This book explores the language situation and issues relevant to language use among diaspora communities outside the Middle East. Includes papers on Arabic, Hebrew and Turkish in relation to variation, identity, gender, codeswitching and politico-linguistics.

Introduction; 1: Language and Political Conflict in the Middle East; 2: Why Do Different Variables Behave Differently? Data from Arabic; 3: Sociolinguistic Reflexes of Socio-Political Patterns in Bethlehem; 4: Hebrew and English Borrowings Inpalestinian Arabic in Israel:; 5: Pronouns and Self Presentation in Public Discourse; 6: Language Choice, Language Policy and the Tradition-Modernity Debate in Culturally Mixed Postcolonial Communities; 7: The Status of Berber; 8: Comparative Perspectives on Language Planning in Iran and Tajikistan; 9: The Story of a Failed Attempt; 10: Gender in a Genderless Language; 11: The Sociolinguistic Connotations of /p/ and /v/ in Cairo Arabic; 12: Language and Diaspora; 13: Sociolinguistic Meaning in Code-Switching; 14: The Arabic Proverb and the Speech Community