Languages of Morocco
, particularly the Moroccan Arabic dialect, is the most widely spoken language in Morocco, but a number of regional and foreign languages are also spoken. The official languages of Morocco are Modern Standard Arabic and Standard Moroccan Berber. Moroccan Arabic is by far the primary spoken vernacular and lingua franca, whereas Berber languages serve as vernaculars for significant portions of the country. According to the 2024 Moroccan census, 92.7% of the population spoke Arabic, whereas 24.8% spoke Berber languages.
The languages of prestige in Morocco are Arabic in its Classical and Modern Standard forms and sometimes French, the latter of which serves as a second language for approximately 33% of Moroccans. According to the 2024 census, 99.2% or almost the entire literate population of Morocco could read and write in Arabic, whereas only 1.5% of the population could read and write in Berber. When it comes to foreign languages, this figure rises to 57.7% in French, 20.5% in English, and 1.2% in Spanish. The census also reveals that 80.6% of Moroccans consider Arabic to be their native language, while 18.9% regard any of the various Berber languages as their mother tongue.
According to a 2000–2002 survey done by Moha Ennaji, author of Multilingualism, Cultural Identity, and Education in Morocco, "there is a general agreement that Standard Arabic, Moroccan Arabic, and Berber are the national languages." Ennaji also concluded "This survey confirms the idea that multilingualism in Morocco is a vivid sociolinguistic phenomenon, which is favored by many people."
There are around 6 million Berber speakers in Morocco. French retains a major place in Morocco, as it is taught universally and serves as Morocco's primary language of commerce and economics, culture, sciences and medicine; it is also widely used in education and government. Morocco is a member of the Francophonie. Spanish is spoken by many Moroccans, particularly in the northern regions around Tetouan and Tangier, as well as in parts of the south, due to historic ties and business interactions with Spain.
History
Historically, languages such as Phoenician, Punic, and Berber languages have been spoken in Morocco. Juba II, king of Mauretania, wrote in Greek and Latin. It is unclear how long African Romance was spoken, but its influence on Northwest African Arabic indicates it must have had a significant presence in the early years after the Arab conquest.Arabic came with the Muslim conquest of the Maghreb; Abdellah Guennoun cites the Friday sermon delivered by Tariq Ibn Ziad just before the conquest of al-Andalus in 711 as the first instance of Moroccan literature in Arabic. However, the language spread much more slowly than the religion. At first, Arabic was used only in urban areas, especially in cities in the north, while the rural areas remained the domain of Berber languages.
Under the Almohads, the khuṭbas had to be delivered in Arabic and Berber, or as the Andalusi historian described it: "al-lisān al-gharbī". The khaṭīb, or sermon-giver, of al-Qarawiyyīn Mosque in Fes, Mahdī b. ‘Īsā, was replaced under the Almohads by Abū l-Ḥasan b. ‘Aṭiyya khaṭīb because the latter was fluent in Berber.
The first recorded work in Darija or Moroccan Arabic is Al-Kafif az-Zarhuni's epic zajal poem "al-Mala'ba," dating back to the reign of Marinid Sultan Abu al-Hasan Ali ibn Othman.
During the Middle Ages, sailors and traders in the Mediterranean, including the Barbary Coast, developed a contact language known as Mediterranean Lingua Franca or sabir.
It was influenced by the languages of Italy, Catalan, Occitan, Berber, Arabic, Spanish and Portuguese.
Its use declined after the European conquest.
Language policy
After Morocco gained independence with the end of the French protectorate in 1956, it started a process of Arabization. For this task, the Institute for Studies and Research on Arabization was established by decree in 1960. The policy of Arabization was not applied in earnest until 17 years after independence. An editorial in Lamalif in 1973 argued that, although French unified the elite and major sections of the economy, national unity could only be achieved based on Arabic—though Lamalif called for a new incarnation of the language, describing Standard Arabic as untenably prescriptive and Moroccan vernacular Arabic as too poor to become in and of itself a language of culture and knowledge.In the year 2000, after years of neglecting and ignoring the other languages present in Morocco, the Charter for Educational Reform recognized them and the necessity for them.
Until then the Berber languages were marginalized in the modern society and the number of monolingual speakers decreased. In recent years, the Berber culture has been gaining strength and some developments promise that these languages will not die.
