前途: A Year in Morocco

It’s funny, every time I write about language, the post goes for paaaages. There’s so much to talk about! But I apologize for the length… :S

This week, I attended a book talk by Fouad Laroui, a Moroccan writer, discussing the issue of language in Morocco, especially in connection to identity and literature. I want to summarize and comment on the rather lengthy discussion, and in doing so, I will certainly use his ideas, as well as examples given in his lecture.

I keep coming back to Morocco’s complex linguistic situation because I feel it is a major root cause for many things in this country, so let’s take another brief look.

Most Moroccans speak Darija (Moroccan Arabic) as their native language. Some (estimates 10% of the population but no one really knows) natively speak one of the 3 major Amazigh (Berber) dialects. Amazigh native speakers may spend the first 4-5 years of their life only speaking Amazigh, or they may be bilingual in Darija and Amazigh.

When Moroccan children go to public school at age 4-5-6, they are taught in Modern Standard Arabic (MSA). For those of you who are thinking, “Well, it’s still Arabic, that’s no big deal,” think about being introduced to a classroom where you are suddenly being taught in Shakespearian English and taught that it is the language you should write in for the rest of your life, that your home language is inferior and worthless for literature.

MSA contains complexities which are completely unfamiliar to speakers of all Arabic dialects. For example, it reverses syntax (Darija: He entered the house, MSA: Entered he the house), contains extra verb forms (special conjugations for two, the feminine plural), and even the lexicon (vocabulary) is completely different, sometimes including words in Darija that have a completely different meaning in MSA.

At the same time as this confusing switch is taking place from Darija to MSA, Amazigh-only speaking children are just learning Darija, another new language, from their peers on the playground.

At some point fairly early on in elementary school, French is introduced, and then later English, sometimes Spanish.

Rich children attending private French school do not get exposed to MSA unless they or their parents make a conscious choice for extra-curricular tutoring.

So suddenly, we have the following situation:

-A population that doesn’t all have the same native language. These native languages are not really considered “languages” per se by the population. They are also almost never used for writing because there are no spelling rules (the exception being on the internet with the Arabic Chat Alphabet)

-MSA being taught as a written form of Arabic to most Moroccans, but never really spoken

-Foreign languages being introduced before gaining mastery in any form of Arabic, resulting in moderate levels of comprehension and fairly low levels of speaking

With all of this, how do you educate your population? And, how do you measure fluency in each language, especially considering that some are only spoken and not written, or only written and not spoken, or only understood without being able to speak much?

So then we have Moroccan writers, trying to create great works of literature. What is a writer to do when she/he is not completely fluent in any language? And, how can an author write in her/his own unique style and express her/his emotions to the fullest when she/he chooses to write in a language she/he is not completely fluent in? There are two usual choices for Moroccan authors:

-MSA: written by an elite for an elite. People just don’t read or buy books (for obvious reasons, what language can they read in?). Some Moroccan writers who write in French actually feel they cannot write fluently or well in MSA. Not only that, but some writers feel there are things they can say in French which they shouldn’t say in MSA (they don’t want to tarnish the language of the Quran). Which is a bit strange, because Laroui reminds us that Arabic poetry is full of sensual vocabulary and imagery.

-French: again, Moroccans don’t really read or buy books, but French is at least a language which makes literary work accessible to the outside, including France, but also in Sub-Saharan Africa if there is interest. Again, remember the problem of style related to writing in a language not really one’s own, which is complicated by the fact that French is the language of the colonizer, the outsider, and the other.

There’s also the problem of audience. An author writing in a foreign language must expect that non-Moroccans will read her/his work, and then she/he becomes responsible for providing small explanations of cultural phenomena, or words that have no translations. I am reading Mona Lisa Overdrive by William Gibson right now, and he chose to use the Japanese word “giri” in the text, because the concept of “giri” in Japanese means responsibility, duty, a sense of honor, and a debt of gratitude, all rolled into one thing which also has strong social implications. When a British character discusses this “responsibility” with the Japanese character, she frequently interjects, “Giri,” as if she is correcting a misunderstanding, and at its most base level, she is. Being a native speaker, she has a different sense of the word than the other characters, and the readers, do.

Here you say, well, why not just write in Darija?

It’s not that easy. Darija is not just one language; there are also regional differences. Furthermore, Darija needs to be codified, given spelling and formal grammar rules. Before all that it needs have its popular perception altered so that it is thought of as not only an “actual language,” but as a rich, worthy language capable of being used in fine literature. Do we write it in Arabic script, or do we use a Roman alphabet (a la Ataturk)? Do we teach in it? Do we write government documents in it? Do we, like Gamal Abdel Nasser, vacillate between it and MSA in our speeches to the populace?

There are a few Moroccan writers who write in Darija, mostly poetry, but it’s a highly controversial issue. Many critics see the use of the vernacular to write literature as subversive and corrupting the purity of the formal, written language, a few even going as far to say that it disrespects the sacredness of the language of the Quran.

As a side note: in rebuttal to this, the obvious question is, in associating a language with the sanctity of God and thereby making language a sacred thing, couldn’t that be considered shirk? I’m not claiming any expertise in Islamic law; this is clearly a debate for actual Islamic scholars to have. Because of this post, I’ll probably get a few “helpful attempts to educate the ignorant Westerner,” which are usually the 5 pillars; I get them about once a month from some random person on the internet. The 5 are fine for people who don’t know nothing, but my education went so far beyond them that I get a little annoyed, because there’s so much more to Islam that just the 5. BUTANYWAY /tangent

Another choice is that of Naguib Mahfouz, the well-known Egyptian author who writes narration in MSA and dialogue in Egyptian dialect. But again, back to lexicon differences. Do you use the MSA word for an apple, say, or the dialectal one which may be easier to understand and infuses (taints?) your MSA with dialect?

Laroui points to Europe as part of his case. When European authors began writing in the “vulgar,” the vernacular, instead of the formal Latin, the world immediately saw the emergence of literary figures like Dante. The elephant in the room is, where are the Dantes of Moroccan literature? We have very good authors, he says, like Tahar ben Jelloun who writes in French. He just wonders how much greater ben Jelloun could be if he wrote in the language that he grew up in and thinks and expresses his emotions in.

I’d ask you to consider all of these things on the level of the many (20% of the population) American children who speak another language at home, yes foreign languages, but also children who speak African American English, or Cajun English, or people with a strong Southern or foreign accent.

How can people value their identity in a world which does not value the language they have grown up speaking?

Who does language belong to anyway? Who makes the choices about what is “prestigious” and what is “incorrect,” “slang,” “uneducated,” “low class,” and what consequences do those choices have?