WIKITONGUES: Anass speaking Moroccan Arabic

This video was recorded and submitted by Anass Sedrati in Stockholm, Sweden, where he lives and works. Moroccan Arabic, also known as Moroccan Darija or simply ‘Darija’, is spoken by as many as 21 million people, primarily in the North African nation of Morocco, as well as by diaspora communities worldwide. A variety of Maghrebi Arabic, Darija is closely related to Tunisian and Algerian, while demonstrating significant influence from Morocco’s indigenous Berber languages, as well as Spanish and French. Since Modern Standard Arabic and French are Morocco’s primary written languages, Darija is generally spoken and without a sizeable body of literature. However, in recent decades, an informal orthography based on the Latin alphabet has emerged online and in SMS texting platforms.

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[kkkooo]

As a Syrian I'm really happy because I could understand 70% of your speech
Thank you Anas for sharing this beautiful Darija with us

[yazan]

Hello my name is Anas, I’m 20 something year old. And I record videos in the Moroccan dialect here in Sweden. As you can see it was cold, and a sea that just recently froze over. I record videos to display the Moroccan dialect, and For people who never heard the Moroccan dialect. At the same time I get to record the weather here, that is foreign to me. It’s beautiful. The dialect can be difficult, it can be seen as a dialect or an independent language. It’s closer to the amazigh/Berber languages and their dialect. The point of this video, was to record a video for an organisations wiki tongues, so they wanted to display the Moroccan dialect, whether it’s language or dialect. It’s saved to them, and they allow people to listen and possible learn if they wanted. Anyways, this is a video to showcase the landscape, and as you can see there’s some sunlight. Since the video is about Moroccan I wanted to give some background Information about it. As I said, it’s a language in Morocco, and it’s a mix between important historical languages such as Arabic and the amazigh language, later mixed with French. It’s one of the dialects, that is only found in a certain place, especially the Morocco, and the borders are defined. So when comparing with Algerian dialect it can be similar but still we make the distinction between the two. As I’ve said before it’s spoken in Morocco, and has a large population of speakers within Morocco. We make differences between different types of dialects in Morocco, this one is more for the beginners who are unfamiliar with the distinction. The arabs who colonised brought their form of Dialect that is taught at school, another form of the dialect is the ones found in villages. Some of the other dialect is missing a few letters in the other dialect so it can be difficult. Of course, there’s other languages in the Maghreb, such as amazigh languages and French. All these smaller dialects are regional, and before I finish this video, it’s nice to know the Moroccan dialect. Especially because you can understand the historical legacy it has, and if you learn it is easier to become better at the amazigh languages and Arabic, as well as the mixes and similarities between them. So thank you for all watching, and I hope you enjoyed I’ll leave you with this nice view.

[SmashhoofTheOriginal]

I love how it sounds. Very different from other dialects of Arabic

[Spauso]

I’m Sudanese Arab, yet I found this on intelligible.
It’s interesting to see how the dialects evolved from each other.

[AishahHWaheed]

So happy that I understood like 80% due to exposure to the dialect whilst living in Morocco for around eight months ! More of these videos would be great! :)

[truthoverfalsehood__]

I understood everything, from Algeria. I have a laugh at people who did not understand him, because every north west african knows that how he spoke wasnt even really how we speak between us, this is the switch mode speech when a morrocan or algerian knows thst potential arabic speakers csn listen, if he wasnt filmed and only spoke to morrocans and algerians it would even get crazier than that by far.

[lorenarizzo]

I really like how he brings up the question about Darija - is it dialect, is it a language (I have so many friends on either side of that argument) and the idea of borders being fluid when it comes to the way we speak. Great video, chukran bzaf wikitongues o Anass!

[richardlanguage]

Zwiin ktiiir! Ma sha allah! I learned Darija in Marrakech to a good level. I miss it terribly. Thank you Anass!

[SocialTransmission]

I'm iraqi and proud to say that I understood every single word of this video despite not going to Morocco and not being able to get its visa :(

[Msciwoj-jx]

Sounds different than the Arabic I’m accustomed to hearing :I

[martinkullberg]

I like the sound of this language, it sounds warm and cozy.

[idderdet]

I am surprised that some commentators thought that this is unintelligible because it has french or spanish or other influences. Yes in the more popular versions you could hear "arabized" french or spanish words, but what many fail to see is the tremendous influence of the Amazigh language. It is not in the words used, which in this video and with a little more focus could be easily understood because they are almost 100% arabic and even literary arabic, with not a single french or spanish word I could detect (except few technical ones), but in the vowels (chakl) and pronunciation. In fact, the moroccan dialect uses a large number of ancient arabic words that are no longer in use in the middle east, but are true arabic. The rest, such as the use of "diali" for example (meaning my or mine) are just the equivalent of the "bitaati" or "eli" or other forms used in the middle east and which are no more or less arabic that the moroccan versions.

[Homoclassicus]

Surprisingly it doesn't sound much like the "usual" Arabic we hear (from the Gulf, Egypt, Syria etc.)... I wouldn't guess it is the same language (and some would say that's because it actually isn't).

[Nath_CM]

Gracias por este video! Hermoso idioma!

[solid]

I speak Palestinian Arabic which is part of the Levantine dialect and I surprisingly understood %85-95 of his speech but again I had an Algerian roommate when I was living in Sydney, Australia.

[jmudikun]

Beautiful Darija. I love Morocco
كانموت للمغرب 😍

[Aberjan]

Barak Allahu fik khoya! El la7ja maghrebya zwiiina. Mumkin katdir les sous-titres, 7it mashi kul wa7d lli kayfhmu...

I love this language, so beautiful sounding! Who will do tachel7it and tarifit and Tamazight next??

[abid]

I'm from Saudi 🇸🇦 and to be honest, I couldn't understand much of the video when I watched it for the first time. But the second time, I listened carefully to it, and I understood almost everything. 🤔
I've heard that the reason we can't understand Darija is because it is heavily mixed with Tamazigh, but maybe that's not the case. Probably what makes it difficult to comprehend is mostly the accent and the fact that it is poorly represented in the media...

[Zeek]

I'm a non-native Standard Arabic speaker, and I understand approx. 80-90% of what was said. It's largely because he's using a version of Darija Arabic that is close to standard Arabic because the topic is formal and 'educated'.

[Ramoozy]

I’m a yemeni but my bestfriend is a moroccan so I understand darija and i love it 🧡.