Diglossia is, as far as the Arabic language is concerned, a concept that has been taken for granted, as much as it has been criticized. First, based on Ferguson’s article on diglossia and subsequent interpretations and ramifications of the concept and with a special focus on how language variability is discursively deployed and how it is perceived in the Arab speech community, I will argue that diglossia does not so much describe actual language use, but rather how language variability is ‘read’ in the Arab world. In the second part of the article, an analysis of labeling in a 19th century debate will show how the dichotomy between fuṣḥā and non-fuṣḥā varieties (ʿāmmīya), 1 which is the basis of diglossia, was already taken for granted long before the concept and the term existed, and even before fuṣḥā and ʿāmmīya were used as independent lexical items. The analysis in both parts of the article shows how much diglossia is taken for granted by most native speakers of Arabic, even if it defies linguistic descriptions of actual language use. It is exactly this ‘common-sense-ness’ that suggests that diglossia is a useful tool to describe language ideological attitudes.

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就阿拉伯语而言，大语是一个被认为是理所当然的概念，尽管受到批评。首先，基于弗格森关于消声的文章以及对该概念的后续解释和后果，并特别关注语言可变性如何被分散地使用以及如何在阿拉伯语言社区中被察觉，我将认为消声并不能说明实际情况。语言使用，而是在阿拉伯世界中如何“读取”语言变异性。在本文的第二部分中，对19世纪辩论中的标签进行的分析将显示fuṣḥā和非fuṣḥā变种（ʿāmmīya）之间的二分法，这是构成古希腊语的基础，早在这一概念出现之前就已被视为理所当然。这个词存在，甚至在fuṣḥā和ʿāmmīya被用作独立词汇之前。本文两部分的分析都表明，即使多数阿拉伯语使用者不愿对实际的语言使用进行语言描述，但大多数阿拉伯语人士还是认为这是理所当然的。正是这种“常识”表明，“ diglossia”是描述语言意识形态态度的有用工具。