In Algeria, the Berber Language Can’t Get an Educational Foothold

By Rim Hayat Chaif. Algerian leaders switched their official language from French to Arabic after the country’ war of independence in the early 1960s.
Forty years later, the government labeled Tamazight—the mother tongue of the Berbers— as a “national” language. The move fell short of putting Tamazight on par with Arabic but nonetheless recognized that 25 percent of Algerians speak the language. More...