from showing solidarity with the pan-Arab nationalist ideology to transgressing social and geographic boundaries by tapping into Western communicative styles. 2. Arabic DiglossiaAccording to Eisele (2002), dialect geography represented the most dominant form of linguistic analysis of Arabic until the 1950s (12). However, Fergusons (1959) introduction of diglossia to the Arabic sociolinguistic landscape helped to crystallize modernist notions about this phenomenon and set the agenda for subsequent studies (Eisele 2002:12). Ferguson (1959, 1996) conducted an extensive analysis of Arabic diglossia. Ferguson defines diglossia as a relatively stable language situation in which, in addition to the primary dialects of the language (which may include a standard or regional standards), there is a very divergent, highly codified (often grammatically more complex) superposed variety, the vehicle of a large and respected body of written literature, either of an earlier period or in another speech community, which is learned largely by formal education and is used for most written and formal spoken purposes but is not used by any sector of the community for ordinary conversation (Ferguson 1996:34-35).Ferguson claims that in Arabic diglossia, CA is the divergent, highly codified, and superposed variety. It is seen as superior to vernaculars, such as EA, due to Language Ideologies in the Arabic Diglossia of Egypt5widespread prejudices against vernaculars within the language community1. In line with Ferguson (1996), this paper will use H for a high prestige language, such as CA or MSA, and L for the low prestige dialects, such as EA. 2.1 H and LIn diglossic situations, there is usually a belief that H is more beautiful, more logical, and more sophisticated (Ferguson 1996; Van Mol 2003). This is true for Arabic diglossia. According to Haeri (2003), CA is often perceived as a language whose aesthetic and musical qualities move its listeners, creating feelings of spirituality, nostalgia and community (43). CA socializes people into rituals of Islam, affirms their identity as Muslims and connects them to the realm of purity, morality, and God (Haeri 2003:43) and attributes of the language are often translated to the moral virtues of the user. CA also attained high prestige due to its rich literary tradition (Ferguson 1996; Van Moll 2003, amongst many). There is a sizable body of written literature which is held in high esteem by the speech community (Ferguson 1996:29-30). In contrast to EA, the orthography of CA is well established and has a long tradition of grammatical study and a fixed norm for pronunciation, grammar and lexicon (Van Mol 2003: 43). The fixed norms of CA were established as early as the ninth century, when CA was codified and, as the language of the Quran, has been one of the major areas of study of Muslims scholars ever since (Parkinson 1991; Van Mol 2003). Scholars have produced grammars, dictionaries, pronunciation manuals, and stylistic conventions thatrestrict variation and protect CA from the influence of modernity. This recallsWoolards (1998:17) observation that written form, lexical elaboration, rules for word formation, and historical derivation all may be seized on in diagnosing real language and ranking the candidates (17).Somewhat contradictorily, Haeris (2003) research also