Herramientas de lectura

People's language is central to shaping their identities. A language is a powerful means to not only to root an individual within a community at the micro level, but also to root a whole nation to its past at the macro level. The relationships among language, culture, and identity became a favorite topic for researchers, educators, and social scientists. Religion is one of the fixed aspects of self-hood that form one`s identity, alongside other aspects such as race, ethnicity, social class, gender, and age.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the role of religion in maintaining minority languages and preventing its shift, particularly the role of Islam in preserving Arabic language. The paper is a theoretical study in which I reviewed relevant literature that examined and explored the use of Arabic, as a minority language, in non-Arabic speaking contexts. I argue that Islam, as a religion, has unique features that make it an effective instrument in maintaining Arabic. The findings showed that there is a strong relationship between Islam and the maintenance of the Arabic language within Muslim communities in non-Arabic speaking countries. For example, Muslim Egyptian youth immigrants maintained a good proficiency level of Arabic in Greece, while the Coptic Egyptian youth experienced a language shift towards Greek. Likewise, Singaporean Muslim youth chose to learn Arabic as a second language in order to learn Islamic teachings and to be able to memorize the Holy Quran.