation
of the coming and penetration of this ideological reality into the minds of
the Arabs. This reality is so deeply rooted that it is often unfelt, especially
when state-oriented nationalism retreats from overt articulation (see the
discussion of banal nationalism later in this chapter). It is so overwhelm-
ing that it signposts and regulates almost every aspect of the modern Arab
social life. Even though the institutions of Arab states may be weak and
their overarching role in Arab society may be overstated (Ayubi 1995), the
‘state’ as an ideological reality is not.
 t h e t the ar t the arab t the ara t t h e arabic | 27

In line with the above, ALAs can be seen as manifestations of the

‘state’ in the spheres of language and culture in Arab society, for the
following reasons. First of all, ALAs act as brokers of language attitudes
and language ideologies of different interest groups in Arab society. To
explain this role of ALAs, let us start with Blommaert (1999: 9) who
understands language ideology brokers as those who can ‘claim authority
in the field of debate [and contestation]’ over the conception of language-
society relations. According to this understanding, ALAs are no doubt
language ideology brokers because they have already been revered as
language authorities in the Arabic-speaking world. But this is only the tip
of the iceberg. Digging deeper, we find out that the authoritative status
of ALAs is determined by their three features of ‘in-betweenness’. First,
ALAs stand in the middle of a variety of intellectual perspectives on
Arabic and its role in society because each ALA in its work brings together
intellectuals from different parts of the Arabic-speaking world and from
various religious and professional backgrounds as either academicians
or advisors on specific language issues. Second, ALAs are capable of
influencing language views of both the (ruling, literary, etc.) elites and the
common people, because, as state-sponsored institutions, they act as ‘mid-
dlemen’, mediating between state and society. Third, ALAs posit them-
selves between the past and present and between tradition and modernity.
ALAs as a social-cum-linguistic phenomenon have been a feature of the
modern transition of the Arabic-speaking world from the late nineteenth
century until now. The various sociopolitical changes (such as colonisa-
tion, decolonisation, nation-building, the rise and fall of regimes, wars and
so on) during this transition have left marks on ALAs and their language
ideologies, posing a challenge to ALAs of creating a coherent historical
narrative for themselves, including considering themselves as both heirs
to the Arab-Islamic intellectual tradition vis-à-vis the Arabic language
and trendsetters in moulding this tradition to the demands of modernity.
The above three features of ‘in-betweenness’ indicate that how Arabic is
conceptualised in the ALA discourse is very likely a negotiated compro-
mise of different nationalist, social, political and intellectual interests and
historical contingencies that are projected onto this language. Indeed, this
negotiation, as will be shown in the following chapters, is conducted by
ALAs, who attempt to ‘broker’ a common ground that is (1) historically
coherent and (2) ideologically acceptable to as many interest groups as
possible. It is this act of negotiating and ‘brokering’ rather than the claim
to authority that makes ALAs language ideology brokers. The authorita-
tive status of ALAs is an auxiliary (or possibly a product) of rather than
the determinant of their ‘brokering’ role.
 28 | language, ideology and sociopolitical change

This ‘brokering’ role is institutionalised by the territoriality and sover-

eignty inherent in the ‘state’. Institutionalisation lies in the fact that ALAs
follow a patterned framework that absorbs, negotiates and filters different
language ideologies via granting membership, recruiting advisors, organ-
ising conferences and festivals, arranging publications and issuing rulings.
The territoriality behind this institutionalisation is revealed through the
following: (1) ALAs allocate their membership along citizenship lines,
making sure that citizens of their host countries occupy the majority of the
‘working members’, while awarding membership of ‘correspondents’ to
citizens of other Arab and non-Arab countries;11 and (2) ALAs are based
in the capitals of their host countries12 and hold their seminars and confer-
ences therein. Such arrangements guarantee that the results of ideological
brokering by an ALA always lean towards the communal interest of its
host territorial state.
If territoriality affects the role of ALAs horizontally along state
boundaries in the Arabic-speaking world, sovereignty shapes this role
vertically among interest groups in individual state-communities. By
embracing language attitudes and ideologies (whether they are mutually
supportive or antagonistic) in a state-community, and the contestation and
negotiation in a single institutional framework authorised by the state, an
ALA serves a function similar to that of parliament, where state-wide con-
cerns are debated among representatives of interest groups and common
ground is sought. Although in practice the ALA barely has any legislative
power, as a parliament does, symbolically both are apparatuses and repre-
sentations of state sovereignty over the control and regulation of the state
community, albeit in different spheres.
Below I will discuss two enduring tensions in ALAs to show that
ideological conflicts and contestations are commonplace therein. The fact
that ALAs have managed to contain and sustain these conflicts and contes-
tations demonstrates the backing of state sovereignty.
The rise of ALAs indicates a change and reshuffle of the compo-
nents of the intellectual authority concerning language and knowledge
in the Arabic-speaking world. In the past, it was the religious ʿulamāʾ
who monopolised the interpretation and transmission of knowledge. From
the mid-nineteenth century onwards, Arab intellectuals acquainted with
modern European rational science and social institutions and imbued with
passion for reforming the Arab-Islamic tradition began to challenge the
monopoly of the traditional ʿulamāʾ. This reshuffle of authority is revealed
in the tension between traditionalists and modernists on the one hand, and
that between literati and scientists on the other, among members of ALAs.
With respect to the first tension, the change in the composition of the
 t h e t the ar t the arab t the ara t t h e arabic | 29

membership of the Cairo Academy serves as an example. When appoint-

ing the founding members of the Cairo Academy in 1932, the Egyptian
government made a balanced combination of both religious scholars
from al-ʾAzhar and modernists educated in the West (al-Ḥamzāwī 1988:
58–63). By making this balanced choice, the government was cautious not
to weaken the representation of either camp in this newly formed language
authority. In doing so, the Egyptian government in fact institutionalised
the tension between traditionalists and modernists. The membership of
the Cairo Academy was increased in 1940, with many renowned modern-
ists such as Luṭfī al-Sayyid and Ṭāhā Ḥusayn becoming members of the
Academy. This aggravated the tension between the two camps within the
Academy. The traditionalist and modernists often took opposite positions
in linguistic discussions concerning, for example, expanding Arabic mor-
phology, accepting colloquial expressions and foreign neologisms, and
defining the source and structure of modern Arabic dictionaries. These
linguistic disputes marked a deep difference between the two camps
regarding the duties of the Cairo Academy. The traditionalists wanted the
Academy to be the guardian of the Arabic language and its linguistic tradi-
tion, while the modernists wanted the Academy to supervise the reform
and modernisation of Arabic to meet modern communicative needs.
With respect to the tension between literati and scientists within ALAs,
it is necessary to start with the different choices of naming among ALAs.
There are two nomenclatural systems used by ALAs. The first is al-majmaʿ
al-ʿilmī, literally ‘the science academy’. However, ʿilm is not the equiva-
lent of ‘science’ here. In traditional use, ʿilm simply means knowledge,
including both religious scholarship and applied sciences. According to
ʿAlī (1959: 318), al-majmaʿ al-ʿilmī is merely an imperfect translation
of ‘academy’; it does not refer to an academy specialising in scientific
research. In fact, the focus of al-majmaʿ al-ʿilmī is the Arabic language
as a medium of expressing and transmitting all sorts of knowledge. The
other nomenclatural system uses majmaʿ al-lugha, literally ‘the language
academy’. This term specifies that the target of ALAs is language.
It is clear that ALAs adopting different nomenclatural systems do not
differ in their specialities. Why, then, do they use different names? The
answer lies in the relationship between language and knowledge (ʿilm) in
the Arab-Islamic tradition, in which language served as a foundation for
almost all religious and applied sciences (Carter 2007: 183). Sufficient
knowledge of Arabic grammar, for example, was a necessary requirement
for any scholar regardless of his or her area of speciality. This foundational
role of language continued into the modern era, when modern sciences
were introduced from Europe. These modern sciences posed a challenge
 30 | language, ideology and sociopolitical change

to Arab intellectuals in terms of new knowledge of both the physical and

social worlds, and of rational, positivist methodologies of research.
However, for many Arab intellectuals, this challenge was not per-
ceived as relating to knowledge and methodology, but to language. In
their view, modernising the Arabic language is the primary way to tackle
the challenge of modernising knowledge; as long as Arabic can be used to
express modern scientific ideas, Arabs can easily acquire modern sciences
to pursue the revival of the Arab nation and make original contributions to
the progress of science and technology (e.g. Khalīfa 1987: 39–40). Here,
Arabic was used as a proxy to alleviate a deep crisis of knowledge. In this
regard, al-majmaʿ al-ʿilmī and majmaʿ al-lugha are the same. What makes
them different in their nomenclature choices is that the former points to
the final target of their work – knowledge – while the latter accentuates the
proxy/medium of their work – language. Perceiving the language-knowl-
edge relationship in this manner reveals that, in the Arabic-speaking world,
the introduction of new knowledge needs to be grounded in tradition.
However, not all members of ALAs perceived the language-­knowledge
relationship in the traditional way. Some Western-educated scientists
insisted that the modern sciences should be studied on their own terms and
not be tailored to match the established linguistic principles and conven-
tions of Arabic. This belief led them to be in conflict with members of the
literati, who believed in the foundational role of Arabic in all disciplines.13
This conflict was another reflection of the tension between tradition and
modernity within ALAs.
Two examples suffice here to illustrate the conflict between the literati
and the scientists. The first concerns the choice between ishtiqāq ‘word-
making via derivation from Arabic roots’ and taʿrīb ‘word-making via
transliteration of foreign words’ as the primary method of lexical coinage
in sciences. In this regard, the majority of the literati members of ALAs
insisted on using ishtiqāq rather than taʿrīb to ensure the expression of
modern scientific concepts and ideas in correct Arabic. In order to ensure
ishtiqāq was able to meet the growing needs of coinage in the sciences,
they discussed and authorised the expansion of existing derivational pat-
terns of Arabic morphology. By contrast, scientists in their actual language
practice preferred taʿrīb to create neologisms consistent with the original
scientific terminologies in European languages. Those members of ALAs
who were scientists themselves or sympathetic to the language habits of
the scientists called for permitting the use of taʿrīb. In response, the Cairo
Academy issued a ruling in 1934 permitting the use of taʿrīb under certain
conditions, that is, as a last resort (MJMJ 1: 309, 348; MMQ 1: 33). This
was a brokered compromise between the literati who tended to reject lin-
 t h e t the ar t the arab t the ara t t h e arabic | 31

