Ashraf Abdelhay

Ashraf Abdelhay holds a PhD in the field of sociolinguistics from the University of Edinburgh. His research focuses on the cultural politics of language in Sudan with specific emphasis on the intersection of discourse, ideology and power relations. He worked for the Department of Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies in the University of Edinburgh, and then joined the Department of Middle Eastern Studies in University of Cambridge as an ESRC Postdoctoral Fellow (2009-2010); and Clare Hall College in the University of Cambridge as a Research Associate (2019-2013). He currently works for the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies (Qatar) as an Associate Professor in the programme of Linguistics and Arabic Lexicography.

Link to CV: HERE

Some recent publications:

Abdelhay, Ashraf; Makoni, Sinfree; Severo, Cristine. (Eds.). (in press). Language planning and policy: Ideologies, Ethnicities and semiotic spaces of power. Newcastle-Upon-Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.

Abdelhay, Ashraf; Makoni, Sinfree; Severo, Cristine. (in press). Colonial heteronormative ideologies and the racializing discourse of language families. In Ellen Hurst; Lutz Marten; Nancy Kula; Jochen Zeller (Eds.). Oxford Guide to the Bantu Languages. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Abdelhay, Ashraf, Busi Makoni, and Sinfree Makoni (2018). “When God is a linguist: Missionary orthographies as a site of social differentiation and the technology of location”, in Constanze Weth & Kasper Juffermans (eds.), The Tyranny of writing: Ideologies of the written word. Oxford: Bloomsbury.

Abdelhay, Ashraf and Sinfree Makoni (2018). “‘Arabic is under threat’: Language anxiety as a discourse on identity and conflict”. In Yonatan Mendel and Abeer AlNajjar (eds.), Language, politics and society in the Middle East: Essays in Honour of Yasir Suleiman. Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Press, 2018.

Abdelhay, Ashraf, Nada Eljak, AbdelRahim Mugaddam, and Sinfree Makoni (2016). The cultural politics of language in Sudan: against the racialising logic of language rights. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 38(4), 346-359.

Abdelhay, Ashraf, Nada Eljak, AbdelRahim Mugaddam, and Sinfree Makoni (2016). Arabicisation and the Khartoum Arabic Language AcademyThe Journal of North African Studies, 21(5),  831-856.

 Abdelhay, S., Makoni, B., & Makoni, S. B.  (2016). The Colonial Linguistics of governance in Sudan: the Rejaf Language ConferenceJournal of African Cultural Studies, 28(3), 343-359. 

Juffermans, Kasper and Yonas Asfahan Abdelhay (co-editor with) (2014). African Literacies: Ideologies, Scripts, EducationNew Castle Upon-Tyne: Cambridge Publishing Scholars.

Abdelhay, Ashraf, Al-Alamin Abu-Manga and Catherine Miller (2014). “Language policy and planning in the Sudan: From local vernaculars to national languages”, Barbara Casciarri, Munzoul A. Assal and François Ireton (eds.), Reshaping livelihoods, political conflicts and identities in contemporary Sudan. London, 263-280, James Currey.

Abdelhay, Ashraf, Kasper Juffermans and Yonis Asfahan (2014) “African Literacy ideologies, scripts and education”, In K. Juffermans, Y. Asfahan, A. Abdelhay (Eds): African literacies: Ideologies, scripts, education, New Castle Upon Twain, 1-62, Cambridge Scholars Publishing.

Abdelhay, A., Makoni, B., Makoni, S. B. ; Muggaddam, A. R. (2011). The Sociolinguistics of nationalism in the Sudan: the politicisation of Arabic and the Arabicisation of politicsCurrent Issues in Language Planning, 12(4), 457-501.

 Abdelhay, A. K., Makoni, B., & Makoni, S. B. (2011). The Naivasha Language Policy: The Language of Politics and the politics of language in the SudanLanguage Policy, 10(2), 1-18.