Bonjour. Je suis américain et je parle l’arabe “Fusha” et j’étudie la darija marocaine. Je comprende Français un peu mais je ne suis maitre de la langue.
Hello. I am an American who speaks Fusha Arabic and likes to think he’s decent at it, though I expect to make some mistakes here and there. I also am trying to learn Moroccan Arabic - I speak and understand some, but not enough for my liking. I also understand some French, as well as other languages, but I am much better in Arabic than in French.
Welcome on board, PW :).
What’s making you switch from fus7a to Moroccan Arabic? I hope that you’ll like it here with us.
What if we start with a few corrections?
Wa sahlan is not written with an alif, it’s: [large]? ???[/large]
Darijais not written with yaa2, it’s: [large]???[/large]
And as you meant by wifqan “compared to”, then that’s not the correct word. Wifqan is “according to”. Compared to is: “Moqâranatan bi…” [large]??? ?[/large]
“Why are you learning Darija?” is a question I always ask new comers. You’re right about switching to dialectal Arabic, but the surprising thing is that you chose Moroccan and not Egyptian like most Arabic learners do. But that’s really good, I hope that you learn loads with us.
I’ll be picking up some Egyptian as well - I have a friend who’s an archaeologist and wants to go see the Pyramids, among other things, and doesn’t speak Arabic at all. But I find Moroccan Arabic more interesting - even though I’ll have to learn other dialects if I want to go anywhere but northwest Africa.
Hello PW.
I, too, am an American and I speak both Fus7a and Maghribiyyah. Let me assure you that Moroccan/Algerian/Tunisian/Mauritanian/‘Hassaniyya’ Arabic will be of less than no use to you in Egypt. Honest. When Egyptians and Moroccans who know each other here in the States want to talk they resort to English. Moroccans can understand the Egyptians, but the comprehensibility is only, by and large, in one direction. If you intend to go to Egypt with your Archeologist protege, I strongly suggest that you avoid learning Darija until you are well able to converse in Egyptian; otherwise, it is likely that you will form a mental basket into which you put ‘non-standard Arabic’ and keep it separate from ‘formal Arabic’, but not have enough power-of-differentiation to avoid mixing the Egyptian with the Darija.
by learning the moroccan dialect they’ll understand you in north-west africa because it’s the same language (which is the same as north mauritanian and algerian language)
PG, you said that you speak some French, Fus7a, and a little bit of Moroccan. Do you speak other languages as well? Also, I would really like to know your strategy for keeping the dialects separate, yet at your fingertips.
Heh, I barely speak French - I know just enough to boost my Moroccan and that’s about it. I’m much better at reading it than I am at anything else - fortunately they haven’t invented the all-video webforum yet.
English is my main language, since I was raised speaking it. But I am also learning (with varying degrees of success based on the amount of time I have available for study) fus7a, Moroccan, Farsi, Russian, German and Burmese. I know a few words and/or phrases in a lot of other languages - but like I said, it’s at the “few words and/or phrases” stage. I also know some Egyptian-specific words, some Iraqi/Gulf-specific words, and a few words in Syrian colloquial.
One way I separate the dialects mentally is thinking of what I think they sound like - Moroccan tends to be fast and drops a lot of vowels, plus there are many French cognates. Egyptian is also fast, but there isn’t as much letter-dropping, has a lot of sibilants instead of TH sounds and substitutes the “G” sound for jiim, which is easy to remember. Iraqi tends sounds like you’re picking a fight and other Gulf Arabic I’ve heard isn’t far behind. Syrian and related dialects can sound a lot like Frenchmen speaking Arabic - Moroccan does it too, but something about Moroccan differentiates it from Syrian, possibly the Berber influence. Syrian and particularly Lebanese can sound like the stereotypical Frenchman started speaking Arabic complete with arm gestures and saying “eh” a lot.
Naturally use is the best method of retention, but if you can’t find someone to talk with, movies and other audio media are ok. The trick is finding any of it, especially in Moroccan, Gulf/Iraqi or other non-movie dialects. www.casavie.com has a lot of colloquial movies - mostly Egyptian, but there are a few Moroccan ones in there. My favorite that I’ve found so far is “Abdou en Chez Almohades”, or something like that. It really plays up the difference between fus7a and Moroccan when he gets arrested and goes in front of the potentate.
But I’m a little crazy on the number of languages I try to learn at any one time - I want to know all of it, and I’m annoyed with myself that I can’t just read it or listen to it once and instantly retain all of it.
It’s not only the Egyptians, it’s all other Arabs, apart from our North African neighbors. And let me tell you, that frustrates me a lot. I think that those people don’t make enough effort to try to understand us, and they resort to the classical excuses: Moroccan speak too fast, Moroccans have French and Spanish influences on their dialect. Doh! Seriously, if we can understand them very well, so can they… with just little concentration.
Just to clarify, when I said that Egyptians and Moroccans here in the states would generally resort to English in order to make things easier it was not my intention to give the impression that Egyptians are alone in that. I focused on MiSr because PW was speaking of going there. When clarity is necessary (like in an engineering job, for instance) Arabs of all nations would tend towards using English as a way to eliminate getting their wires crossed. Only those whose countries are at very close geographical proximity would risk using their dialects.
And I stand by my assertion that using Moroccan Dialect in Egypt will cause misunderstandings. You are more likely to cause confusion to the run of the mill Egyptian by using Moroccan and seeming assured of yourself than by trying to use Egyptian and obviously stumbling around… but that is just my opinion.
And yes, it is a shame that the Easterners do not learn the speech of their Western brethren. The Westerners have benefited greatly from the film industry (Eastern affair that it is, excluding Ouarzazat) and that familiarity with the television programs has allowed them to adjust their ears very handily to other dialects. …ah, the subject of dialects and their interrelatedness and origins and the first language of mankind… are you guys aware that in the mid nineteenth century (yes, I do mean in the 1800s) the French institute for philological studies (I am using lower case letters because I do not recall the institute’s name at this moment, only that it was in France…)exasperated with the schism it was causing among scholars, banned the discussion of the origins of languages. There were so many theories floating about and being hotly debated on minimal amounts of objective evidence that the big shots in Philology pronounced it unacceptable to discuss the issue any longer, seeing as it was unlikely to ever exhaust itself into a universally accepted conclusion.
…But I’m up for a discussion of Maltese and the North African dialects if anyone is interested.
[quote=SimplyMoroccan]That analogy is really funny.
But what makes you strive to learn so many languages? A passion? And are you a linguistics student at the same time?[/quote]
Some people are obsessed with firearms, some people collect stamps or coins, I want to learn as many languages as I can. Plus I want to be one of the exceptions to the old, “Speak three languages and you’re European, two and you’re bilingual, one and you’re American” joke. It’s also in some part an employment security measure, since most Americans who speak a foreign language will speak languages taught in American high schools, and even then they probably won’t do it well unless they’re immigrants or immigrants’ children. If one can acquire fluency in a language other than Spanish or French, particularly non-European languages - Hmong, Hindi, Korean, Arabic, Mandarin, Swahili, Turkish, etc - then there will be job opportunities available to you that other people can’t take because they don’t speak Language X.
I’m also quietly competing with my crazy uncle, who speaks something like 8 languages other than English.
I perfectly got your point, ummaryam. It’s just that you put your finger on the dialectal wound :hap:. It’s a topic that never gets old. “Not fair you don’t understand Darija”. “Not fair you people speak differently”…
@ PolyglotWannabe:
You’re right about how some linguistic abilities may open up new opportunities in the job market.
So if you speak 4 languages, what do you become? A Simply Moroccan! (Joke)
Good luck :).