guistic innovations deviating from the established grammatical principles

of Arabic and the scientists who wanted to break the unnecessary ‘linguis-
tic shackles’ placed on the development of scientific vocabulary in Arabic.
Nonetheless, the issue of permitting taʿrīb has remained controversial
throughout the history of ALAs, reflecting a prolonged tension between
the literati and the scientists.
The second example concerns recruiting ‘experts’ to work for ALAs.
‘Experts’ are specialists in different disciplines, who are the actual users
of Arabic in their own fields of speciality. ALAs increasingly rely on these
experts to help with lexical coinage in their fields. Introducing the ‘expert’
system is an organic development of ALAs, because ALA members
cannot cope with the vast demands for new vocabularies in an increas-
ingly differentiated academic world. These experts are not members of
ALAs, but their participation alters the balance between the literati and the
scientists in ALAs. Like the scientists, the experts tend to put the demands
of their own fields over the need to maintain the integrity of the traditional
linguistic system of Arabic. This tendency aggravates the existing tension
between the literati and the scientists in ALAs.
Arabic Language Academies, Coloniality and Peripherality
The rise of modern Arab states is certainly not the only enduring circum-
stance that shapes the institution of ALAs. The peripheralisation of Arabs
that perpetuates the feeling of coloniality in Arab society is another. This
is evident in the narrative of the origins of ALAs. In this narrative, the
concept of ALA became a proxy through which these members responded
to the peripheral position of Arabs in the modern world-system.
On narrating the origins of ALAs, members treated the connection
between their academies and the Académie française in ambiguous ways.
ALAs were more or less modelled on the Académie française. This was
attractive to Arab statespeople because it offered a path for cultivating a
state-sponsored intellectual authority, for constructing a national language
and for formulating a unified, patriotic national public. It was attractive
to Arab intellectuals because it provided an example for (1) adapting a
national language to the communicative and educational needs of the
modern age while protecting the integrity and purity of this language from
colloquial and foreign encroachment, and (2) achieving an intellectual
consensus institutionally among individuals or schools of thought con-
cerning the use and development of Arabic in modern Arab society. The
merits of the French model were first revealed to the Arabs when Napoleon
Bonaparte established the Institut d’Égypte in Alexandria to study the
history, ­culture and society of Egypt during his Egyptian Campaign
 32 | language, ideology and sociopolitical change

(1798–1801) (al-Ḥamzāwī 1988: 36–7). The first two ALAs in Damascus

and Cairo emulated the Académie française in many respects, such as its
organisation, its definition of academicianship and its orientations, mis-
sions and methodologies. When reflecting on the history of ALAs, their
members often referred to the Académie française as their predecessor and
model; the international reputation of the Académie française became a
source of legitimation for their own language academies.
However, adopting the French model was disputed in the context
of European colonialism and imperialism in the Arabic-speaking world.
Consequently, any ALA should also justify itself by claiming to continue
the work of its ‘predecessors’ within the Arab intellectual tradition. Only
in that way can the ALA avoid being an alien body or colonial imposition
and become an authentic institution developed by and for Arabs. In two
early narratives of the Cairo Academy, Fahmī (1934) and al-Maghribī
(1935b) locate this Academy in a historical and global continuum of (lan-
guage) academies, from the Platonic Academy in Ancient Greece to the
learning institutions in Medieval Europe and the Orient, especially the
Arab-Islamic world. In this narrative, the learning circle patronised by
the Umayyad Prince Khālid ibn Yazī d al-ʾUmawī (d. 85/704 or 90/709),
the Bayt al-Ḥikma ‘House of Wisdom’ established by the Abbasid Caliph
al-Maʾmūn (d. 218/833) and the Kūfan and Baṣran Schools of Arabic
grammar all became the Arab-Islamic predecessors of language acad-
emies. The idea behind these narratives was to claim that both Europeans
and Arabs contributed to the development of the language academy as
a type of intellectual institution now spreading across the world. This
continuum of academies was adjusted in favour of the Arab side from the
mid-twentieth century onwards, driven by the increasing need for inde-
pendent Arab states to justify themselves in nationalist and anti-colonialist
terms. Fahmī (1962 [1957]) claimed that ALAs should first and foremost
respond to the vital needs of Arab society of the time, defined as ‘overall
development and progress’, ‘liberal nationalism’ and ‘linguistic vitality’.
Madkūr (1967) followed Fahmī by seeing the French model as unfit for
the mission and responsibility of the Cairo Academy. He argued that, as
a language academy of the twentieth century, the Cairo Academy should
be more innovative and perform broader functions to serve the interests
of Arabs than those stipulated by the Académie française, which was a
product of the seventeenth century. In the late twentieth century, when
Arab intellectuals were still anxious about the cultural imperialism of the
West, they further emphasised the contributions of the Arabs and Muslims
to the global development of language academies. For example, Khalīfa
(1987: 48) proposed that the emergence of academies in Renaissance
 t h e t the ar t the arab t the ara t t h e arabic | 33

Europe was inspired by the academy-like institutions that thrived in the

past in Abbasid Baghdad, Muslim Spain, Sicily and North Africa.
Apart from the ambivalent attitude towards the Académie française,
the self-narrative of ALAs often highlighted their role in the persistence
and revival of the Arab nation under colonial and imperial threats. ALAs
were perceived as strongholds (maʿāqil) that defended the Arabic lan-
guage and nation, and their members as battalions serving the interests of
this language and nation. In line with such perceptions, even the choice
of the exact locations of the ALAs became meaningful. On explaining
why the Damascus Academy, when it was founded, chose the ʿĀdiliyya
Madrasa to be its location, al-Mubārak (2009: 1167–8) provides three
theories. First, the ʿĀdiliyya Madrasa is one of the biggest madrasas in
Damascus and used to be the gathering place for religious scholars and the
residence of the Grand Judges. Second, this madrasa is inside the Barīd
‘post’ Gate of old Damascus, which in the past was the place where official
correspondence was sent and received. The first two theories show that the
Damascus Academy is treated in al-Mubārak’s narrative as a continuation
of the old Damascene intellectual and bureaucratic tradition, and is thus
a symbol of national sovereignty. Third, al-Mubārak reports the ʿĀdiliyya
Madrasa is surrounded by the tombs of Ṣalaḥ al-Ḍīn al-ʾAyyūbī (d. 1193)
and Nūr al-Dīn Maḥmūd Zankī (d. 1174), two great Muslim leaders who
defeated the Crusades, and al-Ẓāhir Baybars (d. 1277), who won a victory
against the Mongol army. In al-Mubārak’s view, these tombs symboli-
cally make the Damascus Academy a defender and guardian of the Arabic
language and the Arab nation against foreign invasions in various forms.
The above narratives of the origins of ALAs reflect how the institution
of ALAs was legitimised in a social environment where psychological
decolonisation was ongoing.
In sum, focusing on the diffusion of ALAs, the pan-Arab perspective
shows that the ALA phenomenon bifurcates into two realms. Both are of a
pan-Arab relevance. One is linguistic: a long-lasting concern over Arabic
entailed the formation and routinisation of a role that ALAs take on to
improve the state of the language. The other is sociopolitical: the institu-
tion of ALAs is shaped and continuously reinforced by the prevalence of
the modern state, the duality of pan-Arab and territorial-state nationalisms
and the peripheralisation of the Arabs in the modern world-system – those
longue durée sociopolitical circumstances in the Arabic-speaking world.
The cause for the diffusion of ALAs is traceable to both realms, indicating
some connection between the two.
A most obvious connector is the role of ALAs. The role is routinised.
Role theorists differ on the reason for role routinisation. Structuralists see
 34 | language, ideology and sociopolitical change

roles as pre-existing and shaping individual behaviour, while interactional-

ists argue that roles are routinised in repetitive interactions of people (Franks
2007; Hindin 2007). In line with both views, the role of ALAs can be seen
as pre-defined by their language-oriented duties and reinforced in the efforts
ALAs continuously make to fulfil these duties. This explanation confines
the cause for the routinisation of the role of ALAs in the linguistic realm.
Yet there is also a sociopolitical explanation: the role has gone through
a process of institutionalisation with ALAs as its bearers in line with
those enduring sociopolitical circumstances that demarcate the contour
and orientation of the institution of ALAs. Role theory focuses on roles
taken by individuals and pays little heed to institutional roles. It explains
the dynamism between roles and individuals, no matter whether the roles
are pre-existing or emerging in interaction. The theory does discuss col-
lective role, but this notion does not mean that the role itself is collective,
rather that it is assumed or made by a group of individuals. Institutional
roles like the role of ALAs are different. It is assumed by the institution of
ALAs as a whole and is in accordance with the ideological orientation of
this institution. At the platform of ALAs, individual academicians have to
tailor their stances to the ideological consensus brokered by ALAs, as the
discussion of ALAs as ideological brokers shows.
This dual explanation for the routinisation of the role of ALAs indi-
cates a conformity between the linguistic and the sociopolitical dimen-
sions of the ALA phenomenon. Yet the connection between the two is
more than conformity, as will be shown in the following perspectives.
The Arabic Language Academy Phenomenon Is a Form of Language
Planning and Language Policy
Our second perspective is that the ALA phenomenon is an instance of
language planning and language policy (LPLP). Language planning refers
to ‘efforts to deliberately affect the status, structure, or acquisition of lan-
guages’ (Tollefson 2011: 357). Language policy refers to ‘guidelines or rules
for language structure, use, and acquisition’ established and implemented in
language communities (ibid.: 357). Together, LPLP involves how language
policies are embedded in actual language practice, articulated in language
ideology and modified and evaluated in language planning (Spolsky 2004:
5; 2012: 5).14 LPLP occurs at different levels of language communities,
ranging from families to institutions, to states, to international organisa-
tions, and in various domains of social communication (Neustupný and
Nekvapil 2003; Spolsky 2009). The pattern of LPLP also varies, involving
both conscious planning and implementation of new language policies and
unconscious compliance with existing language policies (Spolsky 2004).
 t h e t the ar t the arab t the ara t t h e arabic | 35