Arabic, on the other hand, has been perceived as a prestigious language in Morocco for over a millennium. However, there are very distinctive varieties of Arabic used, not all equally prestigious, which are MSA, the written form used in schools and 'Dialectal Arabic', the non-standardized spoken form. The difference between the two forms in terms of grammar, phonology and vocabulary is so great, it can be considered as diglossia. MSA is practically foreign to Moroccan schoolchildren, and this creates problems with reading and writing, consequently leading to a high level of illiteracy in Morocco.
The French language is also dominant in Morocco, especially in education and administration, therefore was initially learned by an elite and later on was learned by a great number of Moroccans for use in domains such as finance, science, technology and media. That is despite the government decision to implement a language policy of ignoring French after gaining independence, for the sake of creating a monolingual country.
From its independence until the year 2000, Morocco opted for Arabization as a policy, in an attempt of replacing French with Arabic. By the end of the 1980s, Arabic was the dominant language in education, although French was still in use in many important domains. The goals of Arabization were not met, in linguistic terms, therefore a change was needed. By 2020, the country ended its policy of Arabization, with French reimplemented as the medium of instruction in core subjects such as science and math.
In 2000 the Charter of Educational Reform introduced a drastic change in language policy. From then on, Morocco has adopted a clear perpetual educational language policy with three main cores: improving and reinforcing the teaching of Arabic, using a variety of languages, such as English and French in teaching the fields of technology and science and acceptance of Berber. The state of Morocco still sees Arabic as its national language, but acknowledges that not all Moroccans are Arabic speakers and that Arabization did not succeed in the area of science and technology. The aims of the charter seem to have been met faster than expected, probably since the conditions of the charter started to be implemented immediately. In the early twenty-first century the different minority languages are acknowledged in Morocco although Arabic is still dominant and is being promoted by the government.
Berber was made an official language in 2011. In 2019, a law was enacted to implement the constitutional changes from 2011. The government aims to generalize Berber education to all Moroccan schools. However, as of 2023, only 10% of Moroccan pupils study Berber. The government hired civil servants able to speak the three main dialects to help citizens in courts, hospitals, and other public services. According to a 2012 study by the Government of Spain, 98% of Moroccans spoke Moroccan Arabic, 63% spoke French, 26% Berber, 14% spoke English, and 10% spoke Spanish.
Education
Framework Law 17:51 allowed scientific subjects to be taught in foreign languages—especially French—in public elementary schools.In 2019, the Parliament voted to expand Berber classes to all Moroccan schools. According to Prime Minister Aziz Akhannouch, about 2,000 schools taught Amazigh in 2022 and the government was training more teachers to accelerate the roll out of Berber teaching. As of 2023, this reform is still in progress.
In July 2023, the gradual generalization of learning English from secondary school was decided by the Ministry of Education.
Arabic
Arabic, along with Berber, is one of Morocco's two official languages, although it is the Moroccan dialect of Arabic, namely Darija, meaning "everyday/colloquial language"; that is spoken or understood, frequently as a second language, by the majority of the population. Many native Berber speakers also speak the local Arabic variant as a second language. Arabic in its Classical and Standard forms is one of the two prestige languages in Morocco. Aleya Rouchdy, editor of Language Contact and Language Conflict in Arabic, said that Classical/Modern Arabic and French are constantly in conflict with one another, but that most Moroccans believe that the bilingualism of Classical Arabic and French is the most optimal choice to allow for Morocco's development.In 1995 the number of native Arabic speakers in Morocco was approximately 18.8 million, and 21 million including the Moroccan diaspora.
As a member of the Maghrebi Arabic grouping of dialects, Moroccan Arabic is similar to the dialects spoken in Mauritania, Algeria, Tunisia, and Libya. The so called Darija dialect of Morocco is quite different from its Middle Eastern counterparts but in general understandable to each other, it’s estimated that Darija shares 85%-90% of its vocabulary with Modern Standard Arabic. The country shows a marked difference in urban and rural dialects. This is due to the history of settlement. traditionally, Arabs established centers of power in only a few cities and ports in the region, with the effect that the other areas remained Berber-speaking. Then, in the 13th century, Bedouin tribes swept through many of the unsettled areas, spreading with them their distinct Arabic dialect in the non-urbanized areas and leaving speakers of Berber isolated in the mountainous regions.