Abstract
The town of Bethlehem provides a unique case for testing the relations between language, migration, and urbanization. This article explores one aspect of the complex Bethlehemite case. We intend to reveal how urbanization and migration are reflected in the sociolinguistic changes of the Arabic spoken in the town. Whereas most residents formerly used a variety of Arabic similar to that spoken in Palestinian villages, emerging social identity issues seem to have produced new distinctions. Younger women and some Christian men are tending to adopt an urban pronunciation like that of nearby East Jerusalem, at the same time as the speech of younger educated Muslims is showing the growing influence of the standard variety of Arabic. By relating the use of linguistic variants to changes in identity, this study shows that Bethlehem is a town in transition, being transformed from its previous status as a Christian Arab town into an important Palestinian and dominantly Muslim city.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 883-901 |
| Number of pages | 19 |
| Journal | Linguistics |
| Volume | 43 |
| Issue number | 5 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - 2005 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:1. This article is based originally on a project funded by the Netherlands Israel Research and Development Program (NIRP) that I conducted together with Professor Bernard Spolsky (Bar-Ilan University), Professor Hanna Tushyeh (Bethlehem University), and Professor Kees de Bot (the University of Nijmegen). Special thanks are due to Profes-sor Bernard Spolsky for his valuable comments on an earlier draft of this paper. I would also like to seize this opportunity to thank the reviewers for their invaluable comments. Correspondence address: Departments of Political Studies and English, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat-Gan, 52900, Israel. E-mail: [email protected].
Funding
1. This article is based originally on a project funded by the Netherlands Israel Research and Development Program (NIRP) that I conducted together with Professor Bernard Spolsky (Bar-Ilan University), Professor Hanna Tushyeh (Bethlehem University), and Professor Kees de Bot (the University of Nijmegen). Special thanks are due to Profes-sor Bernard Spolsky for his valuable comments on an earlier draft of this paper. I would also like to seize this opportunity to thank the reviewers for their invaluable comments. Correspondence address: Departments of Political Studies and English, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat-Gan, 52900, Israel. E-mail: [email protected].
| Funders | Funder number |
|---|---|
| NIRP | |
| Netherlands Israel Research and Development Program | |
| University of Nijmegen | |
| Bar-Ilan University |
