Should Moroccan Schools Teach Darija (Moroccan Arabic)?

If you think that the debate about choosing French or English is a vexed issue, think again. It is a storm in a teacup compared to the fight over including Moroccan Arabic in the school curriculum. After provoking fierce controversy, the question of teaching the Moroccan dialect (darija) at school has turned to defamation, outrage and insult

While Modern Standard Arabic is not spoken in daily life and is an exclusively written language used only for written government communications and in the written press, Darija-Arabic is an exclusively spoken language and has a strong presence in Moroccan television entertainment, cinema and commercial advertising and is the most commonly spoken language in daily life in the top 5 large cities of Morocco with over 21 million speakers.

Moroccan Arabic has many regional dialects and accents as well. Its mainstream dialect is the one used in Casablanca, Rabat and Fez and it dominates the media, eclipsing the other regional dialects.

Moroccan Arabic is spoken as a first language by about 50% to 75% of Morocco's population. The other half speaks the Berber language with one of its dialects. Educated Moroccan Berber-speakers can communicate in mainstream Moroccan Arabic and French or Spanish as well.

According to Wikipedia, Moroccan Arabic is one of the most innovative (in the technical sense of "least conservative") of all Arabic dialects. Moroccan Arabic continues to integrate new French words, mainly technological and modern words. However, in recent years, constant exposure to revived classical forms on television and in print media and a certain desire among many Moroccans for a revitalisation of an Arab identity has inspired many Moroccans to integrate words from Standard Arabic, replacing their French or Spanish counterparts or even speaking in Modern Standard Arabic while keeping the Moroccan accent to sound less pedantic. The phenomenon mostly occurs among literate people.

Though rarely written, Moroccan Arabic is currently undergoing an unexpected and pragmatic revival. It is now the preferred language in Moroccan chat rooms or for sending SMS, using Arabic Chat Alphabet composed of Latin letters supplemented with the numbers 2, 3, 5, 7 and 9 for coding specific Arabic sounds, as is the case with other Arabic speakers.

There exists some poetry written in Moroccan Arabic like the Malhun. In the 1970s the legendary Nass El Ghiwane band wrote beautiful and allusive lyrics in Moroccan Arabic that were very appealing to the youth even in other Maghreb countries.

Another interesting movement is the development of an original rap music scene, which explores new and innovative usages of the language.

However, despite the dominance of the language at the social level, the move to include it in textbooks has created a divisive reaction. Mohamed Younsi, writing for Kiosque360 reports that the debate launched and revived on the issue of the introduction of the Moroccan dialect in education has completely derailed, descending into insult, defamation and unbecoming behaviour that tarnish the image of the actors involved in this controversy.

Morocco’s Ministry of Education has defended a textbook with content written in Darija, saying that it is “purely for educational purposes.”

Images of multiple pages in Arabic primary school textbooks have caused social media uproar because they contain words used in Darija, the unwritten Moroccan dialect of Arabic, instead of pure standard Arabic.

The texts include names of Moroccan traditional clothing and dishes in Darija, such as “ghriyba” (a Moroccan cookie), “baghrir” (Moroccan crepes), and “briouat” (a sweet/savory puff pastry).

Despite the defence from the Ministry of Education, the head of government, Saad Eddine El Othmani, made a public statement against the use of Darija in school books for primary education. El Othmani made it clear that he believes Darija cannot be used in education. He said the government is ready to give up on school books with some Darija words after a consultation between the concerned parties.

El Othmani said the two official languages in Morocco are standard Arabic and Tamazight (Berber) as recognised by the Moroccan constitution.

The head of government, Saad Eddine El Othmani

For his part, Noureddine Ayouch has referred to his critics as “dogs.” Ayouch is a member of Morocco’s Supreme Council for Education, Training, and Scientific Research, is suffering a backlash after strongly defending the use of Darija in the Moroccan education system.

Some activists, scholars, academics, and sociologists have heavily criticised Ayouch’s belief that Darija should be included in the education system. In response, Ayouch said that “the dogs may bark but the caravan moves on.”

Noureddine Ayouch is a member of the Standing Committee on Curricula, Programs, Training and Didactic Tools of the Higher Council of Education, Training and Scientific Research (CSEFRS) has called his detractors as "dogs", reports the daily Al Ahdath Al Maghribia in its edition of Thursday, September 13th. "They are dogs that deserve no respect",he said. He argues that the use of Darija is not a danger to the Arabic language, and should facilitate student learning.

Noureddine Ayouch

For years, Ayouch has called on the government to include Darija in the education system and in 2016 Ayouch announced that he would launch the first online Darija dictionary in Morocco.

However, this approach provoked a virulent reaction by Salafist preacher Sheikh El Fizazi, who called Ayouch "ignorant"and working for a foreign lobby that encourages, supports and funds "this calamitous option with dramatic consequences".

Between the two blocks so diametrically opposed, the PJD MP Amina Maelainine, a member of the same Commission within the same Council, reacted by sending the ball back to the camp of the Higher Council of Education, Training and Research (CSEFRS) and the Ministry of National Education. "After marathon debates around the architecture of the language in the strategic vision of educational reform, there was no mention of the Moroccan dialect," she clearly decided and said that the Council did not have the competence to introduce the Darija in the teaching or to intervene in the school programs or in the edition of the manuals, specifying that this field concerns prerogatives of the Ministry of National Education.

