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Anthropological Linguistics

Standard and Prestige Language: A Problem in Arabic Sociolinguistics

Author(s): Muhammad H. Ibrahim
Source: Anthropological Linguistics, Vol. 28, No. 1 (Spring, 1986), pp. 115-126
Published by: The Trustees of Indiana University on behalf of Anthropological Linguistics
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 STANDARDAND PRESTIGELANGUAGE:
A PROBLEMIN ARABICSOCIOLINGUISTICS

MuhammadH. Ibrahim
University of Jordan

1. Introduction. There is an understanding in sociolinguis-

tic literature, not always explicitly stated, which equates pres-
tigious language with standard language. This equation may have
resulted from the fact that, in most languages, prestigious and
standard varieties coincide to the extent that the two terms can
not only be used interchangeably but also be compounded in one
label, thus allowing reference to a certain language variety as
the prestige standard. Sociolinguistic literature, however, is
now replete with documented evidence from a range of languages in
which standard and prestigious varieties do not always coincide.
(Cf. Fasold 1984:180-212 and Smith 1979 for a review of research
findings and other references.) As Smith (1979:113) puts it,
"prestige cannot be used interchangeably with standard in
sociolinguistics, for the linguistic varieties that are socially
advantageous (or stigmatized) for one group may not be for the
other."
As for Arabic, the prime example in the sociolinguistic
literature of diglossia (Ferguson 1959), the question of making a
distinction between prestige and standard varieties has not even
arisen yet. One reason for this may be the fact that questions of
Arabic sociolinguistics are usually stated and discussed in terms
identical with those of typically non-diglossic European
languages, such as English or French. Another reason may be
Ferguson's own characterization of the most salient features of
diglossia which include prestige and standardization. According
to his characterization (Ferguson 1959:329), H alone is the
standardized variety as well as the variety regarded by the
speakers "as superior to L in a number of respects."
The identification of H as both the standard and the
prestigious variety at one and the same time has led to problems
of interpreting data and findings from Arabic sociolinguistic
research. It has also created some terminological problems
leading, among other problems, to such terms as "the non-standard
standard" (Holes in this volume) which, for anyone who is not
sufficiently acquainted with the Arabic situation, will appear
either meaningless or paradoxical.
In this paper I shall argue for the need to maintain a clear
distinction between standard and prestige language in Arabic.
Most of the supporting data for this argument will come from
studies of sex-marked language variation.

115
116 Anthropological Linguistics, Vol. 28, No. 1

2.1. Language and sex. A common and generally accepted

tenet in the sociolinguistic literature concerns variation in
language in accordance with the speaker's sex. On the basis of
evidence adduced from a number of languages, it is generally
believed that within the same socioeconomic class women tend to
consistently use "more socially prestigious speech than men"
(Smith 1979:113). Various explanations have been proposed for
this universal sociolinguistic phenomenon which do not concern us
here. Suffice it to say that most of these explanations seem to
be related to women's position in different societies and to the
purported psychological effects resulting from that position.
In recent years, some students of Arabic sociolinguistics
have reproduced a number of English-based sociolinguistic studies
for Arabic speakers and stated their findings in similar, if not
identical, terms. These studies have one conclusion in common:
unlike women in the rest of the world, Arabic-speaking females
tend to approximate standard Arabic to a lesser degree than
Arabic-speaking males. In what follows, I shall argue that this
conclusion is problematic because it is predicated on the false
assumption that standard and prestigious Arabic are one and the
same variety.
Language and sex in Arabic: a summary of past research.
Like 2.2
data from other languages, most of the Arabic data on sex
differentiation in language are phonological. An early and major
study (Abd-el-Jawad 1981) investigated the phonetic realization
of the standard interdentals [9], [d] and [B] and the voiceless
uvular plosive [q] by male and female speakers from Ammanin
Jordan. In socially prestigious urban speech in Jordan as in
Egypt, Lebanon, Palestine, and Syria, these are the expected
phonetic realizations:
in C assical/standard
pronunciation: in urban speech:
[0 s, t
d z, d
B Z, D
q ']
On the basis of this study which also included some lexical data,
Abd-el-Jawad (1981:324) concludes that male speakers consistently
"use the standard linguistic forms more than women." In another
place, Abd-el-Jawad explicitly equates standard and prestigious
in Arabic when he states that (1983:103) "women use the standard
prestigious forms in both careful and casual styles less often
than men." Likewise, Kojak studied the realization of the same
three interdentals by men and women from Damascus and Hama in
Syria. Kojak also finds that "male informants use more pres-
tigious forms than females" (1983:4). Kojak explains prestigious
with reference to "standard forms" and "classical Arabic" (3;
both conclusion and explanation are repeated in her concluding
Standard and Prestige Language 117

