NILOOFAR HAERI Sacred Language. Ordinary People: Dilemmas of Culture and Politics in Egypt (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003). Pp. 200. $69.95 cloth. $21.95 paper

Sacred Language elaborates on this latter topic in light of the diglossic language situation in Cairo and attempts to explore the cultural and political implications of the divide between Classical and Egyptian Arabic, that is to say between sacred language and mother tongue. More specifically, the author tries to find an answer to the question of whether modernizing a sacred language is possible, "what kinds of limits it has and how it affects personal self-expression, cultural production and social and political relations in Egypt today" (pp. x-xi). The penultimate chapter, chapter 5, returns to the subject of language attitude and examines the views of authors, poets, journalists, and publishers who were interviewed (among whom is the most famous Egyptian publisher and bookseller, Madbouli).