Morocco is a multicultural country with a number of spoken languages and dialects, including Tamazight (Berber) and Hassani, a Sahrawi language. Will the new school books confuse students whose mother tongue is Hassani or Tamazight, not Darija? The Moroccan constitution only recognises Tamazight and standard Arabic. It may be time to change the constitution to include Darija - the language of the people.


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Improbable Meetings at Morocco's National Library

The long weekend of 9-10 and 11 October at the National Library of the Kingdom of Morocco in Rabat will showcase unlikely encounters between: city dwellers and artists, musicians and artisans from the High Atlas Mountains

Ayt Bou Oulli

The meetings will be on several levels. For example, the Al Boughaz Association from Tangier has paired up with  an association of the valley of the Ayt Bou Oulli - the Anegbi Abachkou Association of Central High Atlas - and have worked together on a project and exhibition of Ibn Battuta frescoes recalling his "extraordinary journey in the valley the Ayt Bou Oulli ".  The artworks have  been developed by the children of the valley schools and children from schools in Tangier throughout the school year 2015-2016.

Ait Bou Oulli is a small town and rural commune in Azilal Province of the Tadla-Azilal region of Morocco. The commune had a total population of 9493.

Ibn Battuta's extraordinary journey in the valley the Ayt Bou Oulli 

In a similar fashion  carpet weavers from Ayt Bou Oulli will work alongside those from urban Rabat Salé and  group of singers and dancers the Ahwach from the valley of Ayt Bou Oulli will perform with a choir from Rabat.

The work of carpet weavers from the valley of Ayt Bou Oulli

There will also be poetry and demonstrations of weaving as well as debates  on sustainable development and, importantly, the language struggle between Arabic and  Darija.

The debate over language  should be of great interest. It takes place on Saturday, October 10, 2015 at 9.30 am. The tussle between Arabic and Darija is a hot topic, particularly in education, where for a long time a child's mother tongue - Amazigh or Darija - was ignored in favour of Arabic (Fosha).

Mother tongue is the language in which the mother brought her child to the symbolic, namely the power to name things and objects. It is now recognised that loss of the mother tongue has a very negative effect. It produces what is termed "language castration" which can result in diminished ability to access poetry, literature and storytelling.

Darija is the vernacular, spoken by the people. It is not written, so is undisciplined by a grammar and rules and thus free to evolve, adapt, and create new words, It is the living testimony to the creativity of the people.

Arabic Fosha (or classical Arabic) is primarily a written language with grammatical rules were set by the Persian Sibawaih in his book Al Kitab, which is indicative of the trend of "the defeated" to adopt and defend language of the "winners". It is the language controlled by the political elite, religious and economic classes, including the Ulama (literally "those who know"). This is the quintessential scholarly language, language of literature, poetry, diplomatic and administrative writings.

The full programme of the exhibitions and debates can be downloaded HERE

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An American perspective on Moroccan Arabic

Darija (Arabic: الدارجة‎), means "everyday/colloquial language"and is spoken by around 30 million people in Morocco. For visitors Darija may seem difficult at first, but more and more expats and students are studying Darija in preference to French

Darija shares the majority of its vocabulary with standard Arabic, but it also includes significant borrowings from Berber (Tamazight) as well as extensive borrowings from French, and to a lesser extent Castilian Spanish and even Italian.

Darija is spoken and to various extents mutually understood in the Maghreb countries, especially Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia, but can often be unintelligible to speakers of other Arabic dialects. Darija continues to evolve by integrating new French or English words, notably in technical fields, or by replacing old French and Spanish ones with Standard Arabic words within some circles.

Recently the Morocco World News ran an interesting article by an American on the Moroccan dialect.

Katrina Bushko writes...

I love the Arabic that is spoken here in Morocco, which is interesting because not very many people do. I remember when I was here over the summer that many of my friends did not like the darija class that we took for an hour a day in June. Some complained that it was too hard; others, that it was useless (indeed, native speakers of Egyptian or Levantine Arabic usually find it impossible to understand Moroccan Arabic).

But not me. I loved that class because I found it not only easier than Modern Standard Arabic (MSA, fusha), but also useful. The other dialects are closer to fusha, so if I were to go to Egypt or Syria or Lebanon, many people would be able to understand me if I spoke in MSA. In Morocco, however, there are few similarities with the classical Arabic, and so it is in a sense its very own language.

I will be the first to say that initially, darija is not a pretty language. It’s difficult to understand because of the lack of vowel pronunciation, the difference in verb conjugation, and the frequent use of the harsh consonant “?” that is absent in most other dialects. But after being in Morocco for a total of 3.5 months already (non-consecutive, of course), my ear has slowly been fine-tuning itself to understanding more and more of this language. And the more that I understand, the more beautiful it becomes to me.

I have grown to appreciate the way that Moroccans speak, as well. Last semester, I took an Egyptian Colloquial Arabic class that greatly improved my overall speaking skills. I noticed that the manner in which we were trained to speak is very different from the Moroccan style.

For example, the word (yaa-nee) is frequently used in Egyptian to indicate the common English word “like” (as in, the “like” that teenagers often use as a sentence filler); however, I have barely noticed this word being used in the Moroccan dialect. I recently asked my roommate what the Moroccan equivalent would be, and she said that it was (zaa-ma). And although they both have the same purpose, I hear (zaa-ma) used much less frequently than my Egyptian Colloquial professor used (yaa-nee). Of course, this is only one of the many, many differences between the dialects.

