Maghrebi Arabic (, Western Arabic; as opposed to Eastern or Mashriqi Arabic) is a

vernacular A vernacular or vernacular language is in contrast with a "standard language". It refers to the language or dialect that is spoken by people that are inhabiting a particular country or region. The vernacular is typically the native language, n ...

Arabic Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C. E.Watson; Walter ...

dialect continuum A dialect continuum or dialect chain is a series of language varieties spoken across some geographical area such that neighboring varieties are mutually intelligible, but the differences accumulate over distance so that widely separated vari ...

spoken in the

Maghreb The Maghreb (; ar, الْمَغْرِب, al-Maghrib, lit=the west), also known as the Arab Maghreb ( ar, المغرب العربي) and Northwest Africa, is the western part of North Africa and the Arab world. The region includes Algeria, ...

region, in

Morocco Morocco (),, ) officially the Kingdom of Morocco, is the westernmost country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It overlooks the Mediterranean Sea to the north and the Atlantic Ocean to the west, and has land borders with Algeria to A ...

Algeria ) , image_map = Algeria (centered orthographic projection).svg , map_caption = , image_map2 = , capital = Algiers , coordinates = , largest_city = capital , relig ...

Tunisia ) , image_map = Tunisia location (orthographic projection).svg , map_caption = Location of Tunisia in northern Africa , image_map2 = , capital = Tunis , largest_city = capital , ...

Libya Libya (; ar, ليبيا, Lībiyā), officially the State of Libya ( ar, دولة ليبيا, Dawlat Lībiyā), is a country in the Maghreb region in North Africa. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to the north, Egypt to the east, Suda ...

Western Sahara Western Sahara ( '; ; ) is a disputed territory on the northwest coast and in the Maghreb region of North and West Africa. About 20% of the territory is controlled by the self-proclaimed Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR), while the ...

, and

Mauritania Mauritania (; ar, موريتانيا, ', french: Mauritanie; Berber: ''Agawej'' or ''Cengit''; Pulaar: ''Moritani''; Wolof: ''Gànnaar''; Soninke:), officially the Islamic Republic of Mauritania ( ar, الجمهورية الإسلامية ...

. It includes Moroccan, Algerian, Tunisian,

Libyan Demographics of Libya is the demography of Libya, specifically covering population density, ethnicity, education level, health of the populace, economic status, and religious affiliations, as well as other aspects of the Libyan population. The ...

, and

Hassaniya Arabic Hassānīya ( ar, حسانية '; also known as , , , , and ''Maure'') is a variety of Maghrebi Arabic spoken by Mauritanian Arabs and the Sahrawi. It was spoken by the Beni Ḥassān Bedouin tribes, who extended their authority over most of ...

. It is known locally as Darja, Derdja, Derja, Derija or Darija, depending on the region's dialect ( ar, الدارجة; meaning "common or everyday dialect"). This serves to differentiate the spoken vernacular from

Standard Arabic Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) or Modern Written Arabic (MWA), terms used mostly by linguists, is the variety of Standard language, standardized, Literary language, literary Arabic that developed in the Arab world in the late 19th and early 20th ...

. Maghrebi Arabic has a predominantly Semitic and

vocabulary, although it contains a few

Berber Berber or Berbers may refer to: Ethnic group * Berbers, an ethnic group native to Northern Africa * Berber languages, a family of Afro-Asiatic languages Places * Berber, Sudan, a town on the Nile People with the surname * Ady Berber (1913–19 ...

loanwords which represent 2 to 3% of the vocabulary of Libyan Arabic, 8 to 9% of Algerian and Tunisian Arabic, and 10 to 15% of Moroccan Arabic. The

Maltese language Maltese ( mt, Malti, links=no, also ''L-Ilsien Malti'' or '), is a Semitic language derived from late medieval Sicilian Arabic with Romance superstrata spoken by the Maltese people. It is the national language of Malta and the only offic ...

is believed to be derived from

Siculo-Arabic Siculo-Arabic ( ar, الْلهجَة الْعَرَبِيَة الْصَقلِيَة), also known as Sicilian Arabic, is the term used for varieties of Arabic that were spoken in the Emirate of Sicily (which included Malta) from the 9th century ...

and ultimately from Tunisian Arabic, as it contains some typical Maghrebi Arabic areal characteristics.

