LING 102 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Language Planning, Diglossia, Logical Consequence

• School: Drexel University
• Department: Linguistics
• Course: LING 102
• Professor: Rachael R Reynolds

Document Summary

Morocco has for centuries been characterized by bilingualism and diglossia. The two official languages of morocco are arabic and berber (berber is the indigenous language of morocco). Arabic been a language of prestige in morocco. Morocco, in common with algeria and tunisia, opted for a policy of arabization in 1956 after they achieved independence, by which they replaced french, the language of the colonizer, with arabic, the la(cid:374)guage of traditio(cid:374) a(cid:374)d (cid:858)authe(cid:374)ti(cid:272)ity(cid:859). Ara(cid:271)ization is seen as the cultural counterpart of political and e(cid:272)o(cid:374)o(cid:373)i(cid:272) i(cid:374)depe(cid:374)de(cid:374)(cid:272)e. ei(cid:374)stati(cid:374)g ara(cid:271)i(cid:272) was a (cid:373)ea(cid:374)s of asserti(cid:374)g the (cid:272)ou(cid:374)try(cid:859)s ara(cid:271)o-islamic identity, and its cultural independence from western influence. The idea that arabization restores authentic moroccan identity was a popular one, which persuaded the mass of the population to support it. 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.