Sacred Language, Vernacular Difference: Global Arabic and Counter-Imperial Literatures

Sacred Language, Vernacular Difference explores how Arabic influenced the evolution of vernacular literatures and anticolonial thought in Egypt, Indonesia, and Senegal. It argues that Arabic was a cosmopolitan, interethnic, and interreligious language that complicated debates over indigeneity, religious pluralism, counter-imperial nationalisms, and emerging nation-states. It unearths parallels from West Africa to Southeast Asia, challenging Eurocentric and Arabocentric forms of ethnolinguistic and racial prejudice.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 400 pages
Publication date: 09 January 2024
Publisher: Princeton University Press

Sacred Language, Vernacular Difference offers a fresh perspective on the global significance of Arabic as a foundation for comparing cultural and literary histories across countries with vast geographical distances. By exploring controversies surrounding the use of Arabic in three countries with distinct colonial legacies, Egypt, Indonesia, and Senegal, the book presents a novel approach to studying postcolonial literatures, anticolonial nationalisms, and the global circulation of pluralist ideas.

Annette Damayanti Lienau delves into the largely overlooked narrative of how Arabic, often perceived in Africa and Asia as a language of Islamic ritual and precolonial commerce, emerged as a transregional medium for anticolonial literary expression in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. By examining how prominent writers and intellectuals across multiple generations navigated the cultural disparities imposed by imperial Europe, Lienau demonstrates that Arabic, as a cosmopolitan, interethnic, and interreligious language, intricately shaped debates surrounding issues of indigeneity, religious pluralism, counter-imperial nationalisms, and the emergence of nation-states.

Through the exploration of parallels spanning from West Africa to Southeast Asia, Sacred Language, Vernacular Difference makes a compelling argument that discussions comparing the status of Arabic to other languages went beyond Eurocentric perspectives and challenged Arabocentric forms of ethnolinguistic and racial prejudice on both local and global scales.

Dimension: 235 x 156 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780691249834