NILOOFAR HAERI, Sacred language, ordinary people: Dilemmas of culture and politics in Egypt

Abstract

Niloofar Haeri , Sacred language, ordinary people: Dilemmas of culture and politics in Egypt . New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003. xvi, 184. Hb $59.95. Sacred language, ordinary people is an excellent linguistic ethnography of Arabic diglossia in “an attempt at understanding the cultural and political implications of the divide between Classical Arabic and Egyptian Arabic” (p. xi). The passionate debate about Classical Arabic (the language of the Qur'an) as a facilitator of or a barrier to modernization and change is handled intelligently, though provocatively.