In modern-day Mauritania, as in several multilingual states, tensions over language policy and identity between the two ethnic groups—Arab and afro-Mauritanian—have been flaring ever since the nation’s independence. In Language Policy and Identity in Mauritania: Multilingual and Multicultural Tensions, El Hacen Moulaye Ahmed investigates language policy and identity in this North African country. Moulaye Ahmed traces the past and the present Mauritania’s identities and language policies and reveals Mauritanians’ language policy preferences and the relationship between their identities and their preferences.

The book addresses and establishes a rich body of literature on the relationship between language policy and identity in Mauritania. It contributes to the promotion of the newly emerging research in socio-linguistic studies in the Maghreb region and fills a crucial gap in the knowledge about this region in the Anglo-American academia. The author implements a multidisciplinary approach with a descriptive and analytical synthesis of diverse sources of information to demonstrate that Mauritanians define their identity on the basis of religion and nationalism and that the choice of any language is influenced by ethnic background. The reader will appreciate this book’s outstanding research and the extensive depth of knowledge coupled with a critical reflection on the literature in all its extents. The originality of the present study lies in its connection of these debated issues to cultural, ethnic, political, socio-cultural, anthropological and sociolinguistic implications. Such attributes should make it indispensable and vividly recommendable to researchers in these fields. -- Bousfiha Adiba, Faculty of Letters and Humanities, Saiss Fes
In Language Policy and Identity in Mauritania: Multilingual and Multicultural Tensions, El Hacen Moulaye Ahmed asserts that Mauritania's history and people are "shrouded behind a thick veil, for they do merely exist in the corpus of English literature" (p. xvi). His volume is a significant step in introducing an English-speaking audience to complexities relating to language policy and planning (LPP) and identity in Mauritania, where colonial legacies, recent global flows, and local ethnoracial strife make the language question in that West African nation a fascinating one to examine. For those interested in further deepening their knowledge about LPP and African affairs, this monograph will serve as a useful initial reference. * Language Policy *

El Hacen Moulaye Ahmed is lecturer of English linguistics at the University of Nouakchott Al Aasriya.