Linguistic Diversity and Ideologies among the Catholic Minority in Mandate Palestine. Fear of Confusion or a Powerful Tool?

Abstract

Palestinian Catholics have always played a major role in the Palestinian political, cultural and educational systems, with an influence disproportionate to their numbers. Instrumentalized by France during and even after her Protectorate of the Christians (1924), more visible for the Europeans during the growth of European institutions in the Holy Land and the beginning of an international Christian network, Catholic Palestinians (mainly Latin and Melkite) favoured multilingualism, but at the same time felt trapped between different trends that influenced linguistic ideologies and practices. They faced the centralizing Catholic interests of Rome (who first favoured French and Italian, but soon after the Mandate mostly Arabic); the national interests of Catholic European powers present in the Holy Land favouring their own languages (French, German through the German Catholics and the Austrians, and English through the British Catholics); and the Arabization promoted by the Melkite community.The present article aims to analyse the linguistic choices of the Catholic community, via its educational system, by observing the process through which a complex local reality has been simplified by colonial powers, to tackle identity and conflict through language.

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