Individuals' sociolinguistic repertoires in Sudan are products of institutionalised orders of normalisation. The visibility of language in popular and official discourses in Sudan is always related to broader cultural and political projects. This article aims to handle and explain this observation by, first, exploring how the dominant ideology of language works in practice in Sudan, and second, by revising how it is contextually parleyed, appropriated, and opposed by social individuals. The guiding questions are: (1) How is the leading ideology of language in Sudan enacted, appropriated and opposed in concrete verbal interaction and other metalinguistic activities? (2) How can social groups and individuals utilize the dynamic nature of language not just to protect the right to evolve their languages beyond the polarising terms (e.g. Arabic vs. African) constructed by interest-oriented ideologies, but most importantly to do politics via the dominant regime of language? The article advocates a recognition of ‘difference’ within a historically fixed frame of diversity rather than a culturalist model of naturally fixed homogeneities This article is an exercise in semiotic ideological assay within the framework of cultural politics which regards language as a proxy for doing politics by culture.