| Judeo-Moroccan Arabic | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Native to | Morocco |
| Ethnicity | Moroccan Jews |
Native speakers | (66,000 cited 2000–2018)[1] |
| Hebrew alphabet | |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | aju |
| Glottolog | jude1265 |
| ELP | Judeo-Moroccan Arabic |
Judeo-Moroccan Arabic is thevariety or the varieties of theMoroccanvernacularArabic spoken byMoroccan Jews living or formerly living inMorocco.[2][3] Historically, the majority of Moroccan Jews spokeMoroccan vernacular Arabic, orDarija, as their first language, even in Amazigh areas, which was facilitated by their literacy inHebrew script.[4]: 59 TheDarija spoken by Moroccan Jews, which they referred to asal-‘arabiya diyalna ("our Arabic") as opposed to‘arabiya diyal l-məslimīn (Arabic of the Muslims), typically had distinct features,[4]: 59 for example, they would pronounce s as š and z as ž, somelexical borrowings fromHebrew, and in some regions Hispanic features from the migration ofSephardi Jews following theAlhambra 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 theAlliance Israelite Universelle under the French protectorate made French their mother tongue.
After 1948, the vast majority ofMoroccan Jewsmigrated to Israel and haveswitched to using Hebrew as theirnative 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.
Widely used in the Jewish community duringits long history there, the Moroccan dialect ofJudeo-Arabic has many influences from languages other thanArabic, includingSpanish (due to the close proximity ofSpain),Haketia or Moroccan Judeo-Spanish, due to the influx ofSephardic refugees from Spain after the 1492 expulsion, andFrench (due to the period in which Morocco was colonized byFrance), and, of course, the inclusion of manyHebrew loanwords and phrases (a feature of allJewish languages). The dialect has considerablemutual intelligibility withJudeo-Tunisian Arabic, and some withJudeo-Tripolitanian Arabic (which, like Judeo-Moroccan Arabic, are associated withMaghrebi Arabic), but almost none withJudeo-Iraqi Arabic.
Most literate Muslims in Morocco would write, not in vernacular Arabic, but inStandard Arabic, but Moroccan Jews, who typically did not learn Standard Arabic as it was taught in Islamic religious contexts, wrote inDarija using Hebrew script.[4]: 59 For them,Darija was a literary language:Judah ibn Quraish wrote arisala on Semitic languages in Maghrebi Judeo-Arabic to the Jews of Fes already in the ninth-century.[4]: 59
In 1905, a group of SephardicJews of Fes sent a letter in vernacular Moroccan Arabic (Darija) written in Hebrew letters toAlfonso XIII, King of Spain, asking him to establish a Spanish school in themellah of Fes and to protect their community, which they described as descendants of Spain and therefore his subjects.[7]
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,[8] most of them speak French rather than Judeo-Moroccan,[9] and their Arabic is more akin toMoroccan Arabic than to Judeo-Arabic. There are estimated to be 8,925[contradictory] speakers in Morocco, mostly inCasablanca andFes, and 250,000 inIsrael (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 asBeersheba as portrayed inZaguri Imperia.[10]
Simon Levy identifies three groups of Judeo-Moroccan Arabic based on the pronunciation of the letterqaf (in traditionalMaghrebi Arabic script: ق, inHebrew script: ק): 1) the dialects of Jewish communities in Fez, Sefrou, Meknes, Rabat, and Salé, which pronounce theqāf as ahamza or glottal stop; 2) the dialects of Marrakesh, Essaouira, Safi, el-Jadida, and Azemmour, which pronounce it as avoiceless post-velar occlusive [q]; and 3) the dialects ofDebdou,Tafilalt, and theDraa River valley, which pronounce it as avoiceless velar occlusive [k].[3]
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