remarks, 39-40.) Similar findings and conclusions for Egyptian

speakers are reported by Schmidt (in this volume) from his study
of the same four phonological variables listed above. Schmidt's
Cairene speakers "did not fit the western sociolinguistic model
[because of] the absence of any apparent greater sensitivity on
the part of women to the prestige of the classical /standard
norm." It is clear from this quote that for Schmidt this
"classical/standard norm" of Arabic is the prestige variety.
Bakir's brief paper (in this volume) uses phonological, morpholo-
gical and syntactic data to investigate variation related to sex
among Iraqi speakers of Arabic and the findings are hardly
surprising in view of this discussion: "What emerges from the
quantitative analysis of the recorded data is a consistent
pattern of sex differentiation in which males and not females, as
was hypothesized, lead in this approximation to the standard
variety." Abd-el-Jawad expresses the same view stating that
Arabic sociolinguistic patterns "contradict the patterns reported
in Western communities" since women in Amman"do not use the
standard prestigious forms as often as men" (1981:324).
To recapitulate, the investigators cited in this section may
all be characterized by the following three points:
(a) Classical Arabic (Ferguson's H variety) is the only
standard and prestigious variety.
(b) This standard prestigious variety is significantly less
used by women than by men.
(c) This pattern of sex-based language variation in Arabic
is contrary to the pattern established for other languages
according to which women use more prestigious language.
Below, I shall discuss these three points, the first point
receiving most attention because the other two hinge on it. In
light of this discussion, some of the findings cited above will
be reinterpreted.

3.1. Standard and prestig languaqe. Standard and prestige

varieties in a language need not coincide as can be attested from
studies that include English. In summarizing the pertinent
results of research on language variation and sex, Dittmar (1976:
237) concludes that the "results of virtually all investigations
show that women adapt to prevailing prestige forms more than men"
[emphasis added]. Labov's work has shown that such forms may
result from two conflicting forces, namely, a departure from the
norm or the standard, in which case women seem to initiate and
lead linguistic change, or, alternatively, from stricter adher-
ence to the standard and norm, in which case women can be de-
scribed as linguistically more conservative than men. Thus,
women's speech can be characterized as more innovative and more
conservative at one and the same time. It is understood, however,
that language in general and women's speech in particular are far
more conservative and stable than innovative and changing. It is
for this reason that more use of prestige forms in women's speech
often coincides with a characterization of their speech as more
118 Anthropological Linguistics, Vol. 28, No. 1

stable and conservative. Moreover, both conservatism and prestige

coincide more often than not with use of standard speech. It is
in this sense that we can speak of, say, standard English as the
prestige variety and vice versa. The same kind of logic, however,
does not apply to Arabic for a number of reasons which will
become clear in the course of the argument.
Standard and prestige in Arabic. For a diglossic
language 3.2. like Arabic, to maintain that H (classical Arabic) is
both the standard and prestige language par excellence is
utenable. Ferguson reports (1959:329) that the speakers of
diglossic languages "regard H as superior to L." But the
discrepancy between widespread "attitudes toward 'correct' or
'good' language" within a speech community and the actual use of
that 'correct' or 'good' language is, as Fasold puts it (1984:
190) "a well-known phenomenon." Ferguson concedes a place for
regional standards in L: "The Arabic of Cairo, for example,
serves as a standard L for Egypt, and educated individuals from
Upper Egypt must learn not only H but also, for conversational
purposes, an approximation to Cairo L" (1959:332). This situation
would not be necessary if H could serve both as the standard and
prestige variety.
The preceding point is closely related to another, namely,
the acquisition of H and L. As is well-known, one of the defining
features of diglossia is that, unlike Lk H is not acquired
natively by any individual. The acquisition (more accurately, the
learning) of H is a function of formal instruction and education.
But there are millions of individuals who never learn H because
they have not had any education. To assume that H is the only
standard and prestigious variety would entail that all speakers
of Arabic who have no functional knowledge of H are sociolinguis-
tically unstratified in regard to these characteristics of H. The
absurdity of such an assumption is too obvious to require much
comment. Speakers of Arabic in any particular region of the
Arabic vernacular world know full well which L varieties carry
more prestige. This knowledge is also shared by outsiders who are
familiar with the Arabic context. To quote Ferguson yet again
(1959:329), "A member of the speech community who uses H in a
purely conversational situation or in an informal activity like
shopping is [...] an object of ridicule." The same admission is
inherent in Holes' paradoxical term "the non-standard standard"
(in this volume), an abbreviated way of stating that a locally
recognized standard of prestige exists apart from the standard H
variety.
From the argument so far it follows that H is not the
crucial factor in sociolinguistic stratification of individuals.
Since H is inseparable from education, it would be wrong to
attribute to H the power of affecting an individual's social
class and mobility; these are the results of the individual's
education and not his or her knowledge of H. Since any Arabic-
speaking society must be as sociolinguistically stratified as any
other human society, and since H is not the crucial factor in
Standard and Prestige Language 119