As for my own speaking and understanding, I think that by now I have a basic grasp of Moroccan Arabic. I can get around pretty easily by myself without relying on French (indeed, my grasp of French pretty much boils down to, je ne comprends pas français.). I can order food, buy bus or train tickets, converse with hostel owners about myself and what I would like from the hostel, among other vital things that are important to know for everyday life (for example, whenever I’m asked if I know Arabic, my automatic response is (shwii-ya), or, “a little”). As for understanding, I can understand a lot of what shopkeepers say to me regarding price and their wares, and I can pick up bits and pieces of everyday conversation. But the most useful tool in understanding something in a language that you don’t know well is body language.

There have been many a time where I have had to rely mostly on the point of a finger or a gesture of a hand. For example, when my friends and I went to Meknes and stayed in a hostel deep in the heart of the medina, I had to continuously stop and ask for directions to Bab Mansour, a well-known gate that faces the main entrance to the souq. In order to understand what these temporary guides were saying, I had to piece together my knowledge of darija with their hand movements.

The great thing about asking for directions is that it is universal to respond with hand motions, meaning that when someone says that you must turn left, they usually give you a signal pointing left. So as I watched their body language and listened carefully for words I knew (i.e. take the SECOND left after the green door, not the first), I was able to lead us out of the maze that is the medina of Meknes.

Although I will be in Morocco for four months this semester, I know that I will not be going back to the United States fluent in either fusha or darija. I will, however, become more familiar with the dialect here and (inshallah) be able to hold some type of conversation for a good amount of time. And of course, having a Moroccan boyfriend was a great advantage in this area.

Katrina Bushko

Katrina Bushko is a senior at Princeton University majoring in Political Philosophy with minors in Arabic and Near Eastern Studies. Her love for Morocco came about in the summer 2012, when she attended the ARANAS program at Al Akhawayn University in Ifrane.

Reprinted from Morocco World News with permission.

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Public Discourse in Morocco ~ Moroccan Arabic or Modern Standard Arabic?

The debate about the status of Darija versus Modern Standard Arabic (MSA), is an ongoing one in Morocco. And it is complicated by the fact that many well educated Moroccans preferring to speak French, despite it being the language of the previous colonial rulers. And then, of course, there are the Amazigh languages. But now the debate surrounds politicians and their ability (or not) to speak good Arabic

Some politicians are fluent in what can be described as pre-French Darija which is spoken by older and more conservative people. It is the dialect that can be found in texts and poems of Malhoun, and Andalusi music for example. Later, in the 1970s, traditionalist bands like Nass El Ghiwane and Jil Jilala followed this course, and only sang in "classical Darija". However, for politicians MSA is required in parliament.

While Darija rules in the streets and Amazigh languages predominate in some rural and mountain areas, in business French and MSA battle it out for the top spot. And all the while English is growing as the second language of choice of many modern younger Moroccans. The push for English has been boosted by it being a requirement for many hi-tech and tourism jobs.

Back in the parliament the struggle with MSA is causing some red faces and a fair amount of amusement to the public. Several news sites, including Morocco World News and news outlet Alyaoum24, have been reporting that Moroccan ministers are struggling to make speeches in Arabic. It is unclear if this is because they belong to the circles who prefer to speak French, or simply a lack of what is supposedly basic education.

In the majority of their speeches and presentations, either before the parliament or during their general meetings, some Moroccan ministers display a weak command of Arabic, which continues to shock Moroccans, and sometimes even trigger their mockery.

Among these Arabic-unfriendly ministers, Alyaoum24 mentions, is the businessman Moulay Hafid El Alami, who’s been appointed minister of Commerce, Industry and New Technologies.

According to the same source, Mr. El Alami started off one of his presentations on his ministry’s budget saying, “Please, bear with me, this is my first presentation in Arabic after 53 years.” The Minister is 53 years old.

During his presentation, the minister endeavoured to speak in Modern Arabic, making a number of major grammatical mistakes, which led him to eventually continue his presentation in Moroccan Arabic.

Ironically, the minister who feels the most embarrassed because of his weak command of Arabic is, according to Alyaoum24, the minister of National Education, Mr. Rachid Belmokhtar, pictured left.

Iike his fellow minister of Commerce, Industry and New Technologies, the minister of National Education in turn made a bunch of major mistakes while presenting his ministry’s budget, which made some MPs wonder what would happen if some students learned of the major mistakes the minister of Education himself makes.

Comment in the cafes of Fez is pretty standard "They should be proud to speak Darija," says Youssef a forty-two year old businessman. "If they stuck to our own language they would not embarrass themselves."

In her small hairdressing salon, Ayicha is not impressed by the linguistic gaffs. "In any case we speak Amazigh at home. But the politicians probably don't understand it. So they should speak Darija".

While Arabic remains Morocco’s official language, its use in the government does not reflect its status and importance as an official language.

On the other hand, Moroccan Arabic, an unofficial and unwritten language, and the language predominantly spoken across the kingdom, is the one that seems to enjoy considerable prestige within today’s Moroccan government. And why not? It is, after all, the language of the people


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Funny Money In Morocco ~ The Real Problem with Riyals

Although Moroccans have an official currency - the dirham - they also have an informal currency - the riyal and so, buying vegetables or fruit in a Moroccan souk can sometimes be extremely confusing, even for people who have spent a lot of time in the country and understand the local language 

You see a sign saying (for example) pomegranates  are 15 dirhams a kilo. You ask for a kilo and the store holder says that will be 300! What he has done is quote the price in riyals, rather than dirhams. The fact that riyals don't actually exist anymore is not important, but that people think in them. To make matters more confusing, you can also be told a price in francs.