Name

''Darija'', ''Derija'' or ''Delja'' ( ar, الدارجة) means "everyday/colloquial dialect"; it is also rendered as ', ''derija'' or ''darja''. It refers to any of the varieties of colloquial Maghrebi Arabic. Although it is also common in

Algeria ) , image_map = Algeria (centered orthographic projection).svg , map_caption = , image_map2 = , capital = Algiers , coordinates = , largest_city = capital , relig ...

and

Tunisia ) , image_map = Tunisia location (orthographic projection).svg , map_caption = Location of Tunisia in northern Africa , image_map2 = , capital = Tunis , largest_city = capital , ...

to refer to the Maghrebi Arabic varieties directly as languages, similarly it is also common in

Egypt Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning the North Africa, northeast corner of Africa and Western Asia, southwest corner of Asia via a land bridg ...

and

Lebanon Lebanon ( , ar, لُبْنَان, translit=lubnān, ), officially the Republic of Lebanon () or the Lebanese Republic, is a country in Western Asia. It is located between Syria to the north and east and Israel to the south, while Cyprus lie ...

to refer to the Mashriqi Arabic varieties directly as languages. For instance, Algerian Arabic would be referred as ''Dzayri'' (Algerian) and Tunisian Arabic as ''Tounsi'' (Tunisian), and Egyptian Arabic would be referred as ''Masri'' (Egyptian) and Lebanese Arabic as ''Lubnani'' (Lebanese). In contrast, the colloquial dialects of more eastern Arab countries, such as Egypt, Jordan and Sudan, are usually known as ' (), though Egyptians may also refer to their dialects as ''al-logha-d-darga''.

Characteristics

The varieties of Maghrebi Arabic form a

. The degree of mutual intelligibility is high between geographically adjacent dialects (such as local dialects spoken in Eastern Morocco and Western Algeria or Eastern Algeria and North Tunisia or South Tunisia and Western Libya), but lower between dialects that are further apart, e.g. between Moroccan and Tunisian Darija. Conversely, Moroccan Darija and particularly Algerian Derja cannot be easily understood by Eastern Arabic speakers (from Egypt, Sudan, Levant, Iraq, and Arabian peninsula) in general. Maghrebi Arabic continues to evolve by integrating new French or English words, notably in technical fields, or by replacing old French and Italian/Spanish ones with Modern Standard Arabic words within some circles; more educated and upper-class people who code-switch between Maghrebi Arabic and Modern Standard Arabic have more French and Italian/Spanish loanwords, especially the latter came from the time of

al-Andalus Al-Andalus translit. ; an, al-Andalus; ast, al-Ándalus; eu, al-Andalus; ber, ⴰⵏⴷⴰⵍⵓⵙ, label= Berber, translit=Andalus; ca, al-Àndalus; gl, al-Andalus; oc, Al Andalús; pt, al-Ândalus; es, al-Ándalus () was the M ...

. Maghrebi dialects all use ''n-'' as the first-person

singular Singular may refer to: * Singular, the grammatical number that denotes a unit quantity, as opposed to the plural and other forms * Singular homology * SINGULAR, an open source Computer Algebra System (CAS) * Singular or sounder, a group of boar ...

prefix A prefix is an affix which is placed before the stem of a word. Adding it to the beginning of one word changes it into another word. For example, when the prefix ''un-'' is added to the word ''happy'', it creates the word ''unhappy''. Particul ...

verb A verb () is a word ( part of speech) that in syntax generally conveys an action (''bring'', ''read'', ''walk'', ''run'', ''learn''), an occurrence (''happen'', ''become''), or a state of being (''be'', ''exist'', ''stand''). In the usual descr ...

s, distinguishing them from Levantine dialects and Modern Standard Arabic.

Relationship with Modern Standard Arabic and Berber languages

Modern Standard Arabic ( ''al-Fusḥā'') is the primary language used in the government, legislation and judiciary of countries in the Maghreb. Maghrebi Arabic is mainly a spoken and

vernacular dialect A nonstandard dialect or vernacular dialect is a dialect or language variety that has not historically benefited from the institutional support or sanction that a standard dialect has. Like any dialect, a nonstandard dialect has an internally co ...

, although it occasionally appears in entertainment and advertising in urban areas of Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia. In Algeria, where Maghrebi Arabic was taught as a separate subject under French colonization, some textbooks in the dialect exist but they are no longer officially endorsed by the Algerian authorities. Maghrebi Arabic has a mostly Semitic

vocabulary. It contains a few

loanwords which represent 2 to 3% of the vocabulary of Libyan Arabic, 8 to 9% of Algerian and Tunisian Arabic, and 10 to 15% of Moroccan Arabic. The dialect may also possess a

Punic The Punic people, or western Phoenicians, were a Semitic people in the Western Mediterranean who migrated from Tyre, Phoenicia to North Africa during the Early Iron Age. