1. Presented by:
Younes TAIA
Mohamed AKKLOUCH
Mohamed AKHARRAZ
Based on:
"Développement du plurilinguisme: Le cas de la ville d'Agadir (Espaces discursifs)
(French Edition) by Montserrat Benitez Fernandez, Youssef TAMER, Jan Jaap De Ruiter".
-- The Mother Tongue in Morocco:
The politics of an indigenous education by Samantha Ross (2004)
-- TOMAŠTÍK, Karel. 2010. Language Policy in the Kingdom of Morocco: Arabic,
Tamazight and French in Interaction. The Annual of Language & Politics and
Politics of Identity, Vol. IV. p. 101-116.
-- The Language Situation in Morocco Fatima Sadiqi Sidi Mohamed Ben Abdellah
University, Fes (Second Edition)

2. Content
• Standard Arabic
•Tamzight
•Hassaniyya
• Spanish
•Darijja ( Moroccan Arabic)
•French

3. Classical Arabic
• Standard Arabic is a ‘modern’ version of Classical
Arabic, the language of the Qur’an and pre-
Islamic poetry.
• Standard Arabic was introduced in Morocco at
the end of the seventh and the beginning of the
eighth centuries from the East and Islamic Iberia.
• It has great prestige as the ‘language of God’ and
as the unifying language at the levels of the Arab
world (al-umma al-arabiyyah) and the Muslim
world (al-umma al-islaamiyyah).

4. • It is also a symbol of identity, especially
outside Morocco and the Arab world.
• Unlike Berber and Moroccan Arabic, standard
Arabic is a homogeneous language in form.
• After Independence, and especially since the
1960s, the policy of language planning in
Morocco was characterized by the Arabization
of the different socio-cultural sectors,
especially the mass media, education and
governmental administrations.

5. Arabization.
 Arabization meant replacing French, the language of the
colonizer, with Arabic, the language of tradition and
‘authenticity’.
Arabization was implemented as a language policy and a
medium of instruction in Morocco in the 60s.
why Arabization was viewed as so important.
why it has not always been easy to implement.

6. • Arabization is seen as the cultural counterpart
of political and economic independence.
• To assert the country’s Arabo-Islamic identity,
and its cultural independence from Western
influence.
• Arabization restores authentic Moroccan
identity. ( popular)
• To the illiterate masses it was largely symbolic,
since they had never learnt French or Classical
Arabic, but they believed it would lead to
greater equality of opportunity for them.

7. • Commentators have observed that a powerful
motivation behind the policy is the pursuit
and maintenance of power.
• Another openly stated objective of Arabization
is to unite the country, an idea common to
language planning policies.
• Arabic already represents a unifying force,
symbolising both Islam and the Arab nation,
thus uniting Moroccans with the wider
community of Muslims and Arabs.

8. • At national level, the language symbolises self-
affirmation against foreigners, particularly the
French, despite the fact that most people,
immediately after independence, could not
actually speak or understand Classical Arabic.
• One logical consequence of Arabization would
be that all Moroccans would learn the
national language and, with time, the
vernaculars would disappear, following the
French model.

9. • As language of Divine Revelation, it is relatively
easy to persuade people that it is the only
appropriate language for a Muslim state. ( at
national level)
• One of the drawbacks of Arabization is “the way
language and religion have been conflated in
official discourse, such that Moroccan identity is
presented as Muslim and therefore Arab and
Arabic speaking, whilst Berber language and
culture is seen as a regional detail, synonymous
with inferiority and ignorance.” Ziri (2000)
• Additionally, Arabization results in the failure of
the whole educational system.

10. The change of policy in 2000
• The Charter for Educational Reform, produced in
2000, represents a dramatic change of policy
• Article 110 states that Morocco will now be
adopting a ‘clear, coherent and constant language
policy within education’. This policy has three
major thrusts: ‘the reinforcement and
improvement of Arabic teaching’, ‘diversification
of languages for teaching science and technology’
and an ‘openness to Tamazight’.

11. •
•
•
•
•

12. • The Charter does not mention the word Arabization,
an admission of the negative connotations of the term.
• acknowledges that science and technology should be
taught in schools in the most appropriate languages,
preferably those used in higher education.
• French is never mentioned by name, although at
present this is the language of science and technology
in much of higher education.
• It is implied, however, that other languages could also
be used, the obvious implication being English. The
Charter therefore appears to acknowledge tacitly the
failure of Arabization in the area of science and
technology teaching and to herald at least a temporary
return to bilingual education in this field.

13. Amazigh
• Berber is the oldest language in Morocco and
indeed North Africa (cf. Ayache 1964, Laroui
1977, Chafik 1982).
• Three major varieties of Berber are found in
Morocco: Tashelhit in the south, Tamazight in the
center, and Tarifit in the north. According to the
1994 official statistics, Morocco has 28 million
inhabitants, of which 30% speak one of the
Berber varieties.
• However, some linguists state that almost half of
the Moroccan population speaks Berber
(Boukous 1995, Ennaji 1997, Sadiqi 1997).

14. • 1994:
• News in Tamazight started to broadcast on
national TV in 1994. The King Hassan II had
announced in a speech (20/08/1994) that
Berber language deserves a place in schools.
• Berber associations, groups, radio & television
programs, interviews, newspapers, magazines,
and websites were created by the end of the
decade to express the new rights of
movement.

15. • In September 2004, Berber started to be
taught in 300 Moroccan primary schools after
its codification through its original alphabet:
Tifinagh.
• This initiative was preceded by the creation of
the Royal Institute of the Amazigh Culture in
October 2001.

16. • The Charter for Educational Reform states
‘opening up’ to Tamazight: the recognition that
not all Moroccans are Arabic speakers, and that
their education could be greatly facilitated if their
early years learning could be done through the
medium of their mother tongue.
• Article 115 allows local authorities to use any
local dialect in order to facilitate the learning of
the national language. It also provides for the
creation of research and development projects in
some universities, and support for teacher
training in Tamazight.

17. Tamazight An Official Language:
• On the 12th of June 2011, a constitutional
reform was passed to the king of Morocco
recommending the recognition of Tamazight
('Berber Language') as one of the official
languages of Morocco.

19. • Hassani dialect is a dialect derived from the nomadic
Arab, which was spoken by the tribes of Bani Hassan,
who had controlled most of the deserts of Mauritania
and southern Morocco between the fifteenth and
seventeenth centuries. This dialect spread as a
substitute for Amazigh previous speaking tribes. the
closest of other Maghreb dialects to the Hassani
dialect is the Libyan dialect, and tone of southern
Tunisia. Hassani dialect is considered one of the most
eloquent Arabic dialects, due to the virtue of isolation,
Since Bani Hassan Arab tribes lived in the depths of the
Sahara for a long time.

20. • According to Ethnologue.com, in 2006 there
were around 3,123,190 hassaniya speakers
(excluding South of Morocco), distributed in:
• Mauritania: 2,770,000 (2006)
• Algeria: 150,000 (1985)
• Mali: 106,000 (1991)
• Morocco: 195,000 (1995)
• Libya: 40,000 (1985)
• Niger: 10,000 (1998)
• Senegal: 7,190 (2006)

22. Hassaniya Arabic - Also known as Moor, Klem
El Bithan. Over 40 000 in Southern Morocco
people speak this form of Arabic.
The media representation of HASSANI Dialect
is quite modest: Morocco TV's first channel
airs about Two hours daily in the afternoons.
No newsletters, since it is not a separate
language; it has the same dialects as Classical
Arabic.

23. The direct impact of Spanish comes to be obvious only
after Spanish colonization of the first areas of morocco
by 1860. (escuelo hispano-àrabe) at that time Castilian
Spanish was the official language.
 The Spanish had established a presence in Tétouan
(capital of the later French protectorate) and by 1906
they occupied South of Morocco “Sahara”.
In the colonial era Spanish children went to Spanish
Schools, First school opened in Nador (Del Rio 2005).
Spanish libraries operated in the protectorate, the
largest one was in Tétouan. However, educating
Moroccans was not the focus of attention.

24. Spanish - Over 20 000 people in Morocco are capable
of speaking Spanish. Besides being only a short
distance away, Spain also acted as a protectorate of
Morocco for a while after 1912. This resulted in
Spanish influence in culture and language
The media representation of Spanish is quite modest:
Morocco TV's first channel airs half-hour newsreels and
state radio has hour-long daily news bulletins. La
Mañana daily closed down in 2006 due to poor
circulation figures (Marruecos Digital, 14 September
2006).

25. The position of Spanish is duly enhanced by
the fact that it can be used in state-run public
tenders and selecting candidates for senior
administrative posts (Moustaoui 2006, 24).

26. There are many Spanish institutes in modern
Morocco. Chief among them are:
 The Institutos Cervantes in big cities.

27. The country also has eleven schools (colegios,
institutos) with Spanish curricula:
attended by 4,208 registered students in
2004, 81% of whom being Moroccan
(Mayordomo 2004).
 In academic 2007/2008 enrolment increased
to 4,723 (Ministerio de Educación Política
social y Deporte).

28. State schools provide a choice of Spanish, taught as a
foreign language from the first year of high school
education. Private primary schools offer this possibility
from first grade. The Spanish language and literature
are taught by eight university faculties (Ennaji 2005,
112). Coordination of spreading Spanish through the
Moroccan education system with the ministry of
education is assisted by the Consejeria de Educación y
Ciencia, supervised by the Spanish embassy in Rabat,
which has several advisory bureaus (Moustaoui 2006,
24)

29. (Moha Ennaji 2005, 113)

30. The faculty of letters in Agadir First opened a
department of Spanish in 1992 with a total of
56 students which increased to 187 in 1995.
(Moha Ennaji 2005, 113)

33. • Crossroads between Africa, Europe and the
Middle East
• Meeting point for various languages
• Indigenous ‘Berber’ languages
• Arabic, introduced by Arab invasion in 7th century,
reinforced by later influxes, and adoption of Islam
• European languages – English, French,
Portuguese and Spanish – invaded or traded
along the Mediterranean and Atlantic coasts.

34. • Arabization implemented to replace French for 4
reasons: (Bentaouet-Kattan: 1990)
o The universalization of education for all
Moroccans
o The unification of diverse educational systems in
place durin colonization
o The Arabization of all classes from French to
Arabic as the language of instruction
o The Moroccanization of the teaching staff as all
the teachers in the colonial period used to be
French

35. • Arabization was not fully successful for a number
of connected reasons:
- MSA not mother tongue, even of the ruling class
- No communication problem, majority speak
Darija
- motivation to discard French is weak: perceived
as more modern, and as a means to access the
outside modern world
• Role of the media and communications in
encouraging to learn French

36. • Article 5 concerns language policy
• Arabic remains the official language
• Amazighe is also an official language
• Hassani and other regional languages to be
protected
• Foreign language learning to be encouraged
• To be created a National Council for the
promotion of languages and the Moroccan
culture.

37. • Many more French-speaking Moroccans today,
but also many more Moroccans competent in
MSA
• Neither language used as a mother tongue, yet
both highly visible
• Roles of Darija and Standard Arabic changing as a
result of mass education and improved
communication and mass media
• Changes also tied to issues of identity, Islam
• MSA more attractive to younger generation

38. • Classical Arabic: used in the religious, political,
administrative, legal and cultural spheres & education
• Darija: mother tongue of most people, through which
they acquire education and popular culture. Spoken
throughout all the Moroccan territory
• Berber: the most ancient language in the Maghreb,
and the mother tongue of a high percentage of
Moroccans especially in the remote rural areas
• Hassani: the mother tongue of people in the Saharan
regions
• French: Remains very widespread in Morocco, mainly
in the administrations and education spheres.

41. • Darija – or Moroccan Arabic - is spoken by
most Moroccans in cities and also remote
towns
• It has no standardized written form, except
lately by some press like Nichane
• Recently, used increasingly in advertisements
of all types
• Used with Latin scripts in electronic texts
(online chatting, SMS, etc)

42. Statistics (2004 Morocco Population Census)

43. • Moroccan Darija is considered a spoken variety of
Arabic and not a separate language. Superficially,
Moroccan Arabic (or perhaps a combined
Moroccan–Tunisian–Algerian or "Maghrebi"
Arabic) may appear to be a separate language;
thorough study shows many common points
between Maghreb dialects and dialects of the
East, though they are hardly mutually intelligible;
Arabic is a good example of a dialect
continuum in which clear boundaries cannot be
drawn (i.e. Moroccan Arabic is similar to Algerian
Arabic, which is similar to Tunisian Arabic, which
is similar to Egyptian Arabic, and so on, but the
Moroccan and Gulf dialects are largely mutually
unintelligible.)

44. • Like other spoken varieties (dialects),
Moroccan Arabic is rarely used in literature
and lacks prestige compared to Standard
Arabic (fuṣḥa). Moroccan Arabic 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.

45. Darija (which means "current") can be divided into two
groups:
• The pre-French protectorate: when Morocco was
officially colonized by France in 1912, it had an
accelerated French influence in aspects of everyday
life. The pre-French Darija is one that is spoken by
older and more conservative people. It is an Arabic
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".
• The post-French protectorate: after the coming of the
French, any French word, whether a verb or a noun,
could be thrown into a sentence. ("Code switching")
This is most common among the young, educated,
urban class.

46. Many Moroccan Arabic speakers among the educated class,
especially in the territory which was previously known
as French Morocco, also practice code-switching. In the
northern parts of Morocco, as in Tangier, it is common for
code-switching to occur between Moroccan Arabic
and Spanish, as Spain had previously controlled part of the
region, and also continues to possess the territories
of Ceuta and Melilla in North Africa bordering only Morocco.
On the other hand, some educated Moroccans, particularly
those sympathetic to the ideas of Arab nationalism, generally
attempt to avoid French and Spanish influences (save those
Spanish influences from al-Andalus) on their speech, even
when speaking in darija; consequently, their speech tends to
resemble old Andalusi Arabic and pre-occupation Maghrebi.

47. • Code switching is also noticed in Berber
speaking rural areas where speakers tend to
shift from their local dialect to Moroccan
Darija – which is considered a higher and
more modern variety. School pupils, too, tend
to speak to each others in these rural zones in
Darija rather than Berber, especially at school.

48. • In general, Moroccan Arabic is one of the most innovative
(in the technical sense of "least conservative") of all Arabic
dialects. Nowadays 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 revitalization
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. This phenomenon
mostly occurs among literate people.

49. • 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.
• The language continues to evolve quickly as can be
noted when consulting the Colin dictionary. Many
words and idiomatic expressions recorded between
1921 and 1977 are now obsolete.

50. While being a natural localization of Classical
Arabic for geographic and historical reasons,
as French has evolved from Vulgar Latin,
Moroccan Arabic is considered as a language
of low prestige whereas it is Modern Standard
Arabic that is used in more formal contexts.
While Moroccan Arabic is the mother
tongue of nearly twenty million people in
Morocco it is rarely used in written form.

53. Policy-makers on the eve of independence had to choose
whether to continue the French language curriculum or
commence Arabization:
• This debate about whether to choose MSA or French as
the language of instruction is much larger than a
debate about language:
 For some, it is about choosing loyalties or about
having an eye to the future. It is about whether to
focus on culture, tradition, and religious identity by
turning East or on economic and political progress by
turning West
 For still others, the need to synthesize any number of
values from both the East and West from emerging
cultural, professional, and financial identities
dominates their perspective on Morocco’s linguistic
choices with respect to education . (Daniel and Ball:
2010)

54. Despite the Arabization policy, in effect for over
50 years, the significance of French cannot be
denied. Although the educational system has
been Arabized in secondary schools, French is
the sole language of instruction at the tertiary
level in all scientific subjects, medicine,
agriculture, and technical fields. It dominates
the business field, administration, and a vast
part of the media (Benaouet-Kattan 26)

55. • Thus the two languages create a paradox by which a
student educated in Arabic must suddenly perform at a
university-level in a language he/she does not
comprehend at a high fluency. Of course this depends
upon the student, as elite, private, French-based
schools are in great demand.
• In fact there exists a certain irony that the politically
and economically elite, including education ministry
personnel, are often products of French education and
continue the practice by sending their children to
French schools (Sirles 1985)

56. • One suggested solution is to simply remove all
French from the university level similar to what
has been done at the elementary and secondary
levels. However, an eradication of French (as well
as English and German) at the university level
would cut off Moroccan scholars from access to
both an established body of research and an
international audience. Additionally, Arabized
degrees are not deemed equal to degrees in
bilingual programs (Hammoud, 1982)

57. • The language of instruction is much more than
simply a decolonization procedure. “If
Morocco’s language and educational planners
on the eve of independence had thought that
Arabization could be achieved without undue
political turmoil nor decline in instructional
quality, they have been proven wrong” (Sirles:
ibid).

58. • No official status
• Morocco is an associate member of the OIF (
Organisation Mondiale de la Francophonie)
• 4 144 500 people speak French (13.5 % of the
population) and 5 986 500 are partial
francophones (19.5%)
• Rarely used as a mother tongue, but standard
French is widely used among the elite
• French is associated with upward social mobility
and success, hence French/Darija code switching

59. • (Landry and Bourhis, 1997:25) ‘the language
of public road signs, street names, place
names, commercial shop signs, and public
signs on government buildings combine to
form the linguistic landscape’
• Morocco looks like an officially bilingual state,
since Arabic-French dominates

60. Official signs

61. Shop signs

62. Media
• Press: available in most towns and all cities in
French including newspapers, magazines,
brochures, etc
• TV: all channels broadcast the news in French,
but some are more French oriented like 2M
and Medi1 TV
• Radio: most of them are bilingual like radio
2M and others French like Chaîne Inter

63. Results of a survey conducted by: Janet Yearous
under the sponsorship of Dr. Jennifer Howell,
Department of Modern Languages:
French in the Face of Arabization:
Language Attitudes among High
School Students in Rabat
UW-L Journal of Undergraduate Research XV (2012)

64. • 50 students
• Rabat and suburbs high schools randomly
chosen
• May and June 2011

74. References
• Bentaouet-Kattan, Raja. Language Planning in Education Reform:
The Case Study of Morocco. Ann Arbor: Bell and Howell Information
and Learning, 1999. Print.
• Daniel, Mayra C. and Ball, Alexis. “The Moroccan Educational
Context: Evolving Multilingualism.” International Journal of
Educational Development. 30.2 (2010): 130-135. EBSCOhost. Web.
31 Jul. 2011.
• Landry, Rodrigue; Richard Y. Bourhis (1997). "Linguistic Landscape
and Ethnolinguistic Vitality An Empirical Study". Journal of
Language and Social Psychology.
• Janet Yearous (2012) “French in the Face of Arabization: Language
Attitudes among High School Students in Rabat. UW-L Journal of
Undergraduate Research XV
• Constitution of Morocco (2011)
• Fatima Sadiqi (2006) “Language Situation in Morocco” Encyclopedia
of Language and linguistics. 2nd edition (2006)

75. • Rachel Salia (2011) “Between Arabic and French Lies the
Dialect: Moroccan Code-Weaving on Facebook” Linguistics
Thesis
• Samantha Ross (2004) “The Mother Tongue in Morocco: The
politics of an indigenous education” Masters of Arts
dissertation. University of East Anglia
• TOMAŠTÍK, Karel. (2010) “Language Policy in the Kingdom of
Morocco: Arabic, Tamazight and French in Interaction”. The
Annual of Language & Politics and Politics of Identity, Vol. IV.
• Dawn Marley (2011) “Competing Varieties of French and
Arabic in Morocco” Conference of non-dominating varieties
of pluricentric languages. University of Graz, Austria. July
2011
• MOUSTAOUI SRHIR Adil (2011) “Language Planning,
Standardizatation and Dynamics of Change in Moroccan
Arabic” Universidad Complutense de Madrid