The ALA phenomenon belongs to conscious language planning and

language policy-making at or above the state level, understood as ‘classical
language planning’ (CLP) in LPLP literature (Jernudd and Nekvapil 2012:
22). The central premise of CLP is that ‘language planning takes place at
the level of the nation-state and the plans project onto the development of
the entire society’ (ibid.: 26). A frequently mentioned prototype of CLP
is the work of the Académie française, founded in 1635 by Cardinal de
Richelieu (d. 1642) to ‘strengthen the unity and order of the French state
through bringing about the unity and order of the language’ (ibid.: 18; see
also Cooper 1989: 3–11). The work of the Académie française shows how
language planning can contribute to nation-building and state-formation.
Accordingly, CLP was widely performed in newly independent
nation-states in Europe in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries
(Wright 2004; 2012). CLP intensified between the 1950s and 1970s, when
post-colonial nation-states in Asia and Africa demanded unified, modern
and nationwide (but not necessarily national) languages to support politi-
cal, economic and social development.
Why does CLP co-occur with nation-building and state-formation of
newly independent nation-states? It is because CLP is always connected
with the immediate sociopolitical demands of these nation-states. Fishman
(1968: 493–4) identifies two of these demands: national integration and
technology-based modernisation. Fulfilling them entails ‘ethnic authentic-
ity’ and ‘modern [communicative] efficiency’ (ibid.: 494). Both rely on
the languages used nationwide. If these languages are rooted in existing
language and linguistic traditions and are qualified enough for modern
communication, authenticity and efficiency will be easily achieved. If not,
mismatches between language and national demands will appear, making
existing nationwide languages problematic. In this situation, language
planning will intervene to solve these language problems. In doing so, its
ultimate goal is always sociopolitical.
The above description of CLP fits the ALA phenomenon well. Early
experiments of ALAs occurred in Egypt in the late nineteenth century
because its rulers, Muḥammad ʿAlī (d. 1849) and his heirs, had been
reconstructing Egypt since the early nineteenth century towards a modern
polity and society modelled on European nation-states. Similarly, through-
out the twentieth century, the foundation and development of ALAs were
often accompanied by nation-building and state-formation in the Arabic-
speaking world. Below are some examples taken from my introduction
to the history of ALAs before, which are in need of repeating here to
illustrate the state-academy link in Arabic LPLP. The Damascus Academy
was founded in 1919 after Fayṣal ibn Ḥusayn (d. 1933) established the
 36 | language, ideology and sociopolitical change

first modern Arab government in Syria. The Cairo Academy was founded
in 1932 along with a rapid bureaucratic and institutional development of
the Egyptian state under the aegis of King Fuʾād of Egypt (d. 1936).15 The
Palestinian Academy was announced in 1994 (ʿAmrū 1999: 186) when the
Palestinian National Authority was officially formed.
As I have mentioned earlier, ALAs were founded to respond to three
language situations: diglossia, foreign language influence and the archaic
complexity of fuṣḥā. In the framework of CLP, these situations can be
seen as language problems, which are believed to be detrimental to the
interests of newly established Arab states. Diglossia impedes national
integration, the influence of foreign languages weakens ethnic authenticity
and archaic complexity hinders communicative efficiency. Solving these
three language problems was vital for the consolidation of the Arab states.
The ALA phenomenon conforms to CLP in terms of the link between
nationwide language problem-solving and nation-building. However, this
phenomenon also differs from CLP in that it remained active even after
the heyday of nation-building and state-formation in the Arabic-speaking
worlds had passed. The ALA phenomenon seems to have become a routi-
nised, long-lasting practice of language planning.16
Such routinised language planning has recently become the focus of
LPLP studies. It is argued that language planning is not only identified
with nation-building and state-formation in newly established nation-
states, but is also attested in all language communities, all domains of
communication and different episodes of sociopolitical change. Similarly,
ethnic authenticity and communicative efficiency are not the only goals
of language planning; more covert goals are also included. In this regard,
Cooper (1989: 182) states that:
language planning is such a complex activity, influenced by numerous
factors – economic, ideological, political, etc. – and not only because it is
directed toward so many different status, corpus, and acquisition goals, but
more fundamentally because it is a tool in the service of so many different
latent goals such as economic modernization, national integration, national
liberation, imperial hegemony, racial, sexual, and economic equality, the
maintenance of elites, and their replacement by new elites. That language
planning should serve so many covert goals is not surprising. Language is
the fundamental institution of society, not only because it is the first institu-
tion experienced by the individual but also because all other institutions are
built upon its regulatory patterns. To plan language is to plan society.
More importantly, language planning also tends to be routinised because it
is ‘a result of complex historical and structural forces that shape the social
 t h e t the ar t the arab t the ara t t h e arabic | 37

system within which individuals must act’ (Tollefson 2011: 367). In line
with this understanding, language planning is produced by ‘the social
system’ and is subject to constant reproduction as long as this system
remains stable.
How can the above viewpoints help explain the routinisation of the
ALA phenomenon? One answer to this question is that the sociopolitical
causes behind this phenomenon are diverse. Nation-building and state-
formation is just one among the many causes that demand the ALA phe-
nomenon as a response.17 Others, like wars and conflicts, may also cause
mismatches between language and social demands, thus necessitating lan-
guage planning as a remedy. However, these sociopolitical causes are often
temporary or country-specific; they are not convincing enough to explain
the routinisation of ALAs as a pan-Arab phenomenon. This routinisa-
tion is more likely caused by the duality of pan-Arab and ­territorial-state
nationalisms (sustained by the consolidation of the multi-state system) and
the peripheralisation of the Arabs in the modern world-system – the two
above-mentioned sociopolitical circumstances enduring in the Arabic-
speaking world. They perpetuate, in often hidden and unnoticed ways, the
perception of diglossia, foreign language influence and archaic complexity
as language problems. As long as these language problems endure, the
ALA phenomenon as a response and remedy will persist.
The perspective of LPLP establishes a causality from the linguistic
to the sociopolitical. This causality is direct, unmediated and to some
extent mechanical. LPLP is seen as instrumental in attaining the various
extra-linguistic goals, both overt and latent. These goals entail a specific
language situation as a necessity. Mismatch between this and the real lan-
guage situations is regarded as a problem. LPLP is thus required to solve


       
      
 

  
  

   

  
 

  
 

   

      

Figure 2.1 Causality of LPLP: language is instrumental in inducing

sociopolitical change         
 
 38 | language, ideology and sociopolitical change

this problem. It follows that LPLP can induce anticipated sociopolitical

change. Indeed, ‘to plan language is to plan society’.
The causality of LPLP offers an explanation for the connection
between the linguistic and sociopolitical dimensions of the ALA phenom-
enon beyond mere conformity. The connection is a casual one. The three
language situations – diglossia, foreign language influence and the archaic
complexity of fuṣḥā – are incompatible with the linguistic ideal: a strong
national standard of Arabic, devoid of diglossia and foreignness and used
in all domains of public communication. This linguistic ideal is set to
accord with the sociopolitical ideal – an empowered, unified Arab nation
able to catch up with modernity and stand on a par with the West in the
modern world-system. Incompatibility with this language ideal is seen as
problematic, and attaining this ideal is believed to bring about the desired
sociopolitical scenario. Accordingly, the role that ALAs assumes is as a
language planner and language problem solver. When language problems
endure, the role of ALAs becomes routine.
Yet the above explanation is still not satisfactory, and the causality of
LPLP raises new questions. Since the language situation was problema-
tised against the language and sociopolitical ideals, how were the ideals
set in the first place? Does this problematisation go in certain directions
rather than others? If so, why? Do language problems truly impede pro-
gress towards the sociopolitical ideal, and does solving these problems
actually induce desired sociopolitical change? Two further perspectives
that accentuate the symbolic and discursive sides of the ALA phenomenon
are called on to answer these questions.
The Arabic Language Academy Phenomenon Is Symbolic
Our third perspective is that the ALA phenomenon is more symbolic
than instrumental. These are the two roles language planning plays in
promoting social change. The unmediated causality tells us that language
planning is instrumental because it seeks to modify the status and structure
of language as an instrument of communication to serve various socio-
political causes, such as national integration and societal modernisation.
Yet language planning is also symbolic, because it constructs indexical
parallelism between language as ‘the fundamental institution of society’
(Cooper 1989: 182) and other social institutions to make the former stand
for the latter (indexication) and uses language as a proxy to address socio-
political concerns and attain extra-linguistic goals (proxification).
Symbolism is so evident in language planning that even the instru-
mental side of planning is often symbolic. It is generally accepted that
there are two basic types of language planning: corpus planning, refer-
 t h e t the ar t the arab t the ara t t h e arabic | 39

ring to ‘efforts to affect the structure of language’; and status planning,

referring to ‘efforts to affect the social position of language varieties’
(Tollefson 2011: 359; see also Kloss 1968; Cooper 1989). Commenting on
corpus planning, Suleiman suggests that ‘the instrumentality of language
is most directly relevant to corpus-planning, wherein the prime concern
is providing the language with the resources that it needs to discharge
its communicative role in society’; however, ‘with time, some corpus-
planning resources start to assume ideological meanings (at least more
than others), making them subject to contestation in cultural politics’
(2013a: 15). Status planning, by contrast, tends to be symbolic because
‘the choice of a language for communication carries with its narratives of
group identity that are historically, culturally and politically significant’
(ibid.: 15).
With regard to the ALA phenomenon, its instrumental side is rela-
tively weak, in that it fails to change the corpus and status of Arabic
according to the plans it proposes.18 ALAs have coined large numbers
of neologisms and scientific terminologies and compiled hundreds of
terminological glossaries and dictionaries. These coinages often suffer
from internal disparities among ALAs and indifference from Arabic users.
ALAs aim to compile historical and modern dictionaries to reflect dia-
chronic developments and current uses of the Arabic lexicon respectively;
however, so far only al-Muʿjam al-wasīṭ ‘the intermediate dictionary’ and
al-Muʿjam al-wajīz ‘the concise dictionary’ have been published by the
Cairo Academy,19 and they are faced with competition from other modern
Arabic dictionaries, especially the al-Mawrid and al-Munjid series. ALAs
sporadically discuss reforms of the Arabic script and orthography and
Arabic pedagogic grammar and rhetoric in order to make the acquisi-
tion of Arabic reading and writing skills easier; however, no plans in
this regard have been successfully implemented. ALAs also consistently
criticise the deteriorating standard of fuṣḥā Arabic in media and educa-
tion, but they lack the clout to improve the de facto situation of fuṣḥā in
Arab society. Compared with the radical reform of Turkish in Turkey, the
revival of Hebrew in Israel and the modernisation of Japanese, Chinese
and Korean in East Asia, ALAs have been remarkably less successful in
reshaping Arabic according to their design.
By contrast, the symbolic side of the ALA phenomenon is strong.
This is revealed in two types of activities ALAs persevere with: intel-
lectual discussions and public engagement. ALAs organise regular semi-
nars, meetings and conferences of leading Arab linguists and scientists
to identify and tackle the problems of the Arabic language. In doing so,
ALAs construct a set of representations of Arabic in modern Arab society,
 40 | language, ideology and sociopolitical change


       



   


 
         

  

     
 
 

       

 

    

 

