Investigating Language Diversity and Language Evolution in Algeria: The case of Biskra region

Abstract

The most important cases of language contact in Africa are those which came about as the result of European colonization. Long before the European colonial expansion, the North of the continent witnessed Roman, Ottoman, and Arab movements of settlement and immigration which led to varying linguistic compromise for the purposes of trade, barter and exchange. All of these occasions contributed to the creation of new communities in which the colonial languages came closer to the indigenous languages of the colonized. In extreme cases such as the Big Maghreb, contact led to the emergence of Creoles and indigenized languages. The best example of these is Algerian Arabic (AA) which is a blend of Berber, Roman, Arabic, Turkish and European vocabulary with unchanging grammatical rules of Classical Arabic. Our enquiry in this study is to uncover the reality of what we practically speak in Algeria as language (s), especially in the region of Biskra, and the position of the latter among the other languages in the country. We then intend to justify the community's linguistic needs and aspirations in terms of history, religion, politics, and the present rush to globalization. The results revealed that Algerian Arabic is the major means of communication and unity in Algeria though there are many language backgrounds. They also revealed that Arabic and Tamazight could preserve their status despite the influence of several other languages such as Roman, Spanish, Ottoman and French. The participants justified their choice of English by their legitimate need for more opportunities and openness to the world.