Fuṣḥā coexists with dialects in all Arab countries. Has this relationship evolved? What influence do dialects have on the learning of fuṣḥā?

Yes, I think there is an influence, because they have always coexisted.

I have an idea that diverges a bit from the general consensus on this subject. In my opinion, the Nahda of the 19th century, often described as a largely positive phenomenon, is actually the starting point of many linguistic problems we face today. Despite many positive influences, this movement functioned through exclusion. I think what we call Modern Standard Arabic is the result of the Nahda and its desire to create a new norm, a new fuṣḥā, just like in the 7th century with the rise of Islam and the writing of the Qur’an.

My interpretation is that in the 19th century, by creating a new fuṣḥā, many varieties were excluded and eliminated, even though they were no less Arabic than others. With the Nahda, we also witnessed a kind of “victory” of the Eastern Arab world over the Maghreb, with the elimination of Maghrebi words not used in the East, even though these existed in classical dictionaries.

In my view—and this is not necessarily shared by everyone—the Nahda thus downgraded many varieties that had always coexisted and created a new fuṣḥā considered difficult by many native speakers. This fuṣḥā becomes almost like an impossible love; everything is done to make it hard to reach. Perhaps there is a similar phenomenon in other languages with an unattainable “literary language” but the scale of this duality in Arabic is unique. This Modern Arabic of the Nahda is therefore adopted at independence, taught at school, spread by the media, but is still today far from being mastered by Arabic speakers.

Do dialects represent a threat to fuṣḥā or, on the contrary, a richness?

Personally, I don’t think dialects are a threat at all, although many people would say the opposite. To me, they are not a threat, because they have always existed without making fuṣḥā disappear.

As a linguist, I reject the idea of language purity. This is something we often find in collective imagination, but it exists nowhere in serious linguistic works. Languages exist to evolve and mix.

However, Arabic is peculiar in that it has not really been reformed in 15 centuries. Societies evolve, people evolve, but perhaps we lack the courage to reform the language. For some, it is sacred—something I absolutely do not agree with; I do not see it as a sacred language. We keep far too much distance from it. I think there are around fifteen Arabic language academies, but they do not propose real reforms. They suggest marginal adjustments that are not followed by speakers anyway.

Has the good knowledge of fuṣḥā thus served as a socio-economic marker?

Has fuṣḥā really ever been a socio-economic marker? I think so, but we should not forget that for two centuries colonization relegated the Arabic language. The Arabic textbooks published in France and Algeria, especially in the 19th century, were only intended for French colonizers who wanted to speak with their servants. This implies that the others, the educated people, necessarily spoke French.

So I think that since colonization, there has been an effort to instill the idea that a monolingual Arabic speaker can only be a servant, destined to remain at the bottom of the social ladder. This devaluation of Arabic, even by its own children, is reinforced by colonization.

Again, if I take the case of Egypt, during British occupation many locals worked with the occupiers. We can call them traitors or collaborators, but they represented an important social category, and they spoke English. Naturally, they were well paid, hence the socio-economic dimension. Egyptians working with the British army before independence belonged to a privileged social class and were obliged to speak English. So I think this phenomenon has older roots, but it took its current shape with independence.

Once again, I believe this phenomenon goes back to the Nahda, which coincided with colonization. Western historiography often claims that the French expedition to Egypt sparked the Nahda, also known as the Arab Renaissance. This is somewhat doubtful and objectively false, as there were already scientific and literary movements under the Mamluks and Ottomans. But the argument of colonization was to claim that these societies were backward and that it was the white man’s duty to civilize them—the infamous “white man’s burden.”

To what extent can the schooling of privileged children in foreign institutions (American, French, …) contribute to widening the gap between upper classes and the rest of the population, and to the erosion of a (pan-)Arab identity?

It certainly does. Behind the linguistic aspect, there is the socio-economic aspect, education, and so on. In Egypt, it even becomes geographical. In historical Cairo, rich and poor neighborhoods are separated by a street; you can cross from one to the other in five minutes on foot. Today, with the new capital and the desert cities being built, social segregation is intensifying. Language obviously contributes to this distinction and division, in a way, between Masr (Egypt’s arabic name) and Egypt. And I imagine it is the same in many Arab countries.

So yes, I think this is an important factor and today it can symbolize social mobility. Mobility now happens through the education system and learning of a foreign language. What is very fashionable now in Egypt is German. This is interesting, as there is no historical link between Egypt and Germany, and German is far from being the most widely spoken language in the world. Does mastering German truly provide more professional opportunities? I’m not sure. But socially, it matters. Language has become a symbol of social status.