this stratification, L must be credited with the power behind it.

Once this principle is accepted and established as a fact of life
in Arabic-speaking communities, the conclusion is inevitable that
the L varieties of Arabic must have their own hierarchical order
of prestige independently of H and any of the latter's features.
In this respect, there is an important difference between
standard Arabic (H) and standard English. It is possible for an
individual to acquire standard English simply by belonging to a
particular socioeconomic class or through social mobility which
latter need not be dependent on education. Social status and
mobility in any Arab society, however, are insufficient for the
acquisition of H but are required for the acquisition of a
locally prestigious L. It appears, then, that the comparison in
sociolinguistic terms should be drawn between standard English
and the prestigious L varieties of Arabic. However, common prac-
tice thus far has been to consider the H variety of Arabic as the
sociolinguistic equivalent of standard English, among investiga-
tors concerned with comparison. It is this practice which has led
to misinterpreting the data and misstating the conclusions from
otherwise properly conducted research and validly obtained
results.
In the following section, research evidence will be
presented which shows, among other things, that locally pres-
tigious varieties of Arabic L often have features which are
directly opposed to those of H. In other words, some equivalent
features of H are in fact stigmatized in L. Although most of the
evidence at this stage is phonological, a small number of lexical
and morpho-syntactic features are also available. It appears that
on the prestige scale, opposing features permeate the entire
language systems of H and L.
4. Research evidence. The most eloquent statement of the
problem on hand is probably that by Schmidt (in this volume) who
notes that for Egyptian speakers "both upper class men and upper
class women seem to be responding to a prestige norm which
distinguishes between classes but which is not in the direction
of classical Arabic." Two highly significant points stand out in
this statement; first, that there is a definite prestige norm in
Arabic which is different from H and, second, that this norm is a
class marker for both sexes.
In a number of papers dealing with communal language
variation in Bahrain, Holes (1980, 1983, 1986, and in this
volume) demonstrates beyond any doubt that even in a small
Arabic-speaking community like Bahrain, there is a locally
recognized prestigious variety which clearly deviates from the
norms of Arabic H. Thus, the prestigious speech of Sunnis
contains such phonological items as [5] for [k] and [y] for [j]
which are stigmatized in H. Yet, the Shi'is, whose speech is
socially less prestigious than Sunni speech but uses [k] and [j]
both of which are used in H, tend in certain contexts to switch
from [k] to [6] and from [j] to [y], i.e., from the standard in
120 Anthropological Linguistics, Vol. 28, No. 1

