ABSTRACT
As seen in the study of emergent Arabic in the last liminal period, transitional eras may last a few hundred years, causing tremendous linguistic upheavals and attracting varying emotions to languages’ advent and demise. Just as every world order has forming, norming, and integrating phases, so too are these phases are discernible in the liminal periods that occur between world orders and act as a kind of “buffer zones.” While I mentioned these phases in Chapter 3, it was in terms of the more abstract elements, rules, and procedures in the functioning of the model. In contrast, this chapter describes and elaborates in a little more depth on historical and linguistic scenarios that usually accompany these three phases. This chapter attempts to understand the reasons behind individuals’, groups’, and governments’ efforts to influence their own or others’ language behavior and attitudes during the liminal period. It analyses efforts behind attempts to control, favor, or repress particular forms of languages or varieties in use. This chapter is organized diachronically, beginning from the first phase, “forming,” continuing with the second “norming” (our major focus), and ending with the last phase, “integrating.”
