Western (Maghreb) Arabic ('aammiyya)

Introduction

Morocco Ruins

Desert

Introduction
Western, or Magreb, Arabic is a continuum of spoken dialects in the Maghreb (which means 'western' in Arabic), the region of Africa north of the Sahara desert and west of the Nile that includes Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, and Libya. It has a mixed Arab-Berber population that was historically referred to as Moors by the Europeans. The Maghreb varieties include the following, although some classify Libyan together with Egyptian Arabic.

Variety	Number of first-language speakers	Where spoken primarily
Algerian	21.1	Algeria
Moroccan	19.5	Morocco
Tunisian	9.0	Tunisia
Libyan	4.5	Libya

Language use in the Maghreb countries is characterized by diglossia, i.e., proficiency in two languages/dialects, namely local variety and Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) which have specialized functions.

Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) or al-fuSHaa
MSA is a is the official language of Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco, and Libya. It is used in formal situations, such as sermons, lectures, news broadcasts, and speeches, and in all formal writing, such as official correspondence, literature and newspapers. There are no native speakers of MSA, the vast majority of educated Arabs learn it through formal schooling. In addition, many Arabs without formal schooling in MSA can understand it with varying degrees of facility. MSA is quite uniform throughout the Arab world and serves as a lingua franca for speakers of various spoken dialects, some of which are not mutually comprehensible.

Colloquial (spoken) Arabic or 'aammiyya
This term refers to the regional dialects, such as Algerian, Moroccan, Tunisian and Libyan, used in everyday communication and popular culture throughout the region. All colloquial varieties are acquired by children as their first language. Arabs from one region can usually understand dialects from other regions, depending on their geographical proximity. Factors that differentiate colloquial varieties include the influence of languages that were spoken in the area prior to the arrival of the Arabs, neighboring languages, and languages of the colonial powers.

Classical Arabic
This term refers to the written Arabic of the Qur'an and literature of the early period. It became the language of scholarship and religion with the spread of Islam. Its relation to the modern spoken varieties is similar to that of Latin to the modern Romance languages. It is used as the language of religious practice throughout the Islamic world. It is learned formally in school and has changed very little since the 7th century AD.

Morocco
Since Morocco is a former French colony, French continues to be an important language in formal contexts where it competes with MSA, particularly in higher education and in written communication. A good percent of print and electronic media also use French.
Tunisia
The dialect of Tunis, the capital of Tunisia, is used in the media and in language textbooks for foreigners.

Morocco Rabat

Morocco

Morocco Mosque

Dialects

Morocco Marrakech

Dialects
Maghreb dialects form a continuum of varieties that overlap with each other across country borders.

Algeria
Algerian Arabic overlaps with Moroccan Arabic in the west, and Tunisian Arabic in the east. Algerian Saharan Arabic is spoken by some 100,000 people on the border with Morocco along the Atlas Mountains. It is structurally different from all other Maghreb varieties.

Morocco
Moroccan Arabic fades into Algerian Arabic in the east and Libyan Arabic in the south. It has a number of mutually intelligible varieties, associated with urban centers such as Rabat-Casablanca, Fez, Meknes, Tangier, Oujda, and Marrakech. Andalusi Arabic has influenced the dialects of such towns as Fez, Rabat, and Tangier.

Tunisia
Tunisian Arabic overlaps with Algerian Arabic in the west and Libyan Arabic in the south. There are several varieties spoken around Tunis, the capital of Tunisia, and Sfax, as well as in the Sahel region in the east.

Libya
Libyan Arabic can be divided into two major dialect areas. The Eastern dialect area is centered around Benghazi, the second-largest city of Libya. The Western dialect area is spoken around Tripoli, the capital of Libya.

Structure

Sound System

Morocco People

Tunisian Girl

Sound sytem
The sound system of Moroccan Arabic, as representative of the Maghreb dialects, is described below.

Vowels
Unlike MSA, Moroccan Arabic has three stable vowels /i/, /u/, /a/ which can occur in all positions and cannot be deleted or inverted, and three variable vowels /e/, /a/, and /o/ which can be deleted or inverted in certain positions. Deletion and inversion can result in strings of consonants, e.g., sefthom, 'I saw them,' uncharacteristic of other Arabic dialects. This could have occurred under the influence of neighboring Berber languages.

Consonants
The consonant system of Moroccan Arabic is quite similar to that of other Arabic varieties. However, there are some differences.

Moroccan Arabic has 31 consonants.
Unlike MSA, Moroccan Arabic has lost the interdental consonants // and // (th as in thin and those respectively).
There are eight emphatic consonants. Emphatic consonants are typically realized as pharyngealized consonants. Pharyngealization refers to a secondary articulation by which the pharynx is constricted during the articulation of the sound.
As in other varieties, there is an opposition between voiceless, voiced, and emphatic stops and fricatives.
Unlike MSA, geminated, or doubled, /bb/, /ff/, and /mm/ have emphatic counterparts.
Unlike MSA, Moroccan Arabic allows consonant clusters and geminated consonants at the beginning of syllables.

Stress
Unlike MSA, the system of stress placement in Moroccan Arabic is complicated by the fact that variable vowels can be omitted or inverted.

