CAPÍTULO XVIII

In the case of the participants with an Arab background, a clear pattern emerges in their understanding of the relationship between the production of linguistic practices with Arabic ammiyyas and their ability to perform and understand the Qur’an:

I think it’s a privilege that I can speak Arabic like it’s a privilege that I’m a Muslim that can speak Arabic because even though it might not seem anything significant to everyone else it is a big deal when you’re trying to read the Qur’an and like read supplements and pray and things like that and [if] Arabic is not your mother tongue it becomes really hard so … I really appreciate that I can speak Arabic as my first language because it makes religion a lot easier for it goes hand in hand … Arabic … is the language of the Qur’an so to me it’s something really special (Amira, 24)

Arabic is the mother tongue of Islam … so it is an advantage that we are Arabic speakers because we get to understand the religion more (Yasser, 20)

now as I’m getting older I’m maturing, I speak a lot more Arabic so it’s good [because] the Arabic language is the Qur’an obviously, so in order for me to understand the Qur’an I have to understand Arabic so it’s worked in my favour (Yasmeen, 24)

278 _{For a sociolinguistic interpretation of this same phenomenon, from the conceptual perspective of ‘prestige’,}

see Bassiouney (2009, pp. 18-19).

279

The reasons for this could vary from a) the interaction with an ‘outsider’ researcher who is not expected to either speak Arabic or to have knowledge of the distinction between the different types of Arabic (the participants potentially deciding therefore to simplify the information provided), to b) a more deeply rooted belief that ‘Arabic’ is the ‘mother tongue of Islam’ (see 6.1.1) and therefore that the lived linguistic heterogeneity does not challenge this symbolic unity, which in turn potentially leads to c) the participants themselves having a limited grasp of this scholarly terminological delineation, both/either in Arabic and/or English.

Chapter 5 has shown that these participants are able to produce linguistic practices with Arabic due to the constitution of the linguistic submarket of the home. In light of the above discussion (6.1.3.1), this postulation can be nuanced: the linguistic submarket of the home allows for the production, reproduction and negotiation of linguistic practices mainly with Arabic ammiyyas, due to their oral character. Taking this into consideration, it can now be argued that all the interviewees with an Arab background experience their ability to produce linguistic productions with Arabic ammiyyas as highly significant in light of the importance accorded to the Qur’anic text in Islam (see 6.1.1 and 6.1.2). This becomes very clear especially in Amira’s comments above. She talks about the salience of having Arabic as her ‘mother tongue’ in contrast with not having it, linking this to the general difficulty of performing and, fundamentally, understanding the Qur’an, regardless of a person’s ethnic or linguistic background. In spite of clear formal differences between Qur’anic Arabic and Arabic ammiyyas (see 6.1.3.1), the above participants highlight the belief that the ability to produce linguistic practices with Arabic ammiyyas helps them to gain easier access to the Qur’anic script, both in terms of performance of compulsory Islamic rituals and, crucially, in terms of a better understanding of the meaning of the Qur’an280. In other words, being able to speak Arabic ammiyyas facilitates the agents’ recognition as Muslims. Thus, this competence is recognised as linguistic capital thanks to its potential of being converted into religious and social capital.

This adds a further layer to the understanding of the power relations which lead to the constitution and functioning of the linguistic submarkets of the home as discussed in Chapter 5. In the case of the submarkets where linguistic practices with Arabic ammiyyas are rendered legitimate, both the constitution of the linguistic submarket and the production of such linguistic practices are legitimised by the potential of obtaining religious capital within the symbolically powerful Islamic field of Cardiff. Thus, the linguistic habitus of the second-generation agents develops within a linguistic submarket whose rules and laws of price formation are influenced not only by the power relations analysed in Chapter 5, but also by the symbolic value imposed on Arabic ammiyyas through the relationship between Islam and language. Thus, parents can impose the production of linguistic practices with Arabic ammiyyas in light of their symbolic power in relation to their young children, but also, being endorsed by the symbolic power of the Islamic field of Cardiff.

Similarly, Scourfield et al. (2013, p. 84) note in passing that “to memorize the Qur’an was not a strong tradition amongst the small number of Arab families in our sample. These families seemed at ease with their faith which did seem to be integrated with everyday routines, perhaps because knowledge of Arabic makes the understanding of religious texts so much easier”. Because of this, in the case of the families with at least one Arab parent, “they were concerned for their children to maintain some fluency in spoken Arabic” (Scourfield et al. 2013, p. 84).