Аннотация:Since the 1930s when oil was first discovered, but at an ever-increasing pace since the 1970s, enormous changes have occurred in the lifestyle of the people of the Arabian Gulf. These changes have had their most visible impact on the built environment; less obvious, though no less momentous revolutions have also affected family structures, residence patterns and employment. This paper looks at the secondary impact that these changes have had on the linguistic landscape of the Gulf, and how language, as a component of Gulf identity, is changing. The paper focuses on four phenomena: the recession of communal dialects up and down the Gulf in the face of linguistic homogenisation; the fashion for code-switching between Arabic and English; the pidginisation of Gulf Arabic by the large and seemingly semi-permanent population of South Asian workers and South East Asian nannies; and the worry of some Gulf commentators that Arabic is 'dying' in this area of Arabia.