Matthew Schumann, a Fulbright Scholar, explains the system.

There are two currency systems used in Morocco. One is that of the dirham, the official Moroccan currency that is printed on bills and coins. The other currency is the riyal, an old Moroccan currency which is no longer exists, but is still used by Moroccans to value purchases both small and large. 1 dirham is equal to 20 riyals.

In other words, the riyal is to the dirham, as the nickel is to the dollar. Only, imagine that nickels no longer existed in reality, but stayed in our minds as a way to describe the prices of things. So, the money in your pocket would be dollars, and you would use dollars to buy everything, but you think of prices in nickels.

Understanding the relationship between dirhams and riyals is key to making sense of Morocco's marketplaces. Knowing that sometimes the prices you hear are riyals and not dirhams can save you both money and frustration.

If the riyal were American...

Imagine that when you go to the store, the prices are listed in dollars but in your head you value everything in nickel. When you see the label on a $3.50 gallon of milk you think, "That's worth 70 nickels". In your mind, a $4.00 loaf of bread is 80 nickels.

At the mall, you ask a clerk how much a pair of jeans is worth. He tells you it's 600 nickels and you check the tag which reads $30. Every month your cell phone bill is 1600 nickels and your gym membership costs 1000 nickels. You got a great price on your new Prius, only paying 440,000 nickels. You live in Colorado and can't believe that your friends in pay 36,000 nickels a month for a 1 bedroom apartment in Brooklyn.

This is exactly how the riyal exists alongside the dirham in Morocco, and they are used in such a way in some of the same situations described above.

When riyals are used instead of dirhams:

Buying fruits, vegetables and other foods in the souq, especially foods sold by the kilo. For example, while the price of potatoes might be listed on a sign as 6 dirhams a kilo, the vendor may state the price as 120 riyals.

Buying used clothing and other used goods in the souq. Walking through a used clothing market you frequently hear prices in the hundreds. A pair of jeans might be 600, a sweater 400. But those are riyals not dirhams.

For small purchases whose totals are less than a dirham or include change. For example instead of saying something is 1.50 dirhams one would say 30 riyals.

For apartment rent and other similar big purchases. Moroccans will describe their rent in the tens of thousands of riyals. 20,000 a month is 1000 dirhams, 40,000 is 2,000 dirhams. Sometimes these values are abbreviated to

Buying from or selling to illiterate or uneducated people. At least 40% of Moroccan cannot read or write. They still use paper money and coins but cannot understand their printed value in dirhams and rather understand them in their riyal value.

When riyals are not used:

Supermarkets and other 'fancy' stores do not use riyals. Supermarkets have to be precise with their pricing and will give change down to the centeme, the equivalent of a penny. Boutiques and touristy stores will also use dirhams.

Taxi meters are in dirhams and the decimals are centemes. Taxi fares are always rounded up or down to the nearest dirham.

Any price in a newspaper or magazine, or in an advertisement will be in dirhams.

Real Estate purchases, if not described in riyals, is also described in centemes. So it's not uncommon to hear prices in the millions and tens of millions. If a price sounds too high, convert it into either riyals or centemes, and ask for clarification.

How to convert riyals to dirhams and vice versa

To go from dirhams to riyals multiply by 20, and to go from riyals to dirhams divide by 20.

This video features Moroccans describing the prices of various goods in riyals. Watching this video will help you to familiarize yourself with the riyal and will give you an opportunity to practice convert between riyals and dirhams in your head.



Want to learn more about Morocco and Moroccan Arabic? Click here for a list of  Moroccan Arabic lessons.

Matt Schumann is a Fulbright, English Teacher at the S.M. Ben-Abdellah University in Fes, Morocco. He is a graduate of Rice University . He worked as the Editor in Chief and Publisher of the the Rice Standard magazine. He is familiar with the world of journalism and online media and writes on current issues.

Reposted with permission:    More from Matt here

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Women in Moroccan Proverbs ~ Part Two

The informative Morocco World News recently published a fascinating article by Meryem Fati ~ The Representation of Women in Moroccan Proverbs. This is the second of two articles on the subject and concentrates on Moroccan proverbs that deal with womens issues. The proverbs are organised under different labels so as to be able to distinguish between the positive and negative ones.

Inferiority

1. ‘Ana beshedek lfemou w houwa bela’oud la’iniya’/‘ I give him a loaf of bread, he threatens me with a stick.’

This proverb shows how women try to please men but still they are seen as inferior. Women try always to make men feel comfortable but they are usually badly rewarded.

2. ‘la’ateq feddar a’ar’/ ‘It is a shame to have a single woman at home.’

The proverb means that it is shameful to keep single women at home. This is mainly because the Moroccan society sees that the place of women is in their husband’s house. Sociolinguistically speaking Moroccans tend to use the word ‘a’teq’ to treat single young women. This word has a negative connotation within certain communities.

3. ‘lemera lhourra matakoul ghir men yed rajlha’/‘A good woman is the one who eats only from her husband’s hand.’

Women should always submit to men’s power. The proverb says that the faithful woman is the one who eats from the hand of her husband. Therefore, women should be limited and secluded in a specific atmosphere dictated by society.

Weakness

1. a’egouza we qebtat shefar / though she is old she caught a thief

Women in our society are seen as weak species. This proverb questions the ability of an old woman to catch a thief. Old women are called in the Moroccan society as a’gouza and this has a negative meaning since it is loaded with bad connotations.

