Sudan: Majorities, Minorities, and Language Interactions

Abstract It is commonly taken for granted in today’s writing and discussion about the Sudan that it consists of very different northern and southern parts – fierce desert in the north and shady pasture in the south, occupied by ‘ethnic’ Arabs on the one hand and ‘Black Africans’ on the other, Islam in the north and a variety of Christian denominations and African traditional religions in the south. But we should treat these oppositions with great care; they are not primordial facts of geography and ethnology. The concept of north and south as territories, as against relative positioning along the Nile corridor, has always been a matter of contested political definition by the powers that be. The north/south opposition in much of today’s discourse about the Sudan, and indeed within it, is a product of very recent political history, including some decades of civil war. In considering aspects of language and language use in the Sudan, however, and especially in noting how language issues have become caught up in politics, we can find a different approach and escape the stereotypes with profit.