2026/07/24 by Jonathan Glasser
Arts and Humanities · Social Sciences · #Diglossia #Field (mathematics) #Ideology #Interpretation (philosophy) #Jewish and Middle Eastern Studies #Judaism #Medieval and Classical Philosophy #Reading (process) #Sephardic Jews and Inquisition Studies
paper · doi:10.1086/742736
published in Current Anthropology, 000 (University of Chicago Press)
openalex publication_date 2026/07/24 · openalex created_date 2026/07/25 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/26
For its critics, the notion that Jewish usages of Arabic are sufficiently distinct to merit a separate name (Judeo-Arabic) smacks of ideologically motivated linguistic differentiation. But if we accept that language ideology is ubiquitous in human experience, the grounds for questioning or affirming a linguistic boundary become shaky. This article seeks to make room for context-sensitive notions of Judeo-Arabic while remaining attuned to the conditions that can make such notions fraught and elusive. Unlike critics who prioritize modern histories of nationalism and colonialism, I draw attention to the importance of the diglossia characteristic of both the longue-durée Arabic field and the traditional Jewish language practices for making sense of the Judeo-Arabic debates. Through a critical reading of the scholarly literature as well as consideration of turn-of-the-century talk about language in Algeria under French rule, I propose an interpretation that takes seriously the implications of the language ideology framework while situating it within a broader vision of ecological conditions and evolutionary process.