2. “llahoumma bekhousha we tweness wala yaqouta we tehewess”/I would rather be with an insect to keep my company than a gorgeous woman that will bother me.

The proverb says that it will be better for a man to marry a weak woman rather than a beautiful and powerful one. The weak woman is referred to as ‘bekhousha’ which is a weak insect. Women have different names in our Moroccan society that range from positive to negative ones.

Stupidity

1. “lemera feddar a’emara wakha tekoun hmara“/a woman has a value in the house even if she could be like a donkey.

Women in this proverb are compared to a donkey. As far as language in society is concerned ‘hmara’ mainly refers to stupidity. Nevertheless, some people claim that this proverb is a positive one since it sees that women bring joy within their family even if they are stupid.

Ill-nature

1. “dreb hlima heta teboul li ferasha mayzoul”/even if you beat hlima till she urinates, she will never forget what she has in her mind.

The proverb says that even if you beat a woman hardly she will never resit. This shows the ill nature of women. Women here are referred to by the proper name ‘hlima.’

2. “llah yenejjik men lmechetaq ila faq we men lbayra ila derbat ssedaq“/may god save you from a person who yearns for something and from a single woman who is getting married.

In this proverb we have another kind of women (single old ones) that are incapable of giving birth. They are referred to as ‘bayra’. It has also a negative meaning since the proverb warns people from this kind of women especially when they have the opportunity to get engaged.

3. “Lleben we zzebda kanou khwatat ma ferqouhoum ghir la’yalat”/milk and butter were sister and women separated them.

The proverb claims that women are responsible for breaking relationships.

4. “Low kant merat la’ab hbiba tkoun llefa’a tbiba“/If the step-mother were affectionate, the snake would be a healer.

The proverb shows the ill nature of the step-mother.

Sex object

1. “lhejala dewaha a’end rejjala“/men are the remedy of divorced women.

The only cure for ‘lhejala’, who is a woman that is divorced, is men. Here women are seen as a sex object since they can not live without the presence of a masculine authority.

2. “Ma hddeha tkaki we hiya tzid flbid“/ as she cackles she lays eggs.

Women here are compared to chicken. They are seen as a species that are born to give children.

3. “Mera bela rajl a’esh bela bertal”/a woman without man is like a nest without a bird.

Women who do not have men in their lives are like a bird with no nest. Women can not live without men.

Ugliness

1. A’wejet rrejlin beghat rajel zine/she, who has crippled legs, wants a handsome man.

The proverb says that an ugly woman does not have to ask for a beautiful man. Nevertheless, we can have the contrary in our society. In this proverb the woman is referred to by ‘a’wejet rrejline.’

2. “koul khenfoussa a’end yemmaha ghezala“/every beetle is a gazelle in her mother’s eyes.

Everybody judges what he has as the best of all. One’s child is always the most beautiful and the most intelligent. One does not like the others to criticize or underestimate one’s children. Every mother sees her offspring as beautiful though in the others’ eyes it is not.

Positive

1. “Lli ma a’endou sidou a’endou lalah“/who does not have a men, he has a woman.

The proverb says that if men are not capable of solving some problems, women can do it.

2. “Lli maqederat tekoun nejma fessema tekoun shemea’a feddar“/a woman who could not be a star in the sky can be a candle at home.

The proverb says that if women can not be stars in the sky they can be candles in their house.

This proverb gives a good value to women. It depicts them as being the ones who bring love, happiness, and peace within their family.

3. “Zzine febenatna selala men la’ema lekhala“/beauty in our family is diffused from one generation to the other.

The proverb shows that beauty is inherent in families.

Shrewd

1. “Dirha ferrjal we nesaha we dirha fe nessa we terjjaha“/do something bad to men and forget it, do the same to women and hope nothing will happen.

The proverb says that if a person does something bad to men they can forget about it. However, if they do it to women they will pay for it sooner or later.

2. “Lli kaya’emlou yebliss fea’am tea’melou la’gouza fessaa’a“/what you can learn from Satan in a year you can learn it from an old woman in an hour.

In this proverb women are compared to Satan. This mainly says that they may be devilish.

3. “Yalli tenadi qeddam lebab nadi we koun fahem ma yefessed bin lehbab ghir nessa we dderahm”/he who calls next our door know that nothing ruins relationships but women and money.

The proverb says that women are one of the major causes for breaking relationships.

Women are treated badly in Moroccan proverbs. According to the proverbs women have limited functions. They are either mothers, step mothers, mothers in law, wives, daughters in law, widows, or prostitutes. As it has been shown before, people within a society can determine the status of others. In our case women are either talkative, ugly, shrewd, sex objects, weak, inferior to men, or ill-natured.

The language that is used in proverbs in order to refer to women is mainly conventional within the Moroccan society. People created different names to refer to women. These words were used in proverbs and combined with other words in order to explain a state of mind. In addition, the language that is used show that women are static. They are either a’gouza, bayra, a’roussa and other ones. Women are generally thought of to be kind, soft and a symbol of tenderness. Therefore, the language of the majority of proverbs shows them as creatures that need to be treated like animals or as a dangerous gender since they have a devilish side.

Society can shape a certain view by using a specific diction. Language is very important within society. It has many hidden effects and contributes in enhancing moral values within a certain community. Most of people argued that the language of proverbs favours men rather than women. As far as the age and gender variables are concerned, people from all ages and especially women see that the language of proverbs came to make women inferior to men.

