Arabisation, globalisation, and Hebraisation reflexes in shop names in the Palestinian Arab linguistic landscape in Israel

ABSTRACT

Proper names are widely found in the linguistic landscape including shop names. They transmit factual information and are used to appeal to emotions representing ‘symbolic rather than structural or semantic expression’. The current study investigates shop names in six Palestinian Arab localities in Israel employing quantitative and qualitative research methods. Photographs of 848 shop names from the six Palestinian Arab localities facilitated examining the type of names, scripts used, and the type of business. Six shop owners were interviewed about their shop names, types, and scripts. The findings reveal that Arabic is the most prominent language used, followed by foreign languages, with Hebrew far behind. Locality and type of business are found to be important factors, revealing that Palestinian Arab shop names are not homogeneous and certain languages are preferred in some businesses rather than others. Palestinian Arabs work on maintaining their Palestinian-Arab identity in the conflict-ridden Israeli reality. Besides, they are also influenced by Hebraisation through the exposure to Israeli culture and its values, as well as to globalization, which entails being connected with worldwide trends.

ملخص

اسماء الاعلام مستعملة على نطاق واسع في المشهد اللغوي وتشمل اسماء المحال التجارية . لا تسعى اسماء الاعلام لنقل معلومات بل تُستعمل لتخاطب العواطف . اسماء المحال التجارية، تُعتبر كعرض لغوي، وتمثل التعبير الرمزي فضلا عن البينوي -الدلالي . تبحث هذه الدراسة اسماء المحال التجارية في ست مدن فلسطينية في إسرائيل . ولجمع المواد استعملت طرق كمية ونوعية. بداية، التقطت 848 صورة لاسماء محال تجارية، للفحص نوع الاسم، الكتابة المستعملة، ونوع المحل التجاري . ثانيا، ست اصحاب محال تجارية اجريت معهم مقابلات حول اسماء محالهم. تكشف النتائج ان العربية هي اللغة الاكثر بروزا في الاسماء المستعملة، تليها اللغات الاجنبية، والعربية تتخلف ورائها. وُجد الموقع ونوع المحل التجاري كعوامل هامة، وتكشف ان اسماء المحال التجارية ليست متجانسة. فاسماء المحال التجارية تعكس التغيرات السياسية -الاجتماعية واللغوية -الاجتماعية التي حصلت في المجتمع الفلسطيني في إسرائيل في الخمسة العقود الاخيرة . من ناحية، يسعى الفلسطينيون للمحافظة على هويتهم الفلسطينية في إسرائيل، ومن الناحية الاخرى فهم متأثرون بالثقافة الاسرائيلية وقيمها (خاصة المادية )، وكذلك العولمة والتي تتطلب الارتباط بالنزعات العالمية .

KEYWORDS:

• Shop names
• Arabisation
• globalisation
• Hebraisation
• Israel
• linguistic landscape

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Prof. Muhammad Amara is the head of Graduate Studies at Beit Berl Academic College, co-chair of Sikkuy-the association for the advancement of civic equality, and the President of the Israeli Society for the Study of Language and Society. His academic interests include language education, language policy, sociolinguistics, language and politics, collective identities, and the Arab-Jewish divide in Israel. His publications include Politics and Sociolinguistics Reflexes: Palestinian Border Villages (John Benjamins, Philadelphia and Amsterdam: 1999); Language Education Policy: The Arab Minority in Israel (Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht/Boston/London: 2002 (together with Abd Al-Rahman Mar’i)); edited a book entitled Language and Identity in Israel (The Palestinian Forum for Israeli Studies (Madar), Ramallah: 2002); Languages in Conflict: A Study of Linguistic Terms in the Arab-Israeli Conflict (together with Abd Al-Rahman Mar'i, Dar-Al-Huda and Dar Al-Fiker, 2008); and Arabic in Israel: Language, identity and Conflict (London & NY: Routledge, 2018). Prof’. Amara may be contacted at: [email protected]

Notes

1 Numerous labels have been used to refer to Palestinian society in Israel. Amara (2016) has counted forty-five such labels which define that society’s identity. Today, the most widely used labels by members of this society include, ‘Palestinian Arabs in Israel’ or the ‘Palestinians citizens of Israel’. In this article, as in previous works, I adopt the label ‘Palestinian Arabs in Israel’, which best reflects their reality in the state of Israel.

2 In 2017, Palestinian Arabs in Israel constituted 1,440,000, 18% of Israel’s population (excluding East Jerusalem and the Druze in the Golan Heights, areas that are considered occupied territories under international law). They belong to three religious communities: Muslim (83%), Christian (9%), and Druze (8%) (Israel Central Bureau of Statistics, 2017). In contrast to Muslims and Christians, the Druze are conscripted into the Israeli army, and in 1957 Israel recognized the Druze as a separate Arab community. A significant proportion of the Druze community in Israel define themselves as Arabic-speaking citizens and not Arabs, as a way of expressing their loyalty to Israel.

3 Nakba, the 1948 Palestinian exodus, literally means ‘disaster’ or ‘catastrophe’, and refers to the uprooting and displacement of Palestinian Arabs during the years 1947-1949. Over 800,000 Palestinian Arabs fled or were expelled from their homes during the 1948 war, the first of the Arab-Israeli wars. Following UN Resolution 181 partitioning Palestine between the Jews and the Palestinian Arabs, violence increased and the British withdrew from Palestine in May 1948. The neighboring Arab countries, together with Iraq and Saudi Arabia, sent their armies to assist the Palestinian Arabs in their war against the Jews. The war resulted in the defeat of the Arab armies. The Jews thus succeeded in establishing their Jewish state, Israel, in major parts of Palestine (Amara, 1999; Pappé, 2011).

4 Following the end of World War I, Palestine was placed for an interim period under a British Mandate, which formally began in 1922. The British Mandate was a turbulent period marked by continual violence between Arabs and Jews, both of whom opposed it. The Mandate over Palestine ended on May 15, 1948 and the establishment of Israel ensued (see Amara, 1999, p. 21).

5 Under the new national law, adopted by the Israeli Knesset in July 2018, Arabic is no longer an official language. It was given a special status, which is not yet defined.

6 In 2015, the Ministry of Education launched a new program aimed at improving the oral Hebrew proficiency of Arabic-speaking children from the kindergarten stage, with the emphasis on improving the pupils’ competence in Hebrew. Minister of Education Naftali Bennett explained that ‘the decision to bring forward the Hebrew language study to preschools in the Arab sector stems from thinking about the children's future. We believe that as students from the Arab sector attain a better command of the Hebrew language, their integration into the economy, employment, and society will be better and easier’ (Scoop, 2015. http://www.haaretz.co.il/news/education/1.2707551).