Intergenerational language transmission among Arabic-Turkish speaking families in Antioch (Turkey) and in Paris area, (France): The influence of language policies of Turkey and France on family language practices and ideologies
Résumé
Rupture of language transmission within the family - leading to the abandonment of
languages by entire communities, a phenomenon known as language shift (Thomason &
Kaufman, 1988) - usually happens in a situation of strong pressure from majority languages
on minority or minoritized languages, and this whether in an infra-national situation and/or in
migration like our study. Arabic and Turkish are worldwide not minority languages but
bilingual Antiochian Arabic-Turkish families feel minoritized due to their mother tongue
Arabic in Turkey and due to their two heritage languages in France.
The education and language policy in the multi-ethnic and multilingual Turkey (Yacoub 1998) has
been changing language practices and ideologies of the non-Turkish speaking citizens in the
country since the creation of the Republic (1923) with a series of reforms. The Turkish state then
purified the Ottoman language which was heavily influenced by Arabic and Persian for a socalled modern Turkish language for an equal society. Arabic was then considered as a language
linked to an archaic decadent past. This remained in the common ideologies and led the language
and its speakers to minoritization, giving Turkish language the legitimacy required to be
considered as essential to the country’s as well as individuals’ success. An example of this
language purification is the term used for “President of the republic ” which initially was in
Arabic “Reis-i Cumhur” [reisi ʤumhuːr, the head of the people], was then transformed into
“Cumhurbaşkanı “, still keeping an Arabic word “cumhur” and replacing “reis” with “başkan”
The policy towards minorities has always been the assimilation which goes through schooling in
Turkish and has a direct impact on Arabic speaking people in Antioch (South Turkey) where a
language shift towards Turkish is observed (Smith 2003). According to participants in my
sociolinguistic study, some persons suffered from the consequences of the intolerance
regarding the use of another language but Turkish in public spaces, especially at school, after
the 1980 military coup, and avoid today speaking their mother tongue in order to remain
anonymous, not be assigned to an identity. Each generation has a different attitude towards
Turkish and Arabic: The older women avoid speaking Turkish because they are not at ease
with it; their children can speak both Turkish and Arabic which they find improper in
comparison with other varieties like the Syrian or the literary one; and the youngest children
can speak better Turkish than Arabic and feel happy and proud when they manage to speak
their heritage language.
If Arabic was discredited in the country, today with the tendency of the present Islamic
government and globalisation, classical Arabic is gaining esteem. But some families declare
that they prefer to practice, transmit and especially teach their Arabic language in a secular
way, as they are from other branches than the mainstream dominant one, not Muslim at all or
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atheistic, for whom religion is a private matter, which shows that promoting religion does not
help these bilingual Antiochian families to practice and transmit their Arabic language. So, we
have a situation showing that religion and Arabic language are not to be considered as
equivalent.
And if we consider that minority languages are today tolerated, including at school as an optional
subject, there is no curriculum.
In France, the Arabic-Turkish speaking Antiochian families in a migrational context live in a
country where there is no real place for migrant languages and where some of them feel
minoritized as well, both for Arabic and for Turkish, and where they are confronted to the same
problem as above regarding the teaching of Arabic language in some places (cultural or societies),
and the very little Turkish courses’ offer being in places too far from their residences.
I will discuss how state policies influence language ideology, transmission and practices both in
Antioch (Turkey) and in Paris area (France), see the differences and similarities in both countries.