Algeria: Berber, Arabic or French?  · Global Voices
Amira Al Hussaini

Algerian linguist Lameen Souag asks: “The key issue in Algerian linguistic politics – substantially overshadowing the question of the role of Berber – is what should be the language of bureaucracy and education: Standard Arabic (the official language, and the primary pre-colonial language of literacy for all Algeria) or French (the colonial language, and hence ironically
the language which most of the few educated Algerians at independence had studied in.)”