In what seems like an incredibly fast change (in linguistic terms), young Moroccans have taken to a way of writing local Moroccan (Darija) using a mixture of English (Roman) letters and numerals. Our Darija expert, Mouaniss reports:
ahlan ana smiiti samir. ana 3andi telefon mazyan. daba 7daya sa7bi sandy. bghit n9ol mrahba bik.
You will notice in the example above that the numerals 3, 7 and 9 are used.
The numeral 3 is used for the sound "a", 7 for "h" and nine for "k" - well almost! The "k" sound does not really describe the particular sound but it is as near as we can get!
The language traces its roots back (possibly late 1970s) to the introduction of the internet, email and, most importantly, the text messages on mobile phones. No courses teach it, but it is rare to find a young Moroccan who does not have the ability to write "chat language" as it is known, or logha dyal chat!
Tags: Moroccan Morocco Fes, Maghreb news
7 comments:
shokran bizaaf! As a student of language and culture, this is fascinating to me.
Hadshi makayensh ri fi darija!
In other words, this isn't just a Moroccan phenomenon; apparently it's done throughout the Arabic-speaking computer-using world!
You have a good telephone? LOL. Mabruk!
taamarbuuta is half right. While it has spread because it is difficult for many people to write Arabic, the phenomena began with Darija and spread from there - slowly the system seems to have become standard. It is indeed a strange linguistic event. This process has probably taken twenty years or so.
Hamid, do you have any documentation for that? This page claims it originated in Egypt -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arabic_Chat_Alphabet
The spread of this style of Darija is quite a unique phenomenon. Usually such changes take a long time, but (as you point out) it has been possible because of sms and internet chat. Amazing in linguistic terms and fascinating. The penetration of technology is so deep and the social impact as yet unknown. Great article.
What is so interesting is that so many academic folks failed to notice it coming and even said it was not a "real" language. LOL.
Taamarbuuta - we were only looking at the use with Darija, but I take your point.
Hamid, I too would like to see a timeline.
David - dead right! The rapid growth of this style is probably quite rare. The changes that took place in both English and French in the 15th century, when they added a large number of Latin words, took a much longer time and resulted in two separate developments in both languages.
Fascinating stuff for people who make their living working with language.
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