Language is a maker of identity and one of the tools of its dissolution. Changing the tongue is an entry point to changing the emotions and reshaping the map of enemies and friends. As the thinker Aziz Begojevich said: “Language is the hand of the brain.” This cohesion was understood by colonialism from its inception in the Arab land, leading to hostility towards both the Arabic language and Islam together. The means to weaken the spirit of resistance and to re-engineer Arab and Muslim societies in accordance with colonial interests involved displacing the language and excluding Islam. 

The colonial vision

The colonial vision relied on historical experiences from extinct languages. When these languages were isolated from people's lives and transformed into ritualistic museum languages, the connection between the language and people's interests was severed. The language was left to wither away in the halls of temples, given ample time to die, and as a result, the language dies, causing identity to lose its essential foundations. 

Decolonizing the Mind

Kenyan novelist Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o, a nominee for the Nobel Prize in Literature, asserts in his book "Decolonizing the Mind" that colonialism resorted to two interconnected steps to confront language in the countries it colonized: the first was the overthrow of local culture, religion, history, education, and literature; the second was the elevation of the colonizer's language. 

A stark example of the suppression of Arabic

This was the policy adopted by colonialism in the Arab region from the 19th century to the first half of the 20th century. The repression of the Arabic language was violent and relentless, but the French colonial experience in Morocco represented a stark example of the suppression of Arabic. 

Methodology of Confrontation with Arabic

Colonialism realized that the flourishing of the Arabic language meant the revival of Islam with its strength and revolutionary nature, the awakening of identity, the spirit of resistance, and the sense of dignity and awareness. Consequently, colonialism resorted to policies and tools to confront the Arabic language, preventing it from being a language of life and from shaping an anti-colonial identity, working to gradually transform Arabic into a ritualistic museum language, of little benefit to those who mastered and spoke it. 

- Persecution of Arabic Teachers:

Colonialism sought to ban the Arabic language and force it to withdraw. With the French colonization of Algeria, and due to the repression, large numbers of Arabic teachers left Algeria, while others were exiled, which contributed to weakening Arabic. For example, in 1883, over 4,000 Algerians, most of them educated elites, were found in Damascus alone. 

Weakening Arabic Language

With the establishment of a school to graduate teachers in Algeria, students received only three hours during their studies to learn the Arabic language, which meant a weakening of language formation in Arabic for these teachers, and consequently this weakness was passed on to the students. In 1945, every Arabic language teacher was required to master French if they wanted to be employed, which excluded many Arabic teachers from their jobs. 

- Exclusion from Education:

 The occupation sought to erase the Arabic tongue and marginalize Islam, targeting the new generations. There was a trend to inhibit the Arabic language from childhood through education in French, with Algeria as a glaring example. Colonialism enacted a series of laws to exclude Arabic and force Algerians to use French. According to a law issued in 1838, French replaced Arabic and Arabic was considered a foreign language. This was accompanied by the fighting against and closing of cultural centers and institutes that taught Arabic. Duke Duma, the General Governor of Algeria during the 1880s, stated: “Opening a school among the populace is no less important than a legion of military troops in subduing the country.”

French schools

The expansion of French schools took place, and in 1850, six primary schools were opened, referred to as "Arabic-French schools." When the colonizers found that there was a demand for Quranic schools because they taught Arabic, a decree was issued in 1890 to convert the Quranic schools into Arabic-French schools. Furthermore, a decree was issued in 1904 prohibiting any teacher from opening a Quranic school without a license from the authorities, after complying with a number of onerous conditions. Then, on March 8, 1938, the law known as the "Chauton Law" was enacted, which prohibited the use and teaching of the Arabic language, considering it a foreign language.

Marginalizing Arabic in Tunisia

In Tunisia, following its submission to French protection in 1881, a Directorate of Public Education was established, headed by the Frenchman Louis Machuel, who remained in office until 1908. He sought to avoid repeating the French colonial errors regarding Arabic in Algeria and recognized the importance of marginalizing Arabic in the educational field without provoking the anger of locals. Hence, the focus was on teaching French to the affluent class, who would be granted job opportunities and access to administrative positions. However, the most important aspect of Machuel's project was his effort not to evoke religious sensitivities; he separated mission work from the teaching of French, while maintaining education in Arabic, albeit under a dual educational system. Statistics indicate an expansion of schools, reaching 350 schools by 1919, accommodating over 51,000 students, many of whom were influenced by French culture and language.

Erasing Arabic and local languages in favor of French

As for Morocco, since the imposition of protectorate status, Marshal Lyautey, in June 1921, issued a directive to his representatives in Moroccan territories, instructing them to work on erasing Arabic and local languages in favor of French. Within 20 years, colonial rule succeeded in making French the primary language in administrations. Lyautey called for the necessity of promoting the Berbers toward the French language, justifying this by saying, "Arabic is a factor in spreading Islam, while our interests require us to develop the Berbers outside the framework of Islam."

Georges Hardy

This was the vision of Georges Hardy, the Director of Education in Morocco during the colonial period: "Power builds empires, but it is not what guarantees their continuity and permanence. Heads bow before cannon fire, while hearts remain fed by the fire of hatred and the desire for revenge. Souls must be subdued after bodies have been subjected." The Arabic language had a significant impact on shaping an identity separate from French colonialism.

- Interest in dialects and vernacular languages:

 The colonial authorities were concerned with strengthening the call for vernacular languages, studying local dialects, creating dictionaries for them, and attempting to frame linguistic rules for them. We find that many Orientalist studies ignored classical Arabic. Starting from 1890, Orientalism in Algeria began studying Algerian dialects, with each Orientalist studying a specific dialect. The aim was to trace their linguistic roots and attempt to formulate rules for those dialects.

The first to advocate for colloquial Arabic was the German orientalist Wilhelm Spitta, who came to Egypt, lived in its neighborhoods, and studied the colloquial language. He found that it differed from country to country and from neighborhood to neighborhood, and he called for a departure from classical Arabic. In 1880, he published his book "Rules of Colloquial Language in Egypt."

Colloquial Arabic

This call was one of the strongest colonial tools against Arabic, and it persisted for many decades. In Egypt, the English engineer and irrigation expert William Wilcocks advocated for colloquial Arabic in a lecture he gave in 1883 titled "Why is There No Inventive Power Among Egyptians Now?" He claimed that the main reason for the loss of inventive power among Egyptians was their use of classical Arabic in reading and writing, and he advised them to use colloquial Arabic in writing to become inventors. This call was supported by Salama Moussa, who celebrated it in his book "Today and Tomorrow."

- The Black Propaganda Against Arabic:

During the colonial period, Arabic was accused of being unsuitable as a language for science, knowledge, and of being unable to bear the burden of progress and reform. The denigration of Arabic was significant, and the call to abandon it was public, suggesting that Arabic should be written in the Latin script. Colonialism ingrained in the minds of many educated individuals of that period that the reason for backwardness lay in Arabic, and the French endeavored to create a relationship between progress and language.

The Moroccan historian Abdulhadi al-Tazi states: "French entered Morocco through a very clever colonizer who knew how to implant his language within homes, unlike the British colonization, which would simply stand at the gates to collect revenues, customs, and oil."

Arabic talks about herself

Perhaps this black propaganda against Arabic prompted the poet Hafez Ibrahim to defend Arabic in his famous poem, in which he wrote:

“I ‘The Arabic Language’ have encompassed God's Book in word and meaning,

And I have not felt constrained by any verse therein or its sermons.

So how can I today feel constrained in describing a machine

Or in organizing names of inventions?”