Reliving History

Sometimes, learning Moroccan Arabic feels like a trip back in time.

English used to not be standardized. People would write words in a number of different ways depending on their accent and their fancy. They would write what they heard, and so, of course, it came out differently at different times. Anytime you read an English text more than a few hundred years old, you notice the variation in spelling.

But when I think about Darija, the Moroccan dialect of Arabic, I am less likely to think about English, and much more likely to think about the dead language Latin.

In the Middle Ages, Latin was no one's native tongue. No one spoke Latin in the home. And yet it was the most important language in all of Western Europe. The liturgy of the Christian church was all in Latin; the Bible was only read or recited in Latin. Legal documents and literature were all written in Latin. University instruction was in Latin; textbooks were written in Latin. An education required Latin.

But during the late medieval period, there was a move away from Latin in all these areas. Priests were asked to give their homilies in the vulgar tongues--notice the use of the word 'vulgar' even; the common, unrefined language of the people. Important kings started giving patronage to writers actually using the language of their kingdom. Poets like Dante argued that it was ok to write in the language they actually spoke. (His essay justifying it, though, was written in Latin.) Various groups tried to translate the Bible into their own spoken languages, usually with fierce resistance from the established Catholic church.

And then, at some point this language use reached a tipping point, and Latin started the long drift into oblivion. Just 60 years ago, the Catholic Church ended the required use of Latin in the mass. These days, very few students even bother with Latin.


The contemporary Arabic world is much like the late medieval Latin world. All religious discussion and dialogue occurs in Arabic (something that is much less likely to change given the importance of Arabic in Islam). University instruction is in modern standard Arabic (Fusha), not in Darija, or occasionally in French or in English. All written media is in Fusha, and the vast majority of TV and radio are in Fusha. More and more music is in Darija, though. Novels are often written in French, not even Fusha, so that they find a wider readership in the Francophone world.

If you ask a Moroccan about Darija, they will say, "Oh, that's not a real language. That's just something we speak at home. Real Arabic is Fusha." There is such a low esteem for Darija that it is almost unthinkable to try to change these attitudes.

When my Darija tutor tries to write down a word for me, he will sometimes spell it two different ways. If he uses Latin letters to spell it, there might be even more than just two. There is no accepted line between French words and French words accepted into Darija. There's often a French word, a Darija word, and a Fusha word for the same thing, and depending on the circumstances, you might use any one of the three. More often than not, though, there is a clear difference between the Fusha and Darija word, and every Moroccan knows both.

For a foreigner coming in, it can be extremely confusing. Many never bother trying to learn. Even with my extensive French and year and a half of Fusha, I find it difficult to navigate the language.

But every struggle gives me a taste of what late medieval Europeans experienced. It's a little like going back in time.