Voice of Arabic Network
Search

Charles Albert Ferguson

تشارلز ألبرت فرغسون

Notable figure 1921–1998 · Source: Obituary: Charles Albert Ferguson (July 6, 1921 – September 2, 1998), Language in Society (Cambridge University Press) · Second source: Bibliothèque nationale de France, authority record: Ferguson, Charles Albert (1921-1998), Stanford University

Field: Sociolinguistics and dialects

Affiliation

Linguist; author of 'Diglossia' (1959)

Biography

An American linguist, the first director of the Center for Applied Linguistics in Washington (1959) and later professor at Stanford. In his article 'Diglossia' (1959) he coined the term that became the starting point of every study of the relation between standard and colloquial Arabic, with Arabic as his first example; the same year he wrote 'The Arabic koine' on the origin of the sedentary dialects, and he wrote Damascus Arabic (Washington, 1961) with Moukhtar Ani.