Lot of researchers tried to see if language in general is sexist or not. Therefore, tentative replies to this question showed that one can not claim that language is sexist, but rather it is the people who are sexist as these differences do not stem from the language but from the mentality of the people who speak it. People are the ones who shape language according to their values, beliefs, norms and traditions.

In a society like Morocco we can say that we have a lot of stereotypical images about women. These images can be seen as the major factor that makes of a language a sexist one. Moroccan Arabic (darija) is full of words that have bad connotations about women. Most of the proverbs that were studied showed that there are sexist expressions that are used to refer badly to women. This pushes us to say that the linguistic distinction between the sexes is much more cultural than linguistic. Men and women are given different roles in the Moroccan society and this is clearly reflected in the language of proverbs.

In order to free a language from stereotypical images one should first identify an area in which they are mostly used. Proverbs are one of the areas that can serve this purpose. Since they are part of the cultural heritage of societies it would be hard to fight them. However, the best solution would be to sensitise people about the importance of reducing sexist language from their speech. One can also target the educational system by designing text books that reinforce non-sexist language. This can be very successful since it could be transmitted from one generation to the other. Furthermore, media can play a great role in doing so and this by making people aware of the harm that they can cause to each other.

Meryem Fati is currently a doctoral student at the Faculty of Education, Mohammed V- souissi- Rabat, Morocco. She is working on cross- cultural communication. She was a Fulbright scholar and affiliate at Kansas University. She is a language and communication instructor at Mohamed V university- Agdal- Rabat, Morocco. She participated in Moroccan and international conferences and she served as a co- translator of Khadija: the First Muslim and the Wife of the Prophet Muhammad By Resit Haylamaz.

You can read Part One here

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Women in Moroccan Proverbs - Part One

The informative Morocco World News recently published a fascinating article by Meryem Fati ~ The Representation of Women in Moroccan Proverbs.  This is the first of two articles on the subject. Here is part one

Photo: Suzanna Clarke

The Representation of Women in Moroccan Proverbs (Part I)

1. ‘Lamra ghir mra; ma hiya la shams wala gamra’/ ‘The woman is only but a woman. She’s neither a sun nor a moon.’

2. ‘Lamra bla w’lad b7al alkhima bla w’tad’/ ‘childless woman is like a tent without pillars.’

3. ‘Low kant m’rat lab 7′biba, 7atta allaf3a t’koun t’biba’/ ‘If the step-mother were affectionate, the snake would be a healer’

4. ‘Lli ma3andou M’mou laqbar ighammou’/ ‘He, who is motherless, he is as if dead’

Day after day, we witness the emergence of new words or expressions in our society and this for specific purposes. These creations start in small communities and then creep wisely to reach the wide society. Each person has a way of expressing himself/ herself. Some prefer to keep silent and some use language. Others opt for another register that is proverbs.

Proverbs as traditional wisdom are never absent from the Moroccan daily speech. As a member of the Moroccan society, a sharer of its values and an active participant in proverbs’ use, I have been surrounded with proverbs everywhere in my daily life. They are prevalent in daily conversations, at home, school, ceremonies and all the other Moroccan social occasions. Moroccan people use them to solve their daily conflicts and support their arguments.

Proverbs are sociolinguistic phenomena. They are used for specific purposes and to discuss particular issues. Therefore, this article will be more concerned with the study of proverbs in relation to women.

Moroccan Arabic (darija) is characterized by the use of proverbs and idiomatic expressions. Most of Moroccan people tend to use proverbs in their every day language either to give more meaning to what they are saying or simply to transmit hidden messages. Basically, People use proverbs in different domains and try to adapt them to different situations (education, health, marriage, divorce, ceremonies….). Nevertheless, most of these proverbs are used in relation to gender. Men and women are treated differently in proverbs. Since the language of proverbs is a misleading one, we expect that proverbs which deal with women issues to have specific characteristics. Therefore, we can ask the following questions:

Does the language of proverbs treat women in a specific way which is different from everyday language?
How do Moroccans react to such a treatment?
How does the language of proverbs treat gender?
Can we say that proverbs show women as inferior to men?
The article’s aim is to attempt to find answers to the questions and related concerns so as to draw a picture of the way the language of proverbs represent Moroccan women.

Language is full of sexist expressions. Therefore, it would be of a great interest to decipher sexist instances from a specific area which would be in our case, proverbs. Proverbs are used by many people in different situations. However, it had been argued by many researchers that the language of proverbs is a mere reflection of sexism. Most of the proverbs come in favor of men and illustrate women as inferior species.

An idiom is acknowledged to be a sequence of words functioning as a single unit whose meaning can not be inferred from the meaning of the parts. In the repertoire of any language, idiomatic expressions constitute a special category of lexical items presenting a fixed structure and a specific behaviour in language use. Proverbs, frozen similes, aphorisms, binomials, sayings, etc., are spontaneous manifestations of colloquial language whose use needs to be mastered in much the same way as individual lexical items.

A proverb is a traditional saying which offers advice or presents a moral in a short and pithy manner (Simpson/Speake 1998[1]). In an attempt to categorize proverbs in three main groups, the above-mentioned authors state that proverbs fall readily into three main categories. Those of the first type take the form of abstract statements expressing general truths. Proverbs of the second type, which include many of the more colourful examples, use specific observations from everyday experience to make a point which is general; for instance, You can take a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink and Don’t put all your eggs in one basket. The third type of proverbs comprises sayings from particular areas of traditional wisdom and folklore. In this category are found, for example, the health proverbs after dinner rest a while, after supper walk a mile. In addition, there are traditional country proverbs which relate to husbandry, the seasons, and the weather, such as Red sky at night, shepherd’s delight; red sky in the morning, shepherd’s warning and When the wind is in the east, this is neither good for man nor beast.”