Figure 2.2 Language symbolism: language is symbolic in projecting and

  
alleviating 
sociopolitical            
concerns
      

often emphasising continuity of the principles of language use with the

Arabic linguistic tradition and the vitality of Arabic in changing social
circumstances. These representations are then disseminated to the public
via the linguistic rulings the ALAs issue, the public lectures, cultural
ceremonies and literary awards they host and the journals and books they
publish. These representations reflect the ideological positions of ALAs
on the relationship between Arabic and Arab society, and are used by
ALAs as proxies to sustain, improve, or transform extant sociopolitical
circumstances and to advocate their visions for the Arab future and the
place of Arabic in it.
ALAs, therefore, are more purveyors of language symbolism than
language planners and language policy-makers. Their weakness in chang-
ing actual language use shows that they can neither realise nor prove
direct causality from the linguistic to the sociopolitical. In the case of
ALAs, the causality is largely mediated through ideology-driven language
symbolism. The linguistic ideal is but an indexical projection of a remote
sociopolitical ideal that is imagined to reverse unfavourable sociopolitical
circumstances and to compensate for what cannot be changed in real-
ity. Accordingly, the so-called language problems are but second-order
projections of the disparity between the sociopolitical ideal and reality.
The above projections are ideological, because they are the product of
a specific ideological stance brokered by ALAs towards language and
society. The projections will be different if they are allied with a different
ideological stance. Some ardent supports of territorial nationalisms in
Lebanon and Egypt, for example, do not problematise Arabic diglossia as
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der Schöpfung, den donnernden Gang der Gestirne nach, wie der
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zustrebt.
Wie nun der moderne Durchschnittsmensch selber nichts mehr
produziert, sondern wie sich die Menschen zusammentun, um als ein
einziger, großer, machtvoller Körper etwas zu produzieren, und wie
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In unserer menschlichen Gemeinschaft hat man meistens die
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am schlechtesten belohnt wird! Nein, so verkommen kann ich mir
keinen Menschen denken, daß er solches zu behaupten wagt.
Da man nun aber einmal die Arbeit nach ihrem Lohne abschätzt,
so finden wir auch erklärlich, warum der Kellner allgemein mißachtet
wird. Wir haben die Lösung des Rätsels, warum der junge Arbeiter in
unseren Tagen der großen Industrie- und Arbeiterbewegungen
abseits dastehen muß, wie wenn er ein Nichthinzugehöriger wäre.
Aus diesem Grunde erkennt man ihn im Rate der großen
Arbeiterschaften nicht an. Da er sehr geringen Lohn für seine Arbeit
empfängt, so ist diese auch in den Augen des Volkes gering. Wo er
gar keinen Lohn erhält, ist seine Mühe und sein Schweiß gleich Null.
Ich sehe hier natürlich vom Trinkgelde ab, dessen Verwerflichkeit
und Illegitimität ich erwiesen habe. Weil die Arbeit des Kellners nun
so schlecht bezahlt wird, weil sie von der Gnade und der
Barmherzigkeit und der unrichtigen Wertschätzung derer abhängig
ist, denen er sie liefert, so fühlt sich auch selbst der geringste
Taglöhner mehr als der intelligenteste Kellner und läßt dem letzteren
diese seine liebevolle Meinung bei jeder Gelegenheit fühlen. Nicht
einmal der niedrigste Arbeiter hält den Kellner aus diesem Grunde
für einen vollwertigen Genossen. Er hat eine unbestimmte
Vorstellung von ihm, er hält ihn für etwas, aber nicht für
seinesgleichen, für einen Arbeiter.
Ja selbst die Gesetze der verschiedenen Länder scheinen
tatsächlich noch nicht zu wissen, was sie mit dem Kellner anfangen
sollen, wohin sie ihn stecken sollen, in welche Kategorie er gehört.
Und doch ist er da! Er ist doch etwas, er will doch auch ein Mensch
sein, zur menschlichen Gesellschaft gehören und nicht mit schelen,
zweiflerischen Blicken betrachtet werden. Das ist der größte
Schmerz, den unser Ganymed, der Kellner, hat. Das ist die größte
von allen Ungerechtigkeiten, die wir gedankenlosen Menschen ihm
antun. Traurig, gekränkt wendet er sich von uns ab, mit aller
Charakteristik eines verfemten und verhaßten Volkes hält er zu
seiner Art und sucht sich unter seinesgleichen zu trösten. Er hat
keine Freunde außer den Seinigen, er will keine. Diese
internationalen Menschen, ohne Heimat, ohne Vaterland und doch
überall zu Hause, die überall Bekannten und doch Fremden, die
Namenlosen, sie nennen sich bescheiden »Zugvögel«.
Wir haben aber gesehen, daß sie Arbeiter sind! Daß sie schwere,
intelligente Arbeiter sind, die mit den Körperkräften eines Bullen
hohes geschäftliches Wissen und die Finessen eines Diplomaten
verbinden müssen, wenn sie nicht vor Hunger sterben wollen. Wir
haben erkannt, welche wichtige Rolle der Kellner in dem großen
Verbande der Gastwirtsindustrie spielt. Warum soll er nicht
gleichberechtigt sein mit den Arbeitern, die die Maschinen
beaufsichtigen und bedienen? Bedient der Kellner keine Maschinen?
Ja, und was für gefährliche! Soll er noch länger von fern stehen und
uns fremd sein müssen!? – Ein Arbeiter sein müssen und nicht
einstimmen dürfen in das Summen der Maschinen, in das Singen der
Motoren, in das Dröhnen der Hämmer, in das brausende Hohelied
der Arbeit!! – Das ist schrecklich! Das ist die schlimmste Beleidigung,
die man einem Arbeiter ins Gesicht schleudern kann. – Ein Krieger
opfert uns alles auf, Gut, Blut und Leben. Aber wir dürfen ihm nicht
wehren, in den Gesang der Schlacht miteinzustimmen.
Das ist der Kern in der Handlung der Tragödie vom Kellnerfrack. –
––––
Zu all diesem tritt aber noch mehr hinzu, um das Dasein des
anständigen Kellners unerträglich zu machen, um seine geschäftliche
Existenz zu bedrohen und sein Ansehen in unseren Augen
herabzudrücken. Ich will Sie, meine Freunde, nur noch auf eins
aufmerksam machen, das ich soeben bemerkte. Zu diesem Zwecke
muß ich unseren Kellner mit ins Gespräch ziehen. –
Sagen Sie mal, Kellner, was ist denn das für ein entsetzlich
ungeschickter Mensch da drüben? – Ich habe ihn seit einiger Zeit
beobachtet; er scheint sich nicht ein noch aus zu kennen. – Wie?
noch nicht lange im Geschäft? Er ist doch schon verhältnismäßig alt!
– – Aha! Er war früher »etwas anderes«! Was denn? Doktor? Oder
ist er ein Adeliger? – So, man weiß nicht recht. – Der arme Teufel!
Sieht sonst ganz anständig aus! – Aus diesem Grunde hat man ihn
wahrscheinlich auch nur engagiert. Kommt es häufiger vor, daß sich
diese mysteriösen Gestalten in die Kellnerei hineinflüchten? – So! Ja,
leider, sehen Sie, Kellner, das scheint auch noch ein Krebsschaden an
Ihrem Stande zu sein. Es sieht aus, als ob er die letzte Zuflucht aller
verkrachten Existenzen sei. Nicht wahr? So eine Art Abladeplatz für
die Scherben der Gesellschaft, für die verschimmelte Jeunesse
dorée. Was sagen denn die Prinzipale dazu? Sind die denn damit
einverstanden? – Ja, aber können Sie denn als Fachmann nichts
dagegen tun? – Aha, also da steckt's! Keine Organisation! – Gewiß,
ganz richtig! Viele werden durch die Gerüchte von dem großartigen
Verdienst angelockt, nicht wahr? – Schließlich ist es ja auch ganz
natürlich, wenn sich ein heruntergekommener Jüngling der
»Gesellschaft« oder ein verkrachter Lebemann den schönen Stätten
seines früheren Genusses und Glücks wieder zuwendet. Solche Tage
sind unvergeßlich. Verbrecher kehren ja auch immer wieder an der
Ort der Tat zurück. Und dann scheinen verkrachte Edelleute,
Leutnants a. D. usw. sich durch ihre früheren Erfahrungen auf
kulinarischem Gebiete genügend Vorkenntnisse erworben zu haben,
um, gestützt auf ihre feinen Manieren und angeborene Gewandtheit,
ganz passable Kandidaten für den Kellnerstand zu werden, wenn sie
noch kein allzu hohes Alter erreicht haben und ihre Beine noch nicht
zu schlotterig geworden sind. – Sie kennen doch die Geschichte aus
New York? – Nicht? Sie ist doch der beste Beweis für diese
Behauptung. Erst kürzlich bot ein hervorragender Restaurateur in
New York einem Grafen in Paris per Kabel eine Stellung als Maître
d'Hôtel mit unglaublich hohem Gehalt an, da die empörte Frau Gräfin
– eine amerikanische Millionenerbin – ihrer Ehekomödie müde, den
Seigneur aus ihrem üppigen Nestchen am Bois de Boulogne an die
frische, rauhe Luft setzen ließ, so daß der Ärmste, plötzlich aller
Mittel entblößt, nicht nur keine Champagnerbäder mit anderen
Freundinnen mehr nehmen konnte, sondern über Nacht seinen
ganzen Kredit verlor, was bekanntlich das Schlimmste ist, das einem
Sterblichen zustoßen kann. Selbst ein Aristokrat weiß den
plebejischen Kredit zu würdigen. Kurz, die Geschichte ist
weltberühmt. Der Gedanke des Restaurateurs wurde seinerzeit als
famoser Witz applaudiert, und nicht nur er, sondern die ganze Stadt
hat die ablehnende Haltung des Edlen in Paris unendlich bedauert.
Eigentlich war es ein sehr billiger, schäbiger Witz. Aber es ist eine
gute Illustration für das, was wir soeben besprachen. Daß derartige
Fälle selbst bei Wirten vorkommen können, die von
Sensationshascherei dazu angetrieben werden, ist nicht nur
bedauerlich für den Kellner und seinen Stand, nein, es ist geradezu
entmutigend. Der betreffende Restaurateur aber hat sich aufs
Glatteis begeben. Denn wenn sein Etablissement von verrotteten,
verschuldeten, ausgemergelten, moralisch und intellektuell auf der
niedrigsten Stufe stehenden Aristokraten geleitet werden kann, so
stellt der Inhaber des Geschäftes sich damit selber ein Zeugnis aus,
das einem bürgerlichen Totenschein verzweifelt ähnlich sieht. –
Wiederum ein schrecklicher und zugleich interessanter Beweis, wie
gedankenlos die meisten Menschen vorgehen und dadurch sich
immer und immer wieder verraten und sich kompromittieren.
Was wird aber aus den anständigen Arbeitern, unter welche sich
solch zweifelhafte Elemente ungestört mischen dürfen? Kann man
gar unter diesen Umständen verhindern, daß uneingeweihte
nachteilig über den Stand urteilen? – Gewiß nicht! – Ich will Ihnen
nur ein einziges, aber ein klassisches Beispiel erzählen, wie und was
man in der »höheren« Gesellschaft unter den Einflüssen genannter
Art von dem freundlichen, hart arbeitenden jungen Mann denkt, der
uns am Tische aufwartet. Er ist der bekannte Ausspruch, den der
damalige Direktor der Königlichen Kunstakademie in Berlin, Herrn
Anton von Werner, gelegentlich einer Kritik über das Gemälde von
