Moroccan Culture Series
Language - Arabic and English

Arabic

The Arabic spoken in Morocco is called darija or arabe dialectal, and it is very different from classical Arabic. When we started our classes, we had to specify whether we wanted to learn arabe dialectal (to talk to people here, and maybe get by in Algeria and Tunisia) or arabe classique (to communicate throughout the Arab world and read the Quran). We talked to several teachers before beginning classes, and they always seemed surprised that we chose darija, because we will be limited if we want to use Arabic outside of these three countries.

Part of the reason for this limitation is obvious: as in any language spoken in different regions, variations in vocabulary, pronunciation, and even grammar are commonplace. Aside from that, French has had more of an influence, mainly on vocabulary, on Moroccan Arabic than on the classical Arabic spoken in other countries. In addition, Moroccan Arabic speakers do a lot of code-switching with French. (Code-switching is when bilingual speakers switch seemingly randomly and without hesitation between their two languages.) The result is a mix of dialectal Arabic and French that is very confusing for anyone who only speaks one of the two languages. Since I don't speak Arabic (yet), I pay close attention to the conversations around me to see how much French is used. I've noticed that certain things are usually in French, like numbers and the expressions "ça va" and "d'accord."

There are not many Arabic classes offered in Casablanca. We couldn't find any regular classes for darija, and only one for classical Arabic (at l'Institut français). The other schools that offer Arabic, either classical or dialectal, do so only as private classes.
  

Some interesting things I've learned about Arabic:

Text is written right to left, but numerals are written left to right.

In Arabic, vowels are little signs that are placed above or below consonants, but they are usually not written. You see them only in the Quran, Arabic textbooks, and extremely formal writing. (Interestingly enough, in darija many vowels are not pronounced either, one of the reasons this is such a difficult language.) The picture on the right is the sign on a building that I happened to notice. It has the vowels written - the two horizontal lines along the top as well as some of the smaller "dots" - and there is no equivalent sign in French.

There are three second person subject pronouns: nta (familiar you singular masculine), nti (familiar you singular feminine), and ntuma (you plural). There is no real equivalent to the French formal vous singular. When I asked my Arabic teacher about this, he said that in rare cases ntuma might be used to show respect, but I got the impression that this would only be if you were addressing someone like the king, to whom you wanted to show deep respect. Moroccans definitely prefer le tutoiement, as I noted in the French section.

There is only one third person plural pronoun: huma (they, masculine and/or feminine).

For anyone interested in etymology, Arabic is a treasure trove. As a rule, verbs and nouns that mean similar things have the same root. Book = ktub. To write = ktb. Office = mktab. 

Arabic is the hardest language I've ever tried to learn in terms of pronunciation (I've studied French and Spanish, as well as a tiny bit of Japanese and Polish). Arabic has several sounds that I currently find it physically impossible to produce. You think the French R is hard? Try studying Arabic! After each lesson (one and a half hours 3 days per week), my throat is sore for hours.
  

English

Many Moroccans here in Casablanca speak English, and we are always surprised when they tell us they've only been studying for a year or two. While the vocabulary and grammar of the average English speaker varies, Moroccans have virtually no accent. Even when they only know a handful of words like greetings and civilities, they sound British or American, depending on where they studied or where their teacher was from. I find this especially interesting because, as I mentioned, the Arabic accent can be fairly strong when they speak French.

French in Morocco

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