Proverbs are a sociolinguistic archetype that is used rhetorically to encapsulate different kinds of social attitudes into a limited number of stylized utterances. They are used spontaneously in relation to an immediate context. In sociolinguistic terms, proverbs represent a social use of metaphors which generally seen as ambiguous by their very nature, even when not applied to a social situation. Proverbs are mostly used to bring conversations to a halt because they present a concluding observation. The complexity of proverbs’ use can be matched only by the complexity of social, cultural and cognitive structures involved in the act of uttering and understanding proverbs themselves. Proverbs hold the paradoxical quality of using the concrete to express the abstract. Proverbs can be considered as a socializing tool. They often function as an indirect way of making people come together under one unified community.

Photo: Suzanna Clarke

Some women are oppressed throughout the world. Even in parts of the world where race and gender differences in educational and other social achievements are said to have nearly disappeared, gender equity has not yet been attained. There are complex social, political, and legal bases for the exploitation, denigration and exclusion of women in a society. In a gendered culture the religious, legal, political, educational and material institutions both create and reinforce expectations about how men and women should behave. Expectations about how men and women should behave in their society are the most fundamental distinctions made between people rooted in patriarchy.

Without understanding this complexity, it is difficult to address the real needs of women. Women have been victims of gender ideology. Gender ideology is a systematic set of cultural beliefs through which a society constructs and wields its gender relations and practices. Gender ideology contains legends, narratives and myths about what it means to be a man or a woman and suggests how each should behave in the society. A society’s gender ideology is grounded largely in religious and social principles, which are then used as grounds to justify differences.

All in all, ‘hatta mash ma h’rab man dar l’arse’/ ‘No cat has ever fled from a house where a wedding party is held’. one may wonder the relation between this proverb and the treated subject. In fact, it simply implies that the writer of this article will not stop here since the second part of this article will provide a detailed analysis of some Moroccan proverbs that deal with women. Stay tuned.

Meryem Fati is currently a doctoral student at the Faculty of Education, Mohammed V- souissi- Rabat, Morocco. She is working on cross- cultural communication. She was a Fulbright scholar and affiliate at Kansas University. She is a language and communication instructor at Mohamed V university- Agdal- Rabat, Morocco. She participated in Moroccan and international conferences and she served as a co- translator of Khadija: the First Muslim and the Wife of the Prophet Muhammad By Resit Haylamaz.

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Tragedy strikes Star-crossed Lovers in Tangier Kasbah

This week in the Kasbah of Tangier, tragedy strikes two star-crossed lovers from rival clans. Joe Lukawski reports from Tangier for The View from Fez.

Mouna Rmiki

The original musical “F7ali F7alek” (Like me, like you) inspired by the West Side Story brings the Sharks and Jets, and classics like Bernstein’s “Somewhere” from the West Side to contemporary Tangier. Here, Tony (who is “really called Kerim”) and Maria get tangled in a fight for neighborhood dominance between their families, one from Tangier and the other from ‘the Dakhl,’ the provinces in local parlance.

Sponsored by the American Language Center of Tanger through a grant from the US Embassy in Rabat to the American Cultural Association, the show dreamed up by American theater director and Fulbright scholar to Tangier, George Bajalia and translated by Zakaria Alilech is a one of a kind experience for everyone involved. The entire show is performed in Darija, the everyday language of Morocco, as opposed to classical Arabic or French, as most other theater is here.

“I think for people to appreciate a story, to identify with it or learn from it, they have to be comfortable,” Bajalia said with the port of Tangier at his back. “When the audience sits before the stage, they see laundry hanging. They see a café that could well be the one in their street, and they feel comfortable in a familiar space. It is only natural that they identify more with a story told in their everyday language and the language of the street.”

For most of the actors, some professionals and some first-timers, F7ali F7alek is the first show they’ve done in Darija. However, despite the novelty of acting in Darija, the show is interpreted naturally and with the force of realism characteristic of Bajalia’s previous work. The lightness of the bridal shop scene and dance scene, and the tragedy of Mustapha’s death are rendered gorgeously by Rabat native actress Mouna Rmiki.

“I took the essence of what I thought was Maria and made it my own,” she said, “and tried to adapt it to a Moroccan context. There’s no process, really. It’s something within me.”

Sufjan Mazin

The soundtrack is a mix of classics from the West Side Story accompanied by classical Andalusian music performed by Abnae wa Binat Zaryab of Fez Festival fame. Sufjan Mazin plays the hopeless romantic Tony and delivers superbly. His vocal range is incredible, and his performance of “Maria” is nothing short of breathtaking.

“I find it comfortable to sing in English because we all know the songs from the film,” he said. “It was challenging to sing though, because the composer is so well known and you really can’t touch the original. The arrangement is perfect, so it’s beautiful to sing these classic songs even if the rest of the play is brand new.”

A real international exchange, a mix of Broadway and the Petit Soco, F7ali F7alek’s opening night drew an interested crowd of locals and foreigners alike. The show’s producer, Tony award nominated Tom Casserly, admits the challenges of working across cultures and language barriers, but emphasizes the learning experience had by everyone involved in the show. With little to no time left before opening night, Bajalia and Casserly taught musicians to play Bernstein, taught lighting technicians used to marriages and concerts to light a play, and learned from their cast of talented young Moroccans as well as their locally-hired crew who came through to help them open the show.

