La révolution DARIJA

If you are American, imagine for a moment that all the billboards along the US interstate system are written in Middle English. Further imagine that all the written advertisements that you daily encounter in stores, newspapers, and around town are in that same Shakespearean English and those that aren't are instead in French.

Fortunately for you, in this imaginative world, television advertising is in modern day English, but that's about it.

You have now glimpsed in part the Moroccan linguistic situation.

Until just a few years ago all advertising was either in standard Arabic or in French. If the French connection sounds a bit strange to you, it's not. Almost a millennium ago, England was colonized by the French-speaking Normans for 200 years, irrevocably altering the Germanic tongue we now call Old English. Even after they left, French was still the language of prestige--what you spoke when you wanted to impress your boss, a girl or a literary audience. Today Morocco is no different. French colonialism has irrevocably altered Moroccan Arabic and Moroccan culture.

English-speaking peoples have had a good 700 years to move past these societal effects of French colonialism, but in Morocco, French language and culture still maintain a prestige that neither their own tongue (Moroccan Arabic, or Darija) nor standard Arabic (Fus-ha) holds.

Since the advent of Moroccan advertising in the 1970's, French and standard Arabic have been the languages of choice. The language that people actually speak in their homes and even in most places of work was used only in television advertising.

Now, though, that is beginning to change. For the growing lower middle class, written advertisements are being produced more and more in Darija, a phenomenon that was discussed in the February 20-24, 2010 issue of the Moroccan weekly Tel Quel.

At the end of the day most Moroccans are still swayed more by French, but this shift is yet another movement towards a greater usage of Moroccans own language.