the sense of equivalence with the H norm but less prestigious, to

the less standard in the sense of difference from the H norm but
more prestigious, forms. Holes rightly sees this switch as
perfectly normal since it occurs in the direction of locally
prestigious but non-standard (i.e., non-H) variants (1983:447,
452). Elsewhere, he states the same conclusion with reference to
the [j] vs. [y] variants in more explicit and dramatic terms:
"Thus, it appears that the two forces of social prestige and
linguistic 'correctness' are pulling in opposite directions"
(1980:81).
Comparing materials from Arabic dialects spoken over a vast
area in the Levant, Yemen, Egypt, an Iraq which were collected at
different intervals since 1914, Palva (1982) traces the spread of
some very interesting phonological, morphological, and lexical
items in the dialects. As far as our present discussion is
concerned, the developments traced by Palva point unmistakably in
the same general direction, namely, that prestigious dialectal
variants have been gaining a lot of ground at the expense of H
variants. Examples include the progression of ['] as opposed to
the H [q], the loss of gender distinction in subject and object
plural pronouns, a distinction which is basic to the H morpho-
syntactic system, and a regression of the H lexical items 'ams
and gad in favor of the non-H but more prestigious L forms
mbaariH yesterday and bukra tomorrow, respectively. Time and
again, Palva warns his readers that such developments are
"totally independent of any influence of the H variety of Arabic"
and follow in "the internal patterns of L" even in those cases in
which "the development is convergent with the H variety" (1982:
22-4).
5. An inter-regional standard L. The strongest evidence for
the existence of a standard L, independently of the standard H
and its prestige, is what may for the time being be termed an
inter-regional standard L. The fact that H is fairly uniform and
intelligible across dialect lines has led to its being referred
to as a super-posed or supra-dialectal variety. The claim here is
that parallel to the well-established supra-dialectal H (SDH for
short), there exists a thriving supra-dialectal L (SDL) based on
the speech of such urban centers as Cairo, Damascus, and Jerusa-
lem. It must be stated at the outset, however, that this SDL is
not nearly as well-established or as universally widespread as
the SDH. But the available evidence suggests that it has been
gaining force and importance. It is not even unreasonable at this
stage to speculate that SDL and SDH will eventually merge into
one language, thus bringing an end to the state of Arabic
diglossia as we now know it. Evidence for this anticipated
development is given in Ibrahim (forthcoming; cf. also Ferguson
1959:340).
Mitchell (1986:15) has noticed that, in countries like Syria
and Egypt, "speakers from the capital cities [...] set standards
in their own countries" and have clear ideas as to what is pres-
Standard and Prestige Language 121

tigious and what is stigmatized. In fact, speakers in capital

cities and other major urban centers do not set standards in
their countries only, but outside them as well. What is presti-
gious or stigmatized is no longer confined to such speakers in
their own communities, but is common knowledge and stock also of
speakers of Arabic who live outside the capital cities in their
respective countries as well as of speakers who live outside the
country. Jordan provides an excellent illustration of the spread
of SDL. Until recently, Jordanians have been speakers of rural
and Bedouin dialects. With the continuous influx of large numbers
of urban Palestinians since 1948, there can be little doubt that
the most highly valued speech variety in Jordan today is that
characteristic of the urban Palestinian. In the last few decades,
this variety has not only become the dominant prestigious variety
in the capital Amman, but has also been firmly established in
smaller towns like Zerqa, Irbid, and Salt. It is also a variety
which continues to spread rapidly to new towns and segments of
population within Jordan. Urban Palestinian speech is but one
component variety of SDL which also comprises urban speech in
Egypt, Syria, and Lebanon. In this respect, SDL can be compared
to, say, general standard English with such major varieties as
standard British, American, and Australian English.
The belief in the existence of SDL is founded on three
facts:
(a) There are shared prestige features. Although not
identical in this respect, all varieties and sub-varieties of SDL
share a large number of features judged as prestigious and others
considered as stigmatized. Thus, interdentals and [q] are stigma-
tized in the phonological domain, in spite of their belonging to
SDH phonology. A large number of lexical forms (cf. the above
'ams vs. mbaariH, gad vs. bukra) is also shared. A good example
of morphological form shared by all varieties of SDL is the
neutralization of the gender distinction in the second and third
person plural pronouns resulting in the use of intu you pl. and
hum they for both intu you masc. P1L. and hum th masc. on the
one hand, intin y.u fem. pl. and hun they fem. on the other.
(b) There is mutual intelligibility. Like SDH, varieties of
SDL are mutually intelligible. It is also probably true that SDL
is understood by a majority of Arabic speakers in countries where
no SDL varieties are spoken. It is this feature of SDL which
qualifies it more than anything else for being labelled supra-
dialectal.
(c) It is spreading. There is ample evidence already that
SDL has been steadily spreading to new areas. Palva's study
(1982) provides an excellent diachronic overview of this fact.
Abd-el-Jawad (1986) is a synchronic snapshot of the intergene-
rational distribution of SDL features, the younger generation
showing a much wider use of SDL features than their parents. That
such widespread change should be achieved within the space of one
generation is remarkable. But perhaps more revealing in this
respect is the spread of SDL passively. The fact that SDL seems
122 Anthropological Linguistics, Vol. 28, No. 1