Max Klinger, »Christus im Olymp«, sich erlaubte. Das genannte Bild
erregte bei seinem Erscheinen vor etlichen Jahren als das Werk eines
»Modernen« großes Aufsehen. Herr von Werner, der auch ein ganz
tüchtiger Maler ist, sich aber bekanntlich zur »alten« Schule
bekennt, ließ sich zu heftigen Worten gegen den »Modernen«
hinreißen. Das Bild, welches sich jetzt in Wien befindet, stellt den
Erlöser dar, wie er in Begleitung von christlichen Büßerinnen die
Götter des heidnischen Altertums von ihren Höhen verdrängt. In den
Augen des Herrn von Werner stellte das klingersche Gemälde jedoch
Christus in Gesellschaft von pariser Kellnern und Freudenmädchen
dar. So drückte er sich wenigstens aus. Man hat ihm natürlich dies
vorübel genommen, und er mußte öffentlich bedauern, daß er sich
getäuscht hätte. Die Geschichte ist ja genugsam bekannt.
 Ich habe mich aber oft gefragt, warum der brave Herr von Werner
gerade den Kellner zur Zielscheibe seines geistarmen Spottes
machte. Haben pariser Kellner etwa mehr mit pariser
Freudenmädchen zu tun als – na! – sagen wir – pariser Maler? –
Oder berliner Kellner und berliner Mädchen und berliner Maler? –
Oder die Kellner, Mädchen und Maler irgendeiner Stadt auf der Welt?
– Man braucht wirklich nicht in Paris gewesen zu sein, um zu wissen,
was ein Quartier Latin, Monmartre oder Porte St. Martin ist, oder wie
sonst die Stadtviertel heißen mögen, wo Pseudokünstler mit
Pseudojungfrauen ein Pseudodasein, ein Dämmerleben und -treiben
führen, das nichts ist als ein tatenloses, selbstverherrlichendes,
langsames Verglimmen. In jeder Großstadt sind solche »Quartiers«
zu finden. Doch das Thema ist bis zum Überdruß verherrlicht,
behandelt, abgeleiert und abgedroschen worden; es wirkt
nachgerade uninteressant.
Der gute Herr von Werner war sehr erregt, als er die Wörter
»Kellner« und »Freudenmädchen« in einem Atem aussprach. Er muß
sehr erregt, fieberhaft erregt gewesen sein. Der Arme! Darum hätten
die Kellner sich damals nicht aufzuregen brauchen. Darum hätten sie
ihm stillschweigend verzeihen müssen und ohne seine öffentliche
Erklärung zu verlangen. – –
Sie haben einesteils recht, gnädige Frau, wenn Sie sagen, daß die
ganze Geschichte für uns Mitglieder der Gesellschaft von sehr
geringer Bedeutung sei. Aber gestatten Sie, daß ich Sie darauf
aufmerksam mache, welche Bedeutung sie für die Kunstgeschichte
hat. Uns Kunstkennern liefert sie nämlich ein Freibillett zu einer
Arena, wo ästhetische Gladiatoren sich auf Tod und Leben ans Fell
gingen. Die bösen Worte, die Herr von Werner in der Hitze des
Gefechtes ausstieß, bilden für uns den höchst interessanten, für ihn
aber verhängnisvollen Kulminationspunkt in einem erschütternden
Drama vom Kampfe des Alten gegen den Ansturm des Jungen.
Dieser Schauspiele in mannigfaltiger Gewandung erleben wir viele
gerade in unserer Zeit. Ja, jeder von uns wird eins auskämpfen
müssen. Das Drama mag verschieden sein, aber der Kern der
Handlung ist meistens der gleiche.
Der alte Maler, der seit Jahr und Tag in Berlin Militärstiefel gemalt
hatte und sich im Strahle allerhöchster mediceischer Gunst sonnte
und so der deutschen Kunst, welche ohnehin in den damaligen
Jahren ein schwächliches Blümchen war, vollständig die Sonne
wegnahm, er mußte in dem Kampfe weichen, denn er hatte sich zu
sehr entblößt. Er hat das Gift eines alten Geiferers gegen die frische
Jugend ausschleudern wollen, statt sie lächelnd und freudig zu
begrüßen, statt sich an ihrem übermütigen Streben als Philosoph zu
ergötzen und, wenn er auch selbst kein großer Maler sein kann, so
doch zu versuchen, ein großer Mann an Herz und Gemüt zu sein,
was noch etwas mehr ist als pur geniales Pinseln.
Aber Herr Anton von Werner war kein großer Mann an Herz und
Gemüt, und darum hat die Zeit ihn auch schon vor seinem leiblichen
Tode gerichtet. – Hu, mit einer ganz unheimlichen Sicherheit richtet
die Zeit! Und namentlich den Eiferer und Geiferer. Wie schmerzlich
muß es für einen Menschen sein, der sich sein Lebtag lang auf den
Höhen des Lebens wähnte, wenn er eines Tages erwacht und sieht,
daß er Ruck für Ruck hinabgezerrt wird. So arbeitet die Zeit. Ruck
für Ruck. Niemals heftig und plötzlich, sondern wie das knappe,
abgerissene Zucken des Pendels.
Es klopft die Jugend an unsere Tür und ruft: »Platz, Platz!« Dann
muß man zuschauen, wie die Zeit einem das Lebenswerk in die
Rumpelkammern unserer Kultur steckt, in die dumpfen Kellerräume,
wo an den feuchten Gewölben ein muffiger Grabgeruch wie von
verfaultem Sonnenlicht und welkem Lorbeer klebt. – –
Aber wie alles Böse, so birgt auch das gehässige Wort des Herrn
von Werners etwas Gutes in sich. Es läßt einen herrlichen Gedanken
in sich aufdämmern, an dem freilich der Urheber unschuldig ist,
nämlich d e n Gedanken, daß in Wirklichkeit einmal ein Christus
unter Kellnern und auch wieder unter Freudenmädchen segnend und
tröstend einherwandeln möge ....
 Indes, ein solches Bild könnte kein Künstler malen, der sein
Lebtag lang nur Stiefel und Sporen und Schlachtenbilder mit
mangelhafter Perspektive malt, der Bilder malt, worauf die großen
Generale an den gefährlichsten Stellen stehen, wo rings um die kühn
und unerschrocken dreinblickenden Fürstlichkeiten Schrapnells,
Pferde, Gemeine und Unteroffiziere vom Feldwebel abwärts in
Mengen krepieren und wo brechende Blicke dankbar verklärt an der
hehren Gestalt des Landesvaters auf und ab wandern. – Nein, ich
glaube nicht, daß die Kellner sich für Bilder interessieren, die
allerhöchsten Geschmack irreleiten und einer braven patriotischen
Partei der eiserne Bestand an Rührseligkeit sind. Die Kellner
interessieren sich für solche Schlachtenbilder nicht. Gegen Romantik
sind sie stumpf. Gegen Militärtrompeten sind sie taub. Auch danken
sie für Orden. Sie kriegen sowieso keine. Die Kellner steckt man ja
doch nur immer ins Offizierskasino. Für die Front sind sie der
Plattfüße wegen untauglich. – Thackeray meint an einer Stelle
einmal, daß die Menschheit die militärische Tüchtigkeit so
fürchterlich hochschätze, weil sie – die Menschheit – im Herzen feige
sei. Ich weiß nicht, wie Schlachtenmaler darüber denken. Ich weiß
nur, die Kellner wollen nicht feige sein. Sie haben Mut, ihr Leben zu
ertragen. Also keine Schlachtenbilder, bitte, und mögen sie noch so
schön und glatt und glänzend sein. – Aber wenn wirklich einmal ein
Christus unter Kellnern erscheinen sollte, so bin ich gewiß, daß sie
sich bei einem Uhde ein Bild bestellen werden. – –
Diese Geschichte ist also ein typisches Beispiel, wie man über den
Kellner denkt. Aber wie dunkel muß es in den Köpfen sein, die so
denken! Denn sie denken nicht, sie machen sich nur Vorstellungen –
nach ihnen selber. Sie sehen nicht, sie haben nur Ansichten. Darum
hat der Kellner keinen Platz unter uns: er hat nur eine Stellung.
Darum bekommt er keine Anerkennung für seine Arbeit, nur
Wohlwollen. Er hat darum keine Ziele, nur Aussichten. Keine Ideale,
nur Idole. Keinen Gott, nur Götzen. Kein Einkommen, nur ein
Auskommen. Kein Heim, nur ein Unterkommen, ein Obdach. Keine
Heimat, nur einen Geburtsort. – Solange er jung ist, läßt sich dies
leicht ertragen; aber was wird aus ihm, wenn er in Jahren vorrückt?
Als junger Mensch hat er Gelegenheit, viel Geld zu verdienen, mehr
wie manch ein anderer seiner Gesellschaftsschichte. Aber seine
Unkosten sind auch groß. Und nach dem dreißigsten bis
fünfunddreißigsten Jahre lassen seine physischen Kräfte schon nach.
Sein Aussehen hat schon nicht mehr die nötige Frische der Jugend,
welche verlangt wird. Was wird nun aus ihm, nachdem er seine
Jugend weggegeben hat? Nicht jeder kann im Geschäfte
fortkommen und höher steigen. Von einem Tausend erreichen nur
wenige einen höheren Posten. Aus hundert d i e s e r Glücklichen wird
vielleicht nur einer Geschäftsinhaber. Und es tritt noch der
merkwürdige Umstand hinzu, daß ein Kellner außerhalb seines
gelernten Geschäftes in einer anderen Beschäftigung oder Beruf
trotz oder wegen seiner Welterfahrung und Weltgewandtheit selten
oder fast nie erfolgreich ist. Vielleicht kann er sich nicht
einschränken. Er fühlt sich nicht wohl in der Enge, in welche so viele
Berufe die Menschen zwängen. Er kann kaum das zustande bringen,
was ein bescheidener, ungebildeter, beschränkter Mann vermag. Er
ist zu sehr an großartiges Leben, gutes Essen, Luxus,
Geldverschwendung, Frivolität gewöhnt; er kann nicht haushälterisch
mit seinen Mitteln umgehen, er kann schlecht rechnen.
Nach einer eingehenden Betrachtung des Werdens, Seins und
Vergehens des Kellners kommt man zögernd aber sicher zu dem
hoffnungslosen Fazit, daß sein Los eines der undankbarsten,
unangenehmsten ist, die unsere Zivilisation zu verteilen hat.
Höchstens pekuniär scheint sein Beruf den gewöhnlichen Gewerben
gegenüber einige Vorzüge aufzuweisen, aber auf die Dauer hält er
seine Versprechungen nicht und hintergeht den, der mit vielen
Freuden und Hoffnungen begonnen hat, meistens so schnöde, daß
sein Opfer jeder weiteren Hoffnung beraubt wird und sein Leben in
noch verhältnismäßig jungen Jahren schon als ein verfehltes
verflucht. –
Ein ganz Schnodderiger wird daher nur die Achsel zucken und
sagen, daß überhaupt kein anständiger, sich selber respektierender
junger Mann die Hotellaufbahn als Lebensweg erwählen wird. – Aber
der erfahrene Kellner lächelt bitter darüber. Er weiß, wie wenig
gewöhnlich die Kinder sagen und zu sagen haben, wenn sie am
Scheidewege stehen, wo alle vier Straßen in das große Leben, in die
weite Welt hinausführen. Hier sind die Eltern genau so hilflos wie
ihre Kinder. Man wählt den großen, breiten Weg am liebsten. Eltern
haben meistens nur vage Begriffe von den Berufen, die sie für ihre
Sprößlinge in engere Wahl ziehen; und wie immer sehen sie nur die
glänzende Seite derselben.
Der Kellner, der von Jugend an in seinem Berufe tätig war und ihn
allmählich mehr hassen statt lieben gelernt hat, muß oft schmerzlich
einsehen, wie schwer es ihm gemacht wird, denselben gegen eine
andere, seiner Natur und seinen Kenntnissen passendere
Beschäftigung umzutauschen. Immer und immer wieder wird er
abgewiesen werden, obgleich er noch jung sein mag. Und wer in
den zwanziger Jahren steht und ein Geschäft gründlich kennt, will
auch in einem fremden nicht gerne mehr Lehrling sein. So verbleibt
die größte Anzahl der Kellner in ihrem Berufe, oder man kehrt nach
einigen fruchtlosen Versuchen auf anderen Feldern dorthin zurück,
obgleich derselbe durch seine vielen Nachteile und Mängel verleidet
worden ist und auf die Dauer sogar unerträglich werden muß.
Das Hauptproblem unseres jungen Mannes besteht also in der
einen Frage, wie ein intelligenter, vielgereister junger Weltmensch
