In modern-day Mauritania, as in several multilingual states, tensions over language policy and identity between the two ethnic groups-Arab and afro-Mauritanian-have been flaring ever since the nation's independence. In Language Policy and Identity in Mauritania: Multilingual and Multicultural Tensions, El Hacen Moulaye Ahmed investigates language policy and identity in this North African country. Moulaye Ahmed traces the past and the present Mauritania's identities and language policies and reveals Mauritanians' language policy preferences and the relationship between their identities and their preferences.

El Hacen Moulaye Ahmed is lecturer of English linguistics at the University of Nouakchott Al Aasriya.