ABSTRACT
In this paper, I want to survey the nature and effect of language policy on the status of the Arabic language in Israel. (1) While there is a slowly growing number of countries like Australia (Lo Bianco 1987) with a formally developed national language policy or like the Netherlands (van Els 1992a) with fully articulated foreign language teaching policies, and others like New Zealand (Waite 1992) and Finland (Takala 1992), where attempts are underway to develop them, it is more commonly the case, as it is in the United kingdom, the United States, or Israel, that the policy has grown haphazardly and can be found only in a complex set of uncoordinated policies and practices.