sich aus den verschiedenen Dilemmen und Hindernissen seines
Berufes herauszieht und das Beste aus dem Leben machen kann.
Diese schwierige Aufgabe lösen nur einzelne, allerdings dann oft in
ganz bewunderungswürdiger Weise. Und aus ihnen entstehen die
vielen erfolgreichen Hoteliers, welche durch andauernde strenge
Selbstzucht sich vom Kellnerstande emporgerafft haben und – um
den gebräuchlichen Ausdruck anzuwenden – »zu etwas gekommen«
sind.
Wie zu jedem Leben, so gehört eine gewisse, nicht zu
unterschätzende Philosophie zum Leben des Kellners, die natürlich
nicht jedem gegeben ist, die sich aber mit einigem Willen, Fleiß und
Studium mehr oder weniger aneignen und bemeistern läßt. Wenn
Sie mir aufmerksam zugehört haben, so werden Sie auch gesehen
haben, wie ich mich bemühte, die notwendige Philosophie an den
einzelnen kritischen Punkten zur Geltung kommen zu lassen. Ein
feiner Zug von Selbstironie ist auch oft in dem Leben dieser Leute zu
finden und bildet einen beträchtlichen Lehrsatz in ihrer
Lebensweisheit, deren Basis natürlich auf den großen Grundregeln
des Umgangs mit Menschen beruht. Ohne vielleicht jemals mit den
Weisheiten der großen Klassiker des Altertums bekannt geworden zu
sein, lebt der wirkliche gute Kellner doch ganz nach diesen
herrlichen Vorbildern. In seinem Leben bestätigt sich auf die
wundervollste Weise die reine, einfache Wahrheit der alten Lehren,
was um so erstaunlicher ist, je mehr die in einer ganz einfachen, von
Dampfkraft und Elektrizität ungestörten Zeit entstandene Wahrheit in
unserer komplizierten Zivilisation Anwendung findet und sich mit
ihrer süßen, mahnenden, sanft drängenden Gewalt immer und
immer wieder Recht verschafft.
Ja, meine Freunde, welche Leidensgeschichte habe ich Ihnen da
erzählt! Nichts Großes, nichts Blutiges, nichts Erhaben-Schreckliches,
aber immerhin Leiden. Und nur Leiden! – Glauben Sie jedoch, das
Leben sei so grausam, daß es einen Menschen nur peinigt und ihm
nichts, gar nichts als Entgelt für seine Leiden bietet? Niemals! – Es
ist gerecht, es tröstet die Schmerzensreichen. Es gewährt ihnen
hohe Freuden, die den unwissenden Glücklichen nicht bekannt sind.
Das Leben stärkt auch seinen Kämpfer. Es stellt keinen Schwachen
an die gefährliche Stelle, ohne ihm die Mittel in die Hand zu geben,
mit denen er sich decken kann. Es hängt ganz vom Menschen ab, ob
er sie weise benutzt oder übersieht.
Wie sich dies überall und auch hier bewahrheitet, will ich Ihnen
noch kurz beweisen. Ein altes Volkslied beginnt mit den Worten:
»Wem Gott will eine rechte Gunst erweisen, den schickt er in die
weite Welt ...« Alte Volkslieder sind oft nicht nur schön, sie sind auch
wahr, ja berauschend wie alter Wein. Und je älter sie werden, um so
würziger, wahrer werden sie. – Freilich, in unserer alles
umwälzenden und umwertenden Zeit, wo auch ein gottverlassenes
Benzinfatzkentum mit neugierigen Nüstern an alten Wahrheiten
herumschnüffelt und sie als wunderliche Kuriositäten bemäckert, da
verblaßt vieles – da werden oft die zarten Geister einstiger Freude
verscheucht, und sie schleichen sich mit herzbrechendem
Schluchzen von dannen, verkriechen sich wimmernd in das dunkle
Innere der Vergangenheit. Sie prostituieren sich nicht. Sie lassen sich
auch nicht begaffen. Sie hassen aber dennoch die Gegenwart nicht,
denn sie sind unsterblich. Und wer sie aus ihrem Versteck
hervorlocken will, der muß mit gutem Willen und reinem Herzen
kommen und darf nicht nach Benzin stinken. Dann wagen sie sich
heraus und umarmen ihren Liebling. Scherzend verbinden sie ihm
die Augen und führen ihn kichernd und wichtig tuend bei der Hand
durch weite, unendliche Irrgänge, wo die Luft mit süßer, jugendlicher
Ungeduld angefüllt ist, bis vor die zarten Schleier, mit denen ihre
Geheimnisse behangen sind. Endlich reißen sie ihm jubelnd die
Binde von den Augen, der Vorhang fällt, – das erstaunte
Menschenkind findet sich lächelnd in einer fremden, niegeschauten
blühenden Märchenflur. Wuchtige, silberweiße Wolken hängen an
dem klaren Azur, farbenreiche Gebirge mit würdigen Schneehäuptern
wälzen sich am Horizont entlang hinab bis in das ewige, purpurblaue
Meer. Und alles schenken die guten, freigiebigen Geister ihrem
Liebling, alles. Sie lachen dabei, krönen ihn mit Blumen und tanzen
Reigen um ihn.
Die Jünglinge, die als Kellner in die Welt hinausziehen, stinken
noch nicht nach Benzin. Sie kommen mit dem reinen,
unverdorbenen, durstigen Herzen der Jugend. Ihnen gilt daher noch
der ganze Wert des alten Liedes; ihnen schenkt Gott daher noch
seine ganze Gunst, legt vor ihren großen Augen seine Wunderwelten
dar. Sie sind zwar arm an Gütern, die Jünglinge, aber ihr Beruf führt
sie überall hin. Er gibt ihnen einen freien Passepartout zu allen
Wundern der Erde, den andere teuer erkaufen müssen, ja, der den
meisten unerschwinglich teuer ist. Was andere unbemittelte
Menschen in einsamen Nächten sehnsüchtig aus mangelhaften,
unvollständigen, von Menschen verfertigten Büchern und Bildern
schlürfen, das legt die Gunst Gottes dem jungen Kellner in Natur, in
Wirklichkeit, in königlicher, erhabener Größe vor seine jugendfrischen
Augen. Was ist ein Abdruck gegen das Originalbild! Was ein Bild erst
gegen den Glanz der Wirklichkeit! – Wie viele Menschen würden
unseren Ganymed als den Glücklichsten der Sterblichen beneiden,
wenn sie wüßten, welche Genüsse das große Leben ihm, seinem
Günstling, lächelnd reicht.
Fragen Sie, meine Freunde, nur unseren jungen Mann hier.
Vielleicht kann er es Ihnen sagen. Heute ist er hier, aber mit den
Zugvögeln zieht er schon wieder im Spätherbst nach dem Süden,
nach Italien, der Riviera, nach Ägypten, nach Algier. Wir finden ihn
im Winter vielleicht in Indien oder auf den Kanarischen Inseln, in
Florida oder auf Honolulu, in Athen oder Konstantinopel oder Monte
Carlo. Den Frühling begrüßt er in den Bergen, den Alpen, Karpathen,
in den Pyrenäen oder im Taunus am Rhein, im schottischen
Hochland oder im amerikanischen Felsengebirge. Im heißen
Hochsommer promeniert er vielleicht am Strand in Ostende,
Scheveningen, Boulogne, Biarritz, Atlantic City oder Santa Cruz. –
Überall ist er. Gefällt ihm heute Berlin nicht mehr, so sitzt er morgen
im Expreß nach Paris. Wenn er will, vertauscht er London mit Rom,
New York mit San Francisco, Buenos Aires mit Sydney, Yokohama mit
Calcutta. Überall findet er Arbeit, überall ist er willkommen, überall
zu Hause. Verordnet sein Arzt ihm Karlsbad, so zögert er nicht lange
und packt seinen Koffer. Ist Aachen oder Nauheim seiner Gesundheit
zuträglicher, so besinnt er sich nicht lange, sondern studiert den
Fahrplan für diese Richtung. Zur Kur wählt er Wiesbaden oder
Saratoga, Baden-Baden oder Aix-les-Bains, Virginia Hot Springs oder
Marienbad – je nach Bedarf. Entfernungen spielen keine Rolle,
Finanzen sind Nebensache, Nationalitäten gibt's keine – er ist der
Weltbürger par excellence.
Mit einem wehmütigen Stolze blickt dieser Wanderer auf sein
unstetes Leben zurück. Alle Himmelsrichtungen kennt er. Fällt ihm
ein Buch in die Hand, das Beschreibungen von fernen Ländern oder
Orten bringt, so greift er es auf und freut sich herzlich, wie wenn er
einen lieben alten Bekannten sehe.
 Wenn doch auch nur die anderen Menschen die gleiche
Gelegenheit zum Wandern hätten, oder wenn sie nicht zu faul wären
und nicht in ihren muffigen Nestern hocken blieben, so würde viel
Engherzigkeit verschwinden, die Nationen würden dichter und
inniger aneinander kommen und sich besser kennen lernen. Denn
sie wissen trotz aller unendlicher Schreiberei, trotz aller Eisenbahnen
und Dampfschiffe, trotz aller Kabel und drahtlosen Telegraphie, trotz
aller Luftschiffe noch herzlich wenig oder so viel wie gar nichts
voneinander. Wenigstens keine Wahrheiten. Und das Resultat ist,
daß sie sich gegenseitig beständig scheel belauern, anknurren und
womöglich sich die Köpfe blutig schlagen, wo sie sich nur
begegnen. –
In seinen Reisen liegt die eine einzige, aber große Freude, die das
Leben dem Kellner bietet. Hier liegt auch das Geheimnis seiner
Friedfertigkeit, seiner Geschmeidigkeit und Duldsamkeit verborgen,
welche sein Beruf erfordert. Und wie nur wenige andere
Erdbewohner hat er Gelegenheit, in die Tiefen der Menschheit zu
schauen. Er kann die edelste Beschäftigung, das interessanteste
Studium betreiben: Menschen studieren. Er sieht sie. Alle Nationen,
alle Rassen, alle Klassen kommen zu ihm. Könige, Fürsten, Edle,
Geistes- und Geldgrößen und deren Frauen kommen als Gäste; die
mittleren und armen Schichten arbeiten mit ihm als Kollegen und
Helfer. Er sieht sie alle. Er sieht sie besser, als andere sie sehen
können. Mitten in das glänzendste, summende Gewimmel, das
unaufhörliche Getriebe und Gewühl der verschiedensten Charaktere,
in das unendliche, willkürliche, unverantwortliche, rücksichtslose
Treiben einer verwirrten Zivilisation wird er gedrängt. Und er sieht
noch mehr, viel Wertvolleres: er sieht die verwundbarsten Stellen der
Menschen – ihre Schwächen.
Manch ernstes Bild, manche unerwartete Überraschung, manchen
grauenvollen Schrecken stellt das Leben vor seine Augen, indem es
ihm offen sein tiefstes Geheimnis, den Menschen zeigt. Tagtäglich
predigt es dem Kellner seine erhabenen, stumm mahnenden
Predigten auf die mannigfaltigste Weise. Es führt ihn ernst lächelnd
hinter den leeren Glanz des Reichtums, mit unerbittlicher Miene an
die abscheulichen Tiefen der Armut heran. So kann das rätselhafte
Gesicht des Lebens nur flüstern, stumm, aber es gibt keine
eindringlichere Sprache. So spricht es zum Kellner. So legt es ihm
einen immensen Reichtum an Gesehenem und Geschehenem zum
Gebrauch fürs eigene Dasein vor die Füße. Und unerbittlich verlangt
es Verwaltung und weise Verwertung dieser Schätze.
Doch wer verwertet sie wirklich? – Wer läuft nicht unachtsam,
gedankenlos daran vorüber? – Ach, sie schauen nur, aber sie sehen
nicht! Sie denken nur, aber sie wägen nicht! – Man kann zwar nicht
erwarten, daß jeder Mensch ein großer Philosoph sei, aber man darf
von jedem erwarten, daß er Schlüsse aus d e m Leben ziehe, das ihn
umgibt. Doch es braucht Gewalt, dies zu tun; und die Gewalt kann
nur durch Übung erlangt werden.
Das Leben aber verzeiht weder dem Unwissenden noch dem
Schwachen. Es versagt ihm seinen höchsten Genuß, sein schönstes
Glück; und die Stimme des Gewissens, das Bedauern, die Reue über
ein verschuldetes, verfehltes Dasein wird ihn bis zum Tode verfolgen.
Erst aus dem Kern der hehren Gewalt, aus der großen Selbstzucht
entspringt das süße, überwältigende Bewußtsein der Kraft, und die
einzige, die wahre dionysische Freude am Erdendasein loht daraus
auf, sich zum Gottesdienste erhabensten Stils entfaltend.