A few technical wrinkles in the show remain to be ironed out, but for Bajalia, the show must go on.

“It is important to share these stories,” he said. “We may come from different cultures or speak different languages, but in the theatre we are all equal in front of the story, the actors and the music. This has been a learning experience for everyone, and in the end, that’s why I do theatre.”

F7ali F7alek is running every night at 19h through Saturday the 10th at the Kasbah Museum in Tangier. Admission is free, and a one of a kind experience in Morocco is guaranteed.

Story: Joe Lukawski
Photos: Omar Chennafi

For more information, visit: http://www.f7alif7alek.com

Visit Joe Lukawski: http://joelukawski.wordpress.com


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Want to Learn Moroccan Arabic in Fez?

ALIF Riad - photo Suzanna Clarke

A new series of Darija classes are starting soon courtesy of the Arabic Language Institute Fes, (part of the American Language Center), at the beautiful ALIF riad near Batha.

The level of the classes can be adjusted to suit the participants.

They will be held on Mondays and Wednesdays from 6 to 7.30pm for five weeks. The cost of the course is 1,500 dh. Classes will commence when there is a minimum of three students.

For further information and enrolment please contact:

Linda Bouchard
Assistant to the Director, ALIF
Arabic Language Institute in Fez, Morocco
Phone: 212-535-62 48 50
info@alif-fes.com

ALIF Riad, 6 Derb Drissi, Batha, Fez Medina.

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"Kif-kif" and "Kif" are not kif-kif !

In a local coffee shop here in Fez, two tourists were having a loud argument. Judging by the number of Arabic words being bandied about, it seemed clear that they had spent a fair bit of time in North Africa or the Middle East. The subject of their heated discussion was the word "Kif" and its relationship to "kif-kif".

In the old days "Kayf" was classical Arabic for "relaxation or pleasure". Nowadays it's modern descendant "kif" has become one of the most widely used terms for dope, grass or weed. In Morocco a sebsi or sibsi (plural: s'basa ), is a traditional pipe (pictured below) used to smoke the finely clipped pieces of cannabis.

One of the amazing things about language is its ability to leap from culture to culture around the world. In the case of "kif", it sprang from Arabic and now appears in English, Dutch, German, French and probably a lot more. But, as as the arguing coffee drinkers were explaining, it can become confused with the expression "kif-kif" which (in Moroccan Arabic), means "the same as" "same same", or "so so". "Kif-kif" has also been adopted into Amazigh.

In French slang le kif is an interest, hobby or something one really likes to do, for example as in my case.... Manger des moelleux au chocolat, c’est mon kif!
 
We did a quick search on the web and discovered that "kiffer" has become a verb too. Je kiffe cette meuf! (I love this girl), Un vrai kiffeur is ‘a true stoner.’Ça, c’est très kif. ‘That’s cool, that is.’

In addition to "kif", "kif-kif" has entered modern French as a slang adjective, courtesy of the migrant population, so one might hear "Le beurre, la margarine, c’est kif-kif, n'est-ce pas? ‘Butter, margarine, it’s all the same, isn’t it?"

My American friends inform me that a "kiffer" is street slang for a nasty character and in German "Du bist ganz gekifft" translates as "You are stoned out of your gourd."

So, next time your pedantic friends start tossing the word "kif" around, you can use the rarely spoken sentence "Kif-kif and kif are not kif-kif."

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Learn to speak Darija in Fez

The new Darija conversation course with the Arabic Language Institute Fez,(ALIF). The classes are once a week in 6 week blocks and start the 2nd and 3rd of March.

J'ai le plaisir de vous addresser au sujet du cours de conversation en Arabe Marocain (Darija) a l'Institut de Langue Arabe Fes (ALIF). Les cours auront lieu une fois par semaine pour six semaines, commencant le 2 et 3 mars

For more details contact: Jess Stephens - Culture Coordinator - (00 212)06 45 22 32 03

Gawriya Jat - art in the Fez Medina

This Friday at Café Clock sees the opening of an exhibition of painting , prints and calligraphy by the talented American artist, Dominique Ellis. The View from Fez caught up with her today as she prepared for the opening. (You can click on any of the images below to enlarge them.)

Dominique Ellis

It is a long way from the University of Nebraska to a small village south of Marrakech, but that was just one part of the journey being undertaken undertaken by Dominique Ellis over the last three years. Dominique is a ceramicist and printmaker and between being a Peace Corps Volunteer in Morocco beginning in 2006 to taking up a Fulbright grant in Cairo in September this year, there was not a lot opportunity for Dominique to actually work at her art. Yet, somehow this hi-octane young woman has done just that.

"Zaz"

Dominique's exhibition is aptly titled Gawriya Jat (The foreign girl came). As Dominique explains, "Firstly, it denotes the foreign non-native speaker that I once was. Secondly, as a foreigner using this term, I hope to generate laughter, humour and positivity."

"Sometimes Qadiya Hamda"

"Mazel Flip"

"Mza3za3"

One of the inspirations for her Dominique's work is Moroccan (Darija) slang. As she explains, "Slang captures a moment of culture and is always at the forefront of the current generation." She adds that "...spoken word is the needle that sews the idea and attitudes of a culture together. In addition, slang lends a vibrancy to the tapestry of language. Having seen some of her work first hand we suggest you make sure you don't miss Dominique's exhibition

Tags: Moroccan Morocco Fes, Maghreb news