Expatriate Languages in Kuwait: Tension Between Public and Private Domains

Abstract

Following the rise of oil-based economies after the 1950s, the six Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries became extremely attractive to workers from other Arab countries and beyond. Initially, Arabs were a majority in the expatriate workforce but were gradually outnumbered by Asians. Consequently, the GCC countries, which were monolingual in Arabic, became multilingual, with Urdu, Malayalam, Tagalog, Hindi, Singhalese, and Bengali used widely by expatriates, in addition to Arabic and English. Based on an analysis of data collected in Kuwait between 2008 and 2011 combined with ethnographic observations, this paper corroborates findings of previous research that there is often a gulf between the official language policies and actual practices. I further show that language policies at the top are not monolithic either. In Kuwait, there was a disjoint in the use of expatriate languages on two levels: between government institutions dealing with religious matters and other departments; and between government and private business institutions in general. Driven primarily by the Islamic faith, which is not predicated upon linguistic identity, the Religious Affairs Ministry utilized expatriate languages, whereas other government bodies responded to the perceived threat to Arab identity by enforcing Arabic-only policies in public institutions. Private businesses, guided by commercial interests, used expatriate languages freely to reach out to their clients.

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