Ei, gnädige Frau, auf diese Frage habe ich lange gewartet! –
Woher ich mit dem Schicksal der Kellner so vertraut bin? – Hm – ich
habe so viel – ja, natürlich als Gast in den großen internationalen
Hotelpalästen – aber ich habe noch mehr getan: nämlich selber
einmal als Kellner gearbeitet. Und nicht nur gearbeitet, sondern noch
mehr: ich habe mich für das Leben dieser Menschen i n t e r e s s i e r t !
Es gibt Tausende, die hier arbeiten, ohne aber zu wissen, was sie
tun, ohne Anteil an dem eigenen oder an fremdem Leben zu
nehmen. – Aber Sie sind ja ganz sprachlos, meine Gnädige! – Hat
mein Bekenntnis Sie so entsetzt? – Wie? – Ob das Schreckliche wahr
ist? – Ei, selbstverständlich! – Woher sollten wohl sonst alle meine
fabelhaften Kenntnisse über dieses Leben stammen!? – – Nur
Studien halber? – Hm, meistenteils ja! – Ich will aufrichtig sein ...
Wie ungläubig Sie lachen, meine Freunde! – Warum? – Weil ich solch
eine verzweifelt ehrliche Natur bin? – Oh, das sind alle normale
Menschen. Und ich halte mich für einen solchen. Aber es gibt doch
sehr wenig normale Menschen auf der Welt. Und meine Ehrlichkeit
besteht hauptsächlich darin, daß ich nichts Überflüssiges sage. Es sei
denn, ich werde danach gefragt, wie in diesem Falle.
Da so vieles, das ich Ihnen erzählte, auf eigener Erfahrung und
Anschauung beruht, so kann ich Ihnen auch ohne Bedenken
verraten, wie ich Kellner wurde und gleichzeitig ein Anekdötchen zur
Illustration beigeben, wie man in meiner früheren Gesellschaft
darüber – also folglich auch über den Wirt und seine Angestellten –
denkt. Es ist eine ganz harmlose Geschichte, sie mag langweilig sein,
aber sie ist wahr.
Nichts ist amüsanter als Maskerade. Sie wird aber auch zu
hinterlistigen Zwecken benutzt. Der Wilde versucht in allerhand
Verkleidung als Strauß, als Hirsch usw. seinem Jagdopfer
beizukommen. Auch für den wirklichen, zivilisierten Jäger, den
Sportsmann, für den Naturforscher gibt es kein größeres Vergnügen,
als unter irgendeinem Schutze die Tiere des Feldes und des Waldes
zu belauschen, wenn diese sich unbeobachtet glauben und den
Menschen nicht wittern. Aber das ist gar nichts! Ich habe die perfide
Angewohnheit, den M e n s c h e n auf alle möglichen Arten
beizukommen und ihnen in die Karten zu gucken. Ich muß gestehen,
kein Mittel ist mir zu schlecht, keine Maskerade zu verächtlich, um
meinen Zweck zu erreichen. Ich kann wirklich nicht umhin und muß
bekennen, daß mir das Beobachten der Menschen trotz aller ihrer
Schlechtigkeit hundertmal mehr Genuß bereitet hat, wie meine
schönsten Jagderfahrungen in den Bergen, auf den weiten Prärien
oder in den Urwäldern. Und die Menschen, denen ich begegnet bin,
waren so offenherzig gegen mich, daß ich viele Masken lächelnd
beiseite legen konnte und ohne dieselben hinter ihre Schliche kam. –
Ja, Gnädige, das sieht beinahe wie Vertrauensbruch aus. Aber es ist
nicht so. Danke! – Ich habe auch nie durch Schlüssellöcher geguckt
oder sonstige Dienstbotenmethoden angewandt. – Wie gesagt, es
war unnötig. – Die Offenherzigkeit war nicht die schöne Tugend, das
edle Vertrauen, welches jeder dem anderen entgegenbringen sollte,
nein, es war gerade das Gegenteil davon. Es war eine unverzeihliche
Bequemlichkeit, eine Gemütsfaulheit, eine Dummheit, beleidigend,
wie nur sie sein kann; es war eine verletzende verallgemeinernde
Stupidität, die die Menschen an anderen voraussetzten, weil sie
selber damit behaftet waren. Darum soll man nie jemand mit dem
eigenen Maßstabe messen, ebensowenig, wie man eine fremde
Sprache sprechen soll, während man in der Muttersprache denkt.
Mit einer geradezu ekelhaften, widerwärtigen Frechheit und
Voraussetzung, einen ihresgleichen oder weniger vor sich zu haben,
sind die Menschen mir begegnet und haben mich demgemäß
behandelt. Solche rücksichtslose, beleidigende Behandlung verdiente
so grausam bestraft zu werden, wie ich es tat. – Worin die Strafe
bestand? – Nun, die größte ist doch, wenn man alles lächelnd über
sich ergehen läßt und mit scharfem Auge unter den Wimpern hervor
den Ahnungslosen beobachtet. Solche Blicke sind wie die Pfeile des
wilden Jägers. Sie durchdringen das tiefste Innere des Opfers und
erkennen es. – Was ich erkannt habe, besitze ich, gehört mir. Es ist
mir untertan wie der Körper des erlegten Wildes.
Ich bin überall. Ich speise in erstklassigen Hotels, ich frequentiere
die gefährlichsten Spelunken. Künstler- und Dienstmädchenbälle
besuche ich gleich gern. Hintertreppen-, Kammerdiener- und
Staatsgeheimnissen schenke ich das gleiche willige Ohr. Ich
produziere mich in den verschiedensten Berufen und Stellungen mit
größtem Geschick und größtem Vergnügen. Als Automobilist in den
Garagen und auf den Landstraßen. Als Cowboy auf weiten Prärien
unter ruppigen Desperados. Als Privatsekretär in den Familien der
Multimillionäre, als Maler in Kunstreichen, in Minen unter
Goldsuchern, als Literat auf journalistischen und literarischen
Gefilden, als Handlungsreisender, Maschinenschmierer, Zeichner,
Koch, und in noch verschiedenen anderen Stellungen habe ich
konditioniert.
Die Welt ist klein. Und wer in so vielen Kapazitäten und überall
auftritt, hat das Vergnügen, häufig alte Bekannte anzutreffen. Dann
entstehen meistens köstliche Situationen, namentlich wenn man –
wie ich – ehrlich genug ist, immer unter dem eignen Namen
aufzutreten. So kam ich auch einmal auf den kühnen Gedanken, als
Kellner Material für einen monumentalen Roman der höchsten
internationalen Hautevolée zu sammeln. Ich hatte damals einen
genußreichen Sommer im amerikanischen Felsengebirge verbracht,
mein Freund ging nach Europa zurück, ich aber blieb in New York,
um meinen Plan auszuführen. Durch Empfehlung gelang es mir, bald
eine Stellung als Kellner in einem großen Hotel zu erlangen, und ich
stürzte mich mit Wonne in das Getriebe. Ja, ich avancierte sehr bald.
In dieser Stellung sahen mich eines Tages ein paar Herrschaften
schalten und walten, mit denen ich auf einer Mittelmeerreise, von
Ägypten kommend, flüchtig bekannt geworden war und die ich
zufällig während des vergangenen Sommers in Colorado
wiedergetroffen hatte, wo sie die Ehre gehabt hatten, einige
angenehme Tage mit mir zu verbringen. – Nein, gnädige Frau, ich
habe mich nicht im geringsten geniert, denn im Eifer meiner
Tätigkeit bemerkte ich die Herrschaften nicht gleich. – Mit Staunen
und Schrecken aber erkundigte sich die liebenswürdige, junge Dame
bei ihrem Kellner nach meinem Namen. Allmächtiger! – Ihr
entsetzlicher Verdacht bestätigte sich! – Ich war wahrhaftig der
geniale, reizende Mensch, den sie unter dem Azur des Mittelmeers
kennen gelernt und in Colorado wiedergetroffen hatten! – Ganz
verwirrt und erstaunt konnten sie eine ganze Weile lang nichts
sagen. Dann zogen sie den Kellner wieder zu Rate und vertrauten
dem Milden, Vielgeplagten ihre Kalamität an. »Aber wie ist denn das
möglich, Kellner,« flüsterte die Mutter, »in Luxor hat er doch
archäologische Studien betrieben, sagte er!« – »Diesen Sommer erst
noch haben wir mit ihm in seinem Automobil gefahren und bei ihm
zu Abend gespeist!« seufzte der Sohn. »Und mit ihm Golf gespielt!«
jammerte das reizende Töchterchen. »Weißt du noch, Mama, hinter
dem Hotel auf dem prachtvollen Rasen!« – Mama wußte noch. –
»Traf er nicht auch alle Vorbereitungen zu einer Jagd auf
Grizzlybären in den kanadischen Bergen?« erinnerte sich der Sohn.
Und das Töchterchen antwortete: »Was ist denn aus seinem
reizenden Freund geworden? Ist der a u c h Kellner?« – Die arme
Mutter war am schwersten getroffen: »Ach, konnten wir denn
ahnen, daß er so was ist! – – Wir haben ihn doch als anständigen
Menschen kennen gelernt! – Und hier ...!? – Uh!«
Das war zu viel für den braven Kellner, und er antwortete ruhig:
»Madame, ich habe noch nicht gesehen, daß er sich hier
unanständig benommen hat!« Und er wandte sich ab, um mich
heimlich aufmerksam zu machen und mir die ganze Geschichte
