Language policy and language planning in morocco

Language Planning and Language Policy

in MOROCCO

Presented by: Younes TAIAMohamed AKKLOUCHMohamed 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)

Content

• Standard Arabic

•Tamzight

•Hassaniyya

• Spanish

•Darijja ( Moroccan Arabic)

•French

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).

• 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.

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.

• 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.

• 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.

• 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.

• 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.

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’.

اللغة : • تدريس تحسين التسعة الدعامةاللغات وإتقان واستعمالها العربية

األمازيغية على والتفتح األجنبيةوتحسينه • العربية اللغة تعليم تعزيزوالتكنولوجيا • العلوم تعليم لغات تنويعاألمازيغية • على التفتحاألجنبية • اللغات في التحكم

• 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.

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).

• 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.

• 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.

• 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.

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.

HASSANIYYA & SPANISH

Historical Background hassaniyya • 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.

Speakers distribution

• 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)

In the Recent Years

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.

Historical background“spanish”

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.

In The Recent Years

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).

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).

In The Recent Years

There are many Spanish institutes in modern Morocco. Chief among them are:

The Institutos Cervantes in big cities.

In The Recent Years

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).

In The Recent Years

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)

In The Recent Years

(Moha Ennaji 2005, 113)

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)

Code Switching

hassaniya Spanish

Moroccan Darija & French

• 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.

Brief Background

• Arabization implemented to replace French for 4 reasons: (Bentaouet-Kattan: 1990)

o The universalization of education for all Moroccanso The unification of diverse educational systems in

place durin colonizationo The Arabization of all classes from French to Arabic

as the language of instructiono The Moroccanization of the teaching staff as all the

teachers in the colonial period used to be French

Language policy since 1956

• 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

• 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.

The 2011 constitution

• 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

Changing language contact situation since independence

• 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.

Official position of languages

Darija

• 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)

Statistics (2004 Morocco Population Census)

• 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.)

• 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.

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.

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.

Code switching

• 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.

• 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.

Evolution

• 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(أ), 3) (5, ع) (7, خ) ح) and 9(ق) 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.

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.

Diaglossia and Social Prestige

The French Languagein Morocco

Modern Standard Arabic (MSA)or

French

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)

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)

• 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)

• 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)

Suggestion

• 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).

French in education

• 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

French: current role and status

• (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

Linguistic landscape

Official signs

Shop signs

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

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)

• 50 students• Rabat and suburbs high schools randomly

chosen• May and June 2011

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)

• 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

Thank You !