Colonial vocabularies. Teaching and learning Arabic, 1870-1970

Language teaching and learning were crucial to European colonial, national and individual enterprises in the Levant, and ‘Oriental languages’ teachers (as they were termed prior to WW2) were fundamental in these processes. European state nationalisms influenced and increasingly competed with one another by promoting their language and culture abroad, via both private and governmental actors. In parallel, learning Arabic became more prominent around the Mediterranean. The first half of the 20th century also corresponded with the emergence of new media; language was thought of as a cultural product to be exported via these new media and into new cultural spaces. There remain, however, many blind spots in the history of linguistic thought and practices, including the forgotten or neglected voices of Arabic learning and teaching. This volume aims at revisiting this aspect of linguistic encounter, its vision, profiles, priorities, trajectories and practices.