Habbou Ibrahim
Professor Colombo Russell
ENGL 110 – Freshman Composition
April 12th 2026

In this essay, I will discuss how the standardization of Arabic in Sudan endangers the native Sudanese languages as well as the ethnic groups associated with it. Race and ethnicity is already a complex issue in the US, but is made even more complicated in Sudan due to racial mixture in various communities as well as Sudan’s history of Arab colonization. Arabic becoming an official standard with native languages being pushed to the side is very emblematic of how Sudanese Arabs become the majority demographic for Sudan while native African ethnic groups are seen with disfavor.
The existence of Egyptians in Sudan was brought by immigrants and nomads connected through the Nile river. Ottoman governor of Egypt, Muhammad Ali Pasha, conquered Sudan between 1820 and 1824 as a means to unify the Nile Valley as well as exploiting Sudanese resources such as gold and labor. This conquest is one of many which solidified Sudan’s existence as an Arab country through the means of expanding the empire and reshaping cities as administrative hubs. Pasha’s conquest serves as a precursor to British colonization during 1899 to 1956, as the British aligned themselves with Egyptian forces. Anglo-Egyptian forces governed Sudan as two divisions, the Muslim Arab North, and the Indigenous African Christian South. Separatist policies were built into place between the years 1920 to 1946, Northern Sudan adopted Muslim feasts, regiments, and Arabic as the official language through administrative intervention. The way Arab identity was used paralleled the British British colonial system of governance, as one’s connection to “Arabiness” became the hegemonic ideology of social status.

This entry is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.