Forthcoming: Identity formation, language and migration dynamics: Minorities in the MENA region and the German diaspora

Saloumeh Gholami (ed), Ulrich Mehlem (ed)

Synopsis

The volume examines migration from the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region to the German diaspora, offering a multifaceted perspective that combines historical and contemporary insights. It moves beyond viewing migration as a momentary event, instead situating it within a broader narrative that considers the impact of origin countries. By studying communities such as Georgians, Jews, Aramaic speakers, Kurds, Afghans and Berbers, the book explores how linguistic, social, and cultural factors shape their experiences both in their homelands and as migrants in Germany.
A key focus is the interplay between spoken vernaculars (such as Judeo-Spanish, Kurmanji Kurdish, Pashto and Tarifit Berber) and prestigious written languages (such as Hebrew, Syriac, Arabic, and Persian). It delves into how language choices, including scripts and writing systems, reflect deeper identity struggles within communities and across borders. In offering or restricting legal, pedagogical and communicative conditions for language acquisition, intercultural exchange and identity formation, Germany, like other European host societies, contributes significantly to these developments.
The book also shifts the lens of migration studies to explore not just the challenges in host countries but also the conditions in the migrants’ places of origin, from linguistic diversity to social stratification and historical conflicts. It offers unique insights into how these factors shape the identities of minority groups and influence their lives as migrants.
This book is a resource for anyone interested in the complex intersections of migration, identity, language, and culture. It sheds light on the experiences of often marginalised communities, offering valuable perspectives for scholars, policymakers, and anyone seeking a deeper understanding of the realities of migration and minority life.

Chapters

  • Introduction
    Critical issues in migration, language, and identity
    Saloumeh Gholami, Ulrich Mehlem
  • Perceiving communicative behavior as discriminatory
    Tarifit and German speakers’ experiences
    Maria Petrou, Hamza Boutemin, Axel Fanego Palat
  • When words destroy worlds
    Online hate speech against religious minorities as harm
    Kyriaki Topidi
  • Heritage language education
    A brief legal overview
    Rainer Hofmann, Moritz Malkmus, Leonie Östermann
  • Linguistic diversity of new minorities in Europe
    A crossroads of rights and duties
    Roberta Medda-Windischer, Mattia Zeba
  • Perspectives of newly arrived Kurdish and Afghan families in Germany on their heritage languages and linguistic situation
    Ulrich Mehlem, Mejrema Koca
  • From identity to script, from script to literature
    Syriac, Garshuni Arabic and Neo-Aramaic
    Alessandro Mengozzi
  • Meʿam Loʿez of Pirqey ʾAvot by Itzhak Magriso (Istanbul 1753)
    Scripts, language and identity
    Javier Leibiusky
  • Script and identity
    Alphabets, amulets, and anchors
    Zakharia Pourtskhvanidze, Marina Beridze

Biographies

Saloumeh Gholami

Professor Saloumeh Gholami is a linguist and currently holds the position of British Academy Global Professor in the field of Zoroastrian Studies at the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, University of Cambridge. In this capacity, she leads the project Persisting Through Change: A Study of Oral Literature and Cultural Interaction in the Zoroastrian Community.

She earned her PhD in Iranian Studies from the Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, Germany, with a dissertation entitled Selected Features of Bactrian Grammar. Her academic trajectory continued with a Habilitation in Comparative Linguistics from the Goethe University Frankfurt in 2022.

From 2020 to 2024, she served as Professor of Minority Languages in the Middle East at the University of Frankfurt. During this period, she also acted as Principal Investigator and member of the directorate for the research cluster Minority Studies: Language and Identity, funded by the Hessian Ministry for Science and the Arts.

In 2023, she was awarded the Oxford School of Rare Jewish Languages Visiting Fellowship at the University of Oxford.

Professor Gholami has gained international recognition for her pioneering contributions to the safeguarding of endangered languages and the promotion of linguistic diversity, particularly among minority communities. Her innovative research combines philological analysis with fieldwork, illuminating not only the linguistic structures but also the broader social and historical dynamics that shape interactions between minority groups and the dominant culture in Iran.

Ulrich Mehlem

Professor Ulrich Mehlem is a linguist and educational scientist. He earned his PhD in Islamic Studies from the Freie Universität Berlin, Germany, with a dissertation entitled “Bilingualism of Moroccan Children in Germany”. His academic trajectory continued with several post-doc positions at the Universities of Osnabrueck and Bielefeld in Migration Studies and German Language Studies. In this capacity, he was research group member in several research projects, such as: “Literacy Acquisition in schools in Contexts of Migration and Multilingualism” (LAS, 2006-2009, in cooperation with Michael Bommes and Christoph Schroeder).

From 2011 to 2022, he was professor of primary school education at Goethe-University, Frankfurt am Main, Germany. As principle investigator, he was responsible for the research projects “Language Development in preschool and primary school in Germany” (SPRUENGE, 2016-2019), in cooperation with Diemut Kucharz & Tanja Betz, and “Ethnic Minorities and Linguistic Integration in Primary Schools in Germany (2020-2024)” in the research cluster Minority Studies: Language and Identity, funded by the Hessian Ministry for Science and the Arts.

Professor Mehlem contributed to national and international research in the fields of literacy acquisition in multilingual contexts, orthography, multilingualism in schools, reading enhancement (especially for newly arrived children), language enhancement in preschool education, history of education, intercultural education.

Published

April 30, 2025
LaTeX source on GitHub

Series

Contact and Multilingualism

Online ISSN

2700-855X

Print ISSN

2700-8541
Cite as
Gholami, Saloumeh & Mehlem, Ulrich (eds.). Forthcoming. Identity formation, language and migration dynamics: Minorities in the MENA region and the German diaspora. (Contact and Multilingualism). Berlin: Language Science Press.
Copyright (c) 2025 Saloumeh Gholami, Ulrich Mehlem; Maria Petrou, Hamza Boutemin, Axel Fanego Palat, Kyriaki Topidi, Rainer Hofmann, Moritz Malkmus, Leonie Östermann, Roberta Medda-Windischer, Mattia Zeba, Mejrema Koca, Alessandro Mengozzi, Javier Leibiusky, Zakharia Pourtskhvanidze, Marina Beridze

License

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.