REFLEXIONS SUR LE RAPPORT ENTRE LANGUE(S) ET IDENTITE(S) DANS LA LITTERATURE MAGHREBINE FEMININE DE LANGUE FRANÇAISE : LE CAS D’ASSIA DJEBAR ET DE...
Reflections on the relationship between language(s) and identity (ties) in women's Magrebian literature French: the case of Assia Djebaret and ...

Summary/Abstract: Assia Djebar and Leïla Sebbar re-inscribe the sounds of the „other” languages (Tamazight / Berber, spoken Arabic, classic Arabic), which are spoken in Algeria, in their French language. The „other” languages are the „phantom languages” which „haunt” the writers, who do not speak all of them, but who appreciate their sounds and their imagery. So Assia Djebar doesn’t speak Berber, and Leïla Sebbar doesn’t speak Arabic. Rhythmical effects, mimicking Arabic rhythms, are achieved by „breaking” the French syntax, by the frequent use of Arabic imagery, as well as by the incessant use of alliteration and assonance. Their French is a „torn language” („langue brisée”), a term invented by Régine Robin (2003) who examined the multilingualism of Jewish writers. For Assia Djebar, Tamazight (Berber) is the lost mother tongue, because her mother wasn’t able, after the divorce of their parents and after the sudden death of her cherished sister Chérifa, to speak this language anymore. Tamazight „haunts” Assia Djebar who doesn’t speak this language, but who appreciates its sounds, its music, its force, and especially in her work Vaste est la prison, she tries to understand her mother and her grand-mother, as well as she tries to understand the Berber history of her country. For Assia Djebar, the classic Arabic is the language of the Noubas, the Andalusian music, of the Arabic poets, and in her work Loin de Médine (1991) she shows that women played an important role in the Islamic history. For Leïla Sebbar, the Arabic language is a beautiful „phantom language” (and it is important to say that she refuses to learn this language, because she needs its „holy force” (L. Sebbar), otherwise writing wouldn’t be possible anymore), but it is also a brutal language. The spoken Arabic language is Assia Djebar’s mother tongue, while French is the language of the French school and of her father, the French teacher, who permitted her to go to school and to study at the university in Alger. But it is also the language of the colonial fathers who, for 132 years, oppressed the Algerian people. French is the only language that Leïla Sebbar speaks, it is her mother tongue, but although she writes in French, she says that she writes an „Arabic French”, a „torn” French. She regrets that her father, who gave her the French language and the literature, didn’t give her also the Arabic language, because he wanted to protect his children against war and death.

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