DIVERSITY AND ECOLOGY VERSUS THE EVIL OF STANDARDIZED EDUCATION
SI BELKACEM TAIEBABSTRACT. Tamazight, the Indigenous language family of North Africa, is rich due to the diversity of its dialects and the extended lands that it covers. The Tamazight language family includes the Kabyle, the language and name of my own people from northeast Algeria, who belong to the Indigenous Imazighen (plural of Amazigh) family. It is therefore unfortunate that the Algerian academy is working to standardize our language. The reason given is the practical issue of producing Imazighen-language resources for schools. However, it is not in the nature of the Imazighen language to be standardized. This article posits that standardization is rarely adapted to Amazigh education. Kabyle people have our Indigenous ways of teaching that do not embrace standardization. Standardized tools for the implementation and reproduction of power systems in sterile, decontextualized environments can lead to the destruction of a millennia-old civilization, and extend to become a means of control over land and natural resources. pp. 72–83
Keywords: Amazigh/Imazighen; diversity; ecology; Indigenous Algeria; Kabyle; language standardization