to be the most understood L variety is one aspect of this passive

spread. Another such aspect is the fact that it is valued highly
and considered prestigious in countries where it is not spoken.
This fact reveals itself in encounters between SDL speakers, and
non-SDL speakers. In encounters between Egyptian or Syrian SDL
speakers and, say, speakers of Sudanese or Saudi L varieties, the
latter would accommodate more often to the speech of the former
than the other way around. Passive spread is perhaps a necessary
or at least useful preliminary step to the active spread of a
language or one of its varieties. The only documented evidence to
date in support of passive spread is Wagi'allah's documentation
of some urban Egyptian features in the speech of educated
Sudanese speakers (1982:256-8). As a final note on the subject of
SDL spread, mention should be made of three powerful factors at
work in contemporary Arab society which facilitate this spread.
These are (1) the rapid urbanization of much of Arab society, (2)
the continuous expansion of the Arab middle class, and (3) the
migration of labor from countries where SDL is spoken to others
where it is not. Unfortunately, none of these factors has been
studied in relation to language.
Language and sex in Arabic reconsidered. A typical
6_.
statement of sex-related differences in Arabic is the following:
men approached more the prestigious classical variety of
Arabic [i.e., SDH] both in Hama, where women are highly
segregated and excluded from public life, and in Damascus in
the case of women who lead an open social life. The inter-
pretations for sex-related differences, which seemed ironic,
were reinforced by findings of this project; women in Hama
used more prestigious [SDH] forms than women in Damascus who
seem to enjoy a 'better' social position. (Kojak 1983:39)
If "prestigious [SDH] forms" were replaced by prestigious SDL in
the above quotation, everything would fall in place and the
contradictions and irony felt by Kojak would disappear. The tenet
of the argument in this paper has been to demonstrate that the
classical SDH forms do not enjoy the prestige in the speech
domain which Kojak and other investigators would like to at-
tribute to them. What is happening here and in other similar
cases is that, as Schmidt puts it (in this volume), "Arab women
seem to be deliberately choosing to downplay standard" SDH vari-
ants in favor of standard SDL variants because the latter, and
not the former, enjoy most prestige. Once this interpretation is
accepted, we can automatically explain the "irony" in Kojak's
statement above concerning the speech of women in Hama, a much
smaller town than Damascus, in which women lead "a highly segre-
gated and excluded" life. What is more natural for women in such
a town than to use more SDH variants than the more prestigious
SDL forms with a much higher incidence for the Damascus women?
This interpretation is, in fact, supported by Kojak's data which
Standard and Prestige Language 123

shows that men in Hama use more interdentals, which represent the
less prestigious SDH variants, than men in Damascus (Kojak
figures 3 and 4 in pages 36-7). Kojak, however, chooses to remain
silent on this matter because, apparently, it contradicts what
seems to have been a pre-conceived theory on her part, namely,
that "in a male-dominated society in which the position of women
is unequivocally inferior," women "tend to use less prestigious
forms than men because they [i.e., women] are relatively excluded
from public life and because the society of the two sexes is
segregated" (39). Without going into the details of the falla-
cious thinking underlying this statement of the problem, I would
like only to point to the long-standing sociolinguistic principle
that speech is merely a reflection of underlying social realities
and not a consequence of them. It is wrong, therefore, to con-
clude that because women in a particular society might be in a
social position which is inferior to that of men, they would
necessarily use an inferior language variety. If this were the
case, then women in most societies, including the Western ones,
would be using inferior language varieties. Such a conclusion
would also render nonsensical all of the reports and research
findings about women using more prestigious language than men. If
in most (or is it all?) societies investigated thus far, it has
been found that "women, despite their more standard speech, do
not enjoy a prestigious position in society compared to men"
(Smith 1979:113), then why should the opposite be expected or
hypothesized to be the case in an Arabic-speaking community? In
fact, this universal sociolinguistic paradox of women using more
prestige language than men while, at the same time, enjoying less
social prestige, has been repeatedly explained with reference to
women's universally inferior social position. It has been
suggested that it is precisely because women have such an
inferior social position and are, therefore, less secure socially
and psychologically than men, that they are expected to "behave
themselves" linguistically and otherwise. For the men, on the
other hand, who because of their dominant position in society are
much more secure vis-a-vis women, there is much less need on
their part for good social behavior, of which language behavior
is but one component. While one may wish to take issue with some
of these interpretations, all of this reasoning, however, has
been ignored by Kojak.
Reference should be made to some supportive evidence. Bakir
queries his informants as to the suitability of SDH variants by
sex of speaker. Findings concerning who tends to use SDH forms
may be summarized as follows (Bakir in this volume):
Female respondents: Male respondents:
Only/mostly men 70% 50%
Both men and women 10% 25%
Only/mostly women 20% 25%
124 Anthropological Linguistics, Vol. 28, No. 1

