ABSTRACT
Arabic and English have been in contact in Iraq since the early decades of the twentieth century when the country was occupied by Britain after the First World War. Iraq became a British mandated territory in 1920 before gaining independence in 1932. Most educated Iraqis have some knowledge of English which is taught in primary and secondary schools. It is also used in higher education, particularly in medicine and the sciences. A number of English terms have been adopted and adapted to the sound system of Iraqi Arabic (IA). These, for example, include car terminology, like giir "gear"; breek "brake"; šookinsoorba "shock absorber," or more recent technical terms, like kampyuutar "computer"; sooftweer "software"; iimeel "e-mail." English in Iraq has rarely been in conflict or competition with Arabic, since its use is restricted to institutional or technical domains. It is in the UK, however, where IA and English are in direct contact, that English has started to infiltrate into domains, like the family and the environment, that were once almost exclusively reserved for IA. According to Joshua Fishman (1972:19), domains "attempt to designate the major clusters of interaction situations that occur in particular multilingual settings" and "enable us to understand that language choice and topic, appropriate though they may be for analyses of individual behavior, . . . are . . . related to widespread sociocultural norms and expectations."
