Le français au Maghreb Ed. by A. Queffélec, F. Benzakour, and Y. Cherrad-Benchefra (review)

BOOK NOTICES 235 evolutionist approach. In 'Some problems with an evolutionary view of written language' (19-32), David Barton explores the metaphor of evolution for describing changes in written language, arguing that the metaphor does not sufficiently account for social factors. 'In Genetic classification and the historical method' (73-98), Angela Della Volpe considers types of scientific taxonomy, biological features of language, and an example of semantic change to argue that lexical reconstruction requires knowledge of both human perception and culture. Other articles suggest intriguing alternatives to the essentialist-evolutionist debate. In 'Chimps, children and creóles: The need for caution' (1-17), Jean Aitchison applies data from various linguistic sources to propose a constructionist approach. She argues that no single source can account for human language development. In 'Essentialism in language: A convenient but fallacious premise' (33-59), Bernard H. Bichakjian presents a history ofthe theories of language evolution and essentialism. Bichakjian presents data suggesting a link between biological processes and language evolution. In 'The biology oflanguage: Essentialist vs. evolutionist in the nature of language' (221-55), Harvey B. Sarles presents a third position to the essentialist-evolutionist debate about language origin—comparativism—which argues that the debate's current dichotomy limits the discussion. In ? possibility of quantum evolution of language' (257-63), Wlodzimierz Sedlak suggests that life and language have a quantum basis. Sedlak emphasizes the role ofbrain melanin in quantum processes . [Kim Honeyford, University of Waterloo.] Le français au Maghreb. Ed. by A. Queffélec, F. Benzakour, and Y. Cherrad-Benchefra. Aix-en-Provence : Université de Provence, 1995. Pp. 272. 180,00 FF. Although the last of the Maghreb states achieved independence over 30 years ago, French is still sufficiently widely used in the region for us to be able to speak not only of a Maghrebi variety of French but also of its continuing development. Le français au Maghreb is the proceedings of the International Colloquium on French in the Maghreb held in Aix-en-Provence in 1994. Contributions come from researchers in Algeria, France, Mauritania , Morocco, and Russia. The eighteen papers examine sociolinguistic, linguistic, and pedagogic aspects of the impact of French on the rich linguistic landscape of the Maghreb which, in this case, refers to Algeria, Mauritania, Morocco, and Tunisia. However , although entitled French in the Maghreb, the majority of the papers focus on Morocco (eight) and Algeria (seven), with Tunisia and Mauritania appearing only once each, and one paper—on identity —taking a more global approach. Most of the papers examine the process of development of the French language in the Maghreb, and we are warned against seeing the different varieties of Maghrebi French as one homogeneous variety. Although some ofthese papers describe syntactic and phonological aspects ofMaghrebi French, the majority concentrate on the phenomenon of neologisms. The linguistic sources of neologisms are examined as are the different domains which each source language tends to influence. Neologisms are also discussed from the point of view of the linguistic processes through which they become part of the variety of French spoken in the Maghreb, and explanations are posited for why only some of these new lexical items become accepted into mainstream metropolitan French. The papers contain extensive exemplification from a variety of corpora (e.g. press, school students), although, perhaps due to the fact that several papers relied on the Inventaire desparticularités lexicales dufrançais au Maghreb (Inventory oflexical peculiarities ofFrench in the Maghreb) for their corpus, some examples appear in more than one paper. Aspects of language acquisition and pedagogy are also addressed as are methodological issues, the characteristics and continuing vitality ofPied NoirFrench (which is argued to be a regional variety of French), code switching in story telling techniques in Morocco , and the role played by the different language varieties in expressing Maghrebi identity. Of particular interest to the researcher into French in the Maghreb—and the linguistic landscape of the Maghreb in general—is the extensive bibliography of over 500 entries (written mainly in French) which covers the same four Maghreb countries where French has been an official language from the beginning of French colonization up to the present day. Despite the rather misleading globality ofthe title, this...