It is clear from these figures that the majority of both sexes

perceive SDH as belonging to a man's domain. On the other hand,
only a small minority of men and women see this language variety
as belonging to the world of women. The explanation for this
situation, provided by the same respondents, namely, "to give the
impression of belonging to a high social class," is hardly
satisfactory. A plausible explanation is, indeed, one of the
intriguing questions relating to this matter which is worthy of
serious and profound investigation. A partial explanation at
present may be sought in Abd-el-Jawad's observation (1986:57)
that the "existence of MSA [Modern Standard Arabic, equivalent to
our SDH] represents a refuge for people who want to hide or
suppress localism," and, we might add, who at the same time do
not want to adopt the speech of another class with which they do
not wish to be associated for fear of being accused of snobbism
or of deserting their own folk. If one is to provide a truly
satisfactory explanation of this matter, the issue of speaker
ideology must be probed to provide a convincing answer to the
question of why any individual would or would not want to be
associated with a particular social class. The answer to such a
question would no doubt be the key to that particular indivi-
dual's linguistic behavior since "Language choice at a particular
moment is [...] evidence of a person's desire to be associated
with the values of one speech community or another" (Fasold
1984:208). But assuming that this issue is resolved satis-
factorily for male speakers of Arabic, the question remains as to
why men and women of comparable socioeconomic status must vary
with respect to their use of SDH and SDL. It is especially
intriguing to find speakers for whom neither SDH nor SDL is a
native or vernacular variety attaching different levels of
prestige to each variety and patterning their linguistic behavior
accordingly. A central argument in this paper has been to show
that women use more SDL because this is the socially prestigious
variety, at least when it comes to speaking. This must be so
since "concern for social status, not concern for communication,
is what maintains the prestige dialect" (Kroch 1978:32).
7_, Conclusion. Investigators of language variation
according to speaker's sex in Arabic have misinterpreted their
data because they wrongly assumed the standard H variety of
Arabic to be the only highly valued variety of Arabic. Evidence
from various sources and different Arab countries shows that
spoken Arabic (L) has its own local prestigious varieties which
always comprise certain features that are not only different from
but are often stigmatized by H norms. All available data indicate
that Arab women in speaking Arabic employ the locally prestigious
features of L more than men. This is in perfect conformity with
patterns of language use in other language communities investi-
gated for sex differentiation and not contrary to such patterns
as reported by studies referred to in the preceding sections.
Standard Arabic H is socially neutral and unmarked with respect
Standard and Prestige Language 125

to the speaker's class. It is not regionally marked or defined

since, by definition, it is supra-regional and, consequently,
supra-dialectal (hence the abbreviation SDH in this paper). There
is no question that SDH has a certain degree of prestige and its
religious, ideological, and educational values are undeniable,
but its social evaluative connotations are much weaker than those
of locally prestigious varieties of L. It is these varieties of
L, not H, which carry most of the important social connotations
that matter to most individuals in life such as socioeconomic
class, urban vs. rural origin or affiliation, and social mobility
and aspirations. On the basis of our knowledge of female speech
patterns in other languages, it is only natural that more Arab
women than men would opt for the use of prestigious L varieties.
It is thus hoped that the paper has demonstrated with
sufficient force the dangers and fallacies inherent in equating
standard and prestige language in general and for Arabic in
particular. While arguing for this main theme, the paper
presented as a by-product evidence for the existence of a
standard supra-dialectal L variety (SDL) which is currently the
prestige spoken variety in five countries and which seems to be
spreading in active use and passive evaluative acceptance and
comprehension within and without these countries. The exact
features of this SDL, its spread to new regions in the Arab
countries and beyond, and interaction with SDH are only some of
the exciting areas which await investigation by scholars.

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