hastig zu erzählen. – Meine Freunde aber fühlten sich plötzlich so
unbehaglich, daß sie den Saal verlassen mußten. Sie gingen, ohne
mit mir zu sprechen. – Nein, ich sprach auch nicht mit ihnen. Zum
Dank für die schönen Erinnerungen an kühle Autofahrten, an
herrliche Kunstgenüsse und an schöne, unschuldige Spiele auf
grünem Rasen versuchten sie, mich aus der Sklaverei des flatternden
Kellnerfrackes zu befreien, indem sie meine Entlassung bewirken
wollten. Was ihnen aber nicht gelang, da ich ein zu guter Kellner bin,
um ohne Grund an die Luft gesetzt zu werden ...
Wie? – Sie wollen sich schon so früh zurückziehen, gnädige Frau!?
– Wir gedachten doch noch ein wenig der Musik zu lauschen. – Hm
– Fatige – Ich springe schnell zum Apotheker im Hause – – – die
Kapseln – zwei Stück auf ein Glas Wasser – ... hm ... nicht ...« – – –
––––––––––––––
Wer ist denn das!? – Kellner, sehen Sie dort unter der Palme im
Fauteuil den jungen, eleganten Herrn? – Ja, den schwarzgekleideten,
mit dem Buche; er dreht uns den Rücken zu – ich glaube – – Was?
Ein Geistlicher! Unmöglich! – Wahrhaftig! – Aber er ist's! – Er ist's! –
Sagen Sie ihm, bitte, ich wünsche ihn einen Moment zu stören. – Er
wird sich freuen, wenn Sie ihm meinen Namen nennen. – –
 Mein geliebter amerikanischer Freund George Washington
Abraham Lincoln Shoultse! Welch eine Überraschung! Das wird aber
lustig werden! – Besonders nach diesem Schluß. ... Aber wie kommt
er hierher? – Was tut er im Rock eines Priesters? –
Well, well, altes Haus! Das ist doch einfach großartig! Freue mich
ganz barbarisch, dich wiederzusehen. – Ich staune – hätte dich
kaum wiedererkannt – – so verändert. ... Wie lange ist's her, seit wir
uns als Studenten zum letztenmal umarmten?! – Vierzehn, fünfzehn
Jahre. – Ja, wie die Zeit vergeht! – Und, ach, die herrlichen
Heidelberger Tage! Wo sind sie hin? – An dich habe ich aber immer
gedacht! Das kannst du mir glauben! – Denn du warst doch der
fidelste Kerl, der mir jemals ... hm – – Na, aber wie geht's denn? –
Was treibst du jetzt? – Ich dachte immer, du wolltest dich ganz auf
die Philologie verlegen. – Was? – der Teufel! – hm – Pardon! –
Bischof bist du – hm Pardon! – Sind Sie – –? Seit wann denn? – Ich
bin starr! – Pardon! Donnerwetter, da gratulier' ich! – – – So, so! In
Kalamazoo City im Staate Oklahoma! Wirklich! Da gratulier' ich
nochmals! – – – Wer hätte das gedacht! Bischof der konsolidierten,
reformierten episkopal-lutherisch-methodistisch-unitarisch-
baptistischen Kirche! – Ja, aber zum ... Pardon, sag mal – –
verzeihen Sie – – ist denn da – hm – so viel – hm – Geld – äh, ich
meine, Genugtuung und Inspiration drin, daß du alle deine großen
Pläne ... hm – na, jedenfalls gratulier' ich! – Ja, drüben in Amerika
avanciert man schnell! Junge, tüchtige Leute werden dort gesucht. –
Aber da müssen wir doch eins drauf trinken. – Wie? – Ein solch
unerwartetes Wiedersehen, das muß begossen werden – was? – Na,
wenn Sie jetzt auch Bischof und Right Reverend und alles das sind,
so können Sie doch ein Gläschen Wein mit mir ... wie? ... nicht ein
wenig die alten Erinnerungen auffrischen!? – Waaas? – keinen
Wein ...? – – Hör 'mal, du bist wohl verrückt geworden ... oh, oh,
Pardon! – Ich kann es gar nicht fassen – ich staune – Sie trinken
keinen Wein mehr!? – – Sie waren doch früher – hm – – – Oh, oh! –
Wie sich die Zeiten ändern! – Sie haben sich aber großartig
gemacht, Mr. Shoultse! Sie sehen vorzüglich aus! – Wie meinen Sie?
Ob ich noch immer trinke? Ja, leider, ich hab's mir noch nicht
abgewöhnen können. Es ist schrecklich! – Oh, oh – –!
Ob ich weiß, was die amerikanische Prohibition ist? – O ja, ich hab
mal was davon gehört. Wissen Sie's auch, Herr Bischof? – Was? Sie
sind einer der Hauptkämpfer für die Prohibition geworden?! Das ist
ja interessant! Und sagen Sie mal, wie bezahlt sich die Sache denn?
– So, Sie verfolgen nur den idealen Zweck der guten Sache? Das ist
löblich. – Aber ist denn das wahr, was ich in den Zeitungen gelesen
habe, daß bereits an die vierzig Millionen Menschen in den freien
Vereinigten Staaten von Amerika keine geistigen Getränke mehr zu
sich nehmen dürfen? So, so, das ist also Tatsache! Unglaublich, wie
Sie gekämpft haben müssen, Mr. Shoultse. Na, dafür können Sie sich
jetzt auch ein wenig ausruhen! Das ist recht! Vierzig Millionen
Menschen müssen Durst leiden! Das ist ja einfach fabelhaft! Ja, in
Amerika wird alles im großen Stil betrieben. – Aber was fangen denn
die armen Durstigen an? Wird denn jeder eingesperrt, wenn er ein
Glas Bier oder Wein trinkt? Vergeht er sich gegen das Gesetz, wenn
er dies tut? – Nicht? – Aber wie hängt denn das zusammen? – Das
Tr i n k e n ist gestattet und wird nicht bestraft! Man verbietet nur den
Verkauf, den Transport und das Fabrizieren von geistigen Getränken!
Das sind ja geradezu diabolische Gesetze! – – Tantalusqualen! Man
darf trinken, aber das edle Naß wird einem vorenthalten! Einfach
ungeheuerlich! –
So, Sie glauben also, mein lieber Mr. Shoultse, daß Amerika die
erste Nation ist, die versucht hat, den Alkohol auszurotten und sich
so unsterbliche Verdienste um die ganze Menschheit zu erwerben!? –
Da sind Sie im Irrtum. Bei den ältesten Völkern der Erde hat man
schon Temperanz- und Abstinenzbewegungen entdeckt. Die
Chinesen brüsten sich heute noch damit, den Krieg gegen den
»Dämon« des Weins eröffnet zu haben. Und ich glaube ganz
bestimmt daran. China sieht gerade danach aus. Im elften
Jahrhundert vor Beginn unserer Zeitrechnung soll ein Kaiser in China
alle Weinstöcke in seinem Reiche haben ausreißen lassen. Die
Priester in Persien und Indien haben schon lange vor Christi Geburt
den Genuß des Weines verboten. Die Karthager hatten auch ein
Weinverbot. – Ich selber habe die Spuren einer Temperanzbewegung
in Pompeji entdeckt und werde vielleicht ein Traktätchen darüber
schreiben. – Wie? – Verschiedene Sekten der Juden durften nichts
trinken, ohne ihr Seelenheil zu gefährden. Noch heute erwarten die
Mohammedaner und Buddhisten im Jenseits kolossale
Schwierigkeiten, wenn sie zeitlebens einen edlen Tropfen nicht
verabscheuen.
Die Prohibitionsepidemie in Amerika ist nichts als eine
Wiederholung der orientalischen Sitte. Wirkliche Epidemien tauchen
immer periodenweise auf. Das ist eine alte Geschichte. Es ist aber
geradezu phänomenal, wie die Bewegung in den letzten fünf bis
sechs Jahren um sich gegriffen hat. Vor dem amerikanischen
Bürgerkriege 1861-64 dachten nur wenige Menschen daran, daß
jedes geistige Getränk ohne Gnade und Barmherzigkeit vom
Erdboden vertilgt werden müsse. Aber es entstanden allmählich die
großen amerikanischen Brauereien und zugleich eine der häßlichsten
Ausgeburten der anglo-amerikanischen Zivilisation, die »American
Bar« oder »Saloon«, wie das Ausschanklokal für geistige Getränke
gewöhnlich genannt wird. – Die »Bar« ist ein typisches Produkt des
amerikanischen Alltaglebens. Mit der zunehmenden Rastlosigkeit in
europäischen Ländern wird sie sich dort auch sehr bald einbürgern.
Die Großstädte Europas erfreuen sich der »American Bar« bereits.
Indessen wird in Europa die Bar wie auch alles andere
Amerikanische falsch aufgefaßt und falsch dargestellt. Entweder aus
Absicht oder aus Ignoranz. Meistens ist das letztere der Fall. Die
europäische »American« Bar ist gewöhnlich nur eine Animierkneipe,
was die amerikanische Bar gewöhnlich nicht ist. Das muß man dem
Amerikaner lassen: in seiner Bar findet man keine Mädchen zur
Bedienung, was in England und am Kontinent fast ausnahmslos der
Fall ist. – Dennoch ist die amerikanische Bar ein entsetzlich
abschreckender Ort. Nüchtern, inhaltslos, kalt. Ich glaube, einer
schmutzigen, altrömischen Taberna vinaria haftete mehr
Begeisterung und Liebenswürdigkeit an, wie dem feinsten
amerikanischen »Saloon« mit allen seinen Spiegeln, Bildern, Lichtern
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