Click here to listen to live broadcasts in Tunisian Arabic.

Grammar

Algerian People

Camel

Arab Man

Grammar
The grammar of Moroccan Arabic, described here as representative of Maghreb dialects, differs from that of MSA.

Noun phrase

Unlike MSA Modern Standard Arabic (MSA), Moroccan Arabic has lost the case distinctions.
The dual number has all but disappeared in Moroccan Arabic, except in units of measurement or time. Only nouns have a dual form.
Unlike MSA, Moroccan Arabic has an indefinite articlef si- prefixed to a noun. Indefiniteness can also be expressed by the word wahed followed by a noun with the definite article.
Unlike MSA, Moroccan nouns and verbs lost the gender their distinction. While some nouns, such as those denoting professions, have distinct masculine and feminine plural forms, the adjectival and verbal paradigms do not distinguish between genders in the plural.
In MSA, possession and similar concepts are expressed by a construct state, using the genitive case of the noun or pronoun, e.g., kitbu s-sultni, 'the sultan's book.' Only the last noun in a construct can have the definite article. In Moroccan Arabic, the construct state is limited to a group of nouns, such as body parts and kinship terms of kinship. Possession for other nouns is expressed by the preposition d- or dyal-, 'of.'

Verb phrase
The verb system of Arabic is difficult to describe from the perspective of Indo-European languages. Some of its most salient features are listed below.

Person, mood, and aspect are marked by prefixes and suffixes. Mood has all but disappeared in Moroccan Arabic.
Unlike MSA, Moroccan verbs do not mark gender distinctions.
There is one basic stem (Form I) plus nine derived stems, each with a range of meanings, such as reflexivity, and causativity. Each form has its own set of active and passive participles and verbal nouns.
Negation is expressed both by the prefix ma- and the suffix -s(i), e.g., kteb, 'he wrote,'ma-kteb-s, 'he didn't write.'
Like MSA, Moroccan verbs have a past, or perfective, suffixed conjugation and a non-past, or imperfective, prefixed conjugation.
The present tense is formed by prefixing the particle ka- to the verb, e.g., ka-ddxol, 'she goes in, she's going in.'
The future is formed by using the future auxiliary ghadi before the verb.

Word order
The usual word order in Moroccan Arabic is Subject-Verb-Object.

Vocabulary

Vocabulary
Like MSA, Morrocan Arabic words are formed by the application of vowels and affixes to consonant roots. In addition, Moroccan Arabic frequently forms words by adding Arabic endings to French and Spanish roots. However, there are some lexical differences between Maghreb Arabic and other varieties. Some of these differences are due to the continued existence of words from Classical Arabic that have disappeared from all other varieties but have been retained in Maghreb Arabic. Others are due to the fact that unlike MSA that tends to resist borrowing from other language, Maghreb Arabic has many Berber, Turkish, French, and Spanish loanwords, such as Moroccan Arabic neggafa, 'wedding facilitator' from Berber taneggaft; forchita, 'fork' from French fourchette; simana, 'week' from Spanish semana.

Writing

Petra

Naskh

All varieties of Maghreb Arabic are written in the Arabic script. The Arabic script is based on the Nabataean alphabet which was used to write the Nabataean dialect of Aramaic. Nabateans added 6 symbols to the Aramaic alphabet to represent sounds that did not occur in Aramaic. The Nabataean alphabet contained only symbols for consonants. The Arabs added dots above and below the consonant to represent vowels.

The earliest Arabic inscription dates to 512 AD. The script has undergone several modifications. Its present form (Naskhi) first appeared in the 11th century AD, and has been used ever since, especially for print. The script is written from right to left. All but six letters can be attached to the preceding ones. There are no capital letters. The letters are simplified in handwritten form.

The Arabic alphabet is a fairly accurate representation of the sound system of the language. It contains 28 symbols with additional letters for loanwords that contain sounds which do not occur in Arabic, e.g., /p/ and /g/.

Arabic Alphabet

The basic features of the Arabic script are summarized below.

The Arabic script is consonant-based.
Words are written in horizontal lines from right to left.
Most letters change their shape depending on their position in a word.
The shape of some letters allows them to be joined, while the shape of others does not. Letters that can be joined are always joined in both hand-written and printed Arabic.
Vowel diacritics representing short vowels are only used in the Qur'an, religious texts, classical poetry, children's books, and textbooks for learners of Arabic.

Take a look at Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Arabic.

Translation
All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.

Click here to learn about Arabic calligraphy.

Resources

Click here to find out where Arabic is taught in the United States.
Click here for UCLA Language Materials Database which lists materials for learning Algerian, Libyan, Moroccan, and Tunisian Arabic.

Online resources for the study of Arabic language and culture
Handbook for students of Arabic
Yamada Language Center Arabic Guide
Wikipedia article on Moroccan Arabic
UCLA Language Profile for Moroccan Arabic
Ethnologue report on Moroccan Arabic
Omniglot Guide to Arabic Alphabet
Languages-on-the-Web: Arabic Links
Marhaba: Welcome to Arabic
Arabic Language and Culture Resources
BBC News Country Profiles: Morocco