In this blog post, I will be looking at the following quote from bell hooks’ quotations:
“It is not the English language that hurts me, but what the oppressors do with it, how they shape it to become a territory that limits and defines, how they make it a weapon that can shame, humiliate, colonize.”
The text I have chosen to analyse here is about the situation of languages in Tunisia. Tunisia is a country that is naturally bilingual since the French colonisation and has extended far after 1956 where the norm is to speak a mix of Tunisian dialect (or some like to call it strange Arabic) as well as French. The article points out the notable decrease of French being spoken on day to day basis in everyday life. French has always been a language symbolising Tunisia’s elite as well as it’s slight dependence on France politically, economically and culturally, but after the Tunisian Revolution France is perceived as having supported the ancient leader Zein al-Abidine Ben Ali as he had a close bond with former French president Sarkozi .
The language has become a significant part of the culture although still remains not as important as Arabic. It is with it’s importance that it has caused an inequality between social classes as those who speak better French were deemed to be seen as more educated. For a long time the dependence to the language has caused Tunisia to be at a disadvantage for trade, technology and international relations as well as being understood by other Arabs due to the mixing of French and Arabic in sentences.
It is with the revolution and the change of the Tunisian population’s outlook on all aspects of their lives, the chains of the dependency of Tunisia on the French language have broken, turning the general population to start practising and learning English at school as well as speaking a version of dialect that has less French within it. English as a language is seen to be politically and culturally neutral (especially considering the past Tunisia has with France) and is useful for Tunisia’s implication in globalisation, especially that is it nowadays more open to English as a language and using it more in day to day life.
This text is a great example of the quote as it display’s an example of the dependency of a nation on it’s oppressors language. Tunisia has for a long time concentrated on the French language and that has limited the country and defined certain aspects of it. The only question that remains is if in future generations a dependency on the English language, but until then, only time will tell.
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