Maghreb Arabic

From Free net encyclopedia

Maghreb Arabic is a cover term for the dialects of Arabic spoken in the Maghreb, including Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria, and Libya. Speakers of Maghreb Arabic call their language Derija or Darija, which means "dialect." It is primarily used as a spoken language; written communication is primarily done in Modern Standard Arabic, along with news broadcasting. Derija is used for almost all spoken communication, as well as in TV dramas and on advertising boards in Morocco and Tunisia. Derija is characterized by many borrowings from the languages of the colonizers of North Africa, including France and Spain, as well as independent developments, some of which are most probably due to a Berber substratum. Maghrebi dialects all use n- as the first person singular prefix on verbs, distinguishing them from Middle Eastern dialects and Standard Arabic. They frequently combine French and Spanish roots with Arabic endings to form words; since it is not written, there is no standard and it is free to change quickly and to rapidly pick up new vocabulary from neighboring languages. This is similar to what happened in England when the Normans invaded: Middle English was free to evolve since it did not have a written standard, and it was not the language of the aristocracy but rather of the people.

For several centuries after the Islamic conquest, Arabic was spoken only in cities in the Maghreb. It was only hundreds of years later that it entered the countryside and nomadic areas at the expense of the Berber languages, but these languages coexist to this day.

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