Judeo-Arabic variety of Morocco
Judeo-Moroccan Arabic
is the
variety
or the varieties of the
Moroccan
vernacular
Arabic
spoken by
Jews
living or formerly living in
Morocco
.
[2]
[3]
Historically, the majority of Moroccan Jews spoke
Moroccan vernacular Arabic
, or
Darija
, as their first language, even in Amazigh areas, which was facilitated by their literacy in
Hebrew script
.
[4]
: 59
The
Darija
spoken by Moroccan Jews, which they referred to as
al-‘arabiya diyalna
("our Arabic") as opposed to
‘arabiya diyal l-m?slim?n
(Arabic of the Muslims), typically had distinct features,
[4]
: 59
such as ?>s and ?>z "lisping," some
lexical
borrowings from
Hebrew
, and in some regions Hispanic features from the migration of
Sephardi Jews
following the
Alhambra Decree
.
[3]
The Jewish dialects of Darija spoken in different parts of Morocco had more in common with the local Moroccan Arabic dialects than they did with each other.
[5]
: 64
Nowadays, speakers of the language are usually older adults.
[6]
The young generation of the Jews of Morocco who studied at schools of the
Alliance Israelite Universelle
under the French protectorate made French their mother tongue.
The vast majority of
Moroccan Jews
have
relocated to Israel
and have
switched
to using Hebrew as their
native language
. Those who immigrated to metropolitan France typically use French as their first language, while the few still left in Morocco tend to use either French, Moroccan or Judeo-Moroccan Arabic in their everyday lives.
History and composition
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]
Historically
[
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]
Widely used in the Jewish community during
its long history there
, the Moroccan dialect of
Judeo-Arabic
has many influences from languages other than
Arabic
, including
Spanish
(due to the close proximity of
Spain
),
Haketia
or Moroccan Judeo-Spanish, due to the influx of
Sephardic
refugees from Spain after the 1492 expulsion, and
French
(due to the period in which Morocco was colonized by
France
), and, of course, the inclusion of many
Hebrew
loanwords and phrases (a feature of all
Jewish languages
). The dialect has considerable
mutual intelligibility
with
Judeo-Tunisian Arabic
, and some with
Judeo-Tripolitanian Arabic
(which, like Judeo-Moroccan Arabic, are associated with
Maghrebi Arabic
), but almost none with
Judeo-Iraqi Arabic
.
Most literate Muslims in Morocco would write, not in vernacular Arabic, but in
Standard Arabic
, but Moroccan Jews, who typically did not learn Standard Arabic as it was taught in Islamic religious contexts, wrote in
Darija
using Hebrew script.
[4]
: 59
For them,
Darija
was a literary language:
Judah ibn Quraish
wrote a
risala
on Semitic languages in Maghrebi Judeo-Arabic to the Jews of Fes already in the ninth-century.
[4]
: 59
Today
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]
The vast majority of Morocco's 265,000 Jews emigrated to Israel after 1948, with significant emigration to Europe (mainly France) and North America as well. Although about 3,000 Jews remain in Morocco today,
[7]
most of them speak French rather than Judeo-Moroccan,
[8]
and their Arabic is more akin to
Moroccan Arabic
than to Judeo-Arabic. There are estimated to be 8,925
[
contradictory
]
speakers in Morocco, mostly in
Casablanca
and
Fes
, and 250,000 in
Israel
(where speakers reported bilingualism with Hebrew). Most speakers, in both countries, are elderly. There is a Judeo-Arabic radio program on Israeli radio. It also has an impact on the language of Moroccan Jews on the economic and geographic peripheries of Israel, in places such as
Beersheba
as portrayed in
Zaguri Imperia
.
[9]
Varieties
[
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]
Simon Levy
identifies three groups of Judeo-Moroccan Arabic based on the pronunciation of the letter
qaf
(in traditional
Maghrebi Arabic script
: ?, in
Hebrew script
: ??): 1) the dialects of Jewish communities in Fez, Sefrou, Meknes, Rabat, and Sale, which pronounce the
q?f
as a
hamza
or glottal stop; 2) the dialects of Marrakesh, Essaouira, Safi, el-Jadida, and Azemmour, which pronounce it as a
voiced post-velar occlusive
[q]; and 3) the dialects of
Debdou
,
Tafilalt
, and the
Draa River
valley, which pronounce it as a
voiced velar occlusive
[k].
[3]
References
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]
External links
[
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]
- Reka
Kol Israel
radio station broadcasting a daily program in Judeo-Moroccan (Mugrabian)