Arabic Diglossia in the Tunisian Revolution

We noted last week that Ben Ali's last broadcast speech used colloquial Tunisian Arabic, instead of the formal Arabic that he traditionally used in public addresses. We've also talked frequently here about Arabic diglossia, the division between formal Arabic, the written tongue, and the spoken "dialects" in daily use. Lameen Souag, an Algerian-born linguist at SOAS whose Jabal al-Lughat (Mountain of Languages) blog I've linked to before, has a post on "Language Use in Tunisian Politics," which will interest readers who, like me, find this fascinating. (Yes, both of you.)

For the newcomers, fusha in the link refers to the formal, classical language, darja is the North African term for the local dialects. (Other words are used farther east.)