Language and identity in the Siwa Oasis. Indexing belonging, localness, and authenticity in a small minority community

This chapter discusses the changing meaning indexed by the languages of a community characterised by multilingualism and language contact. It explores a social constructivist approach to identity and draws on the concepts of indexicality and orders of indexicality to explore the values attached to local and superposed languages in Siwa. The centuries-long correspondence between a people, a land, and a language, helped by the remoteness and partial isolation of the oasis, favoured lay people's perception of a straightforward and automatic connection between the Siwi language and Siwan group. Siwi becomes a second-order index of group solidarity as speakers become aware that speaking Siwi shortens the distance between interlocutors, allows ease in intergenerational relationships, and puts the interlocutors at the same level. The Siwi language remains strongly and specifically associated with the group at all indexical orders. Languages and linguistic traits are not evaluated according to their intrinsic qualities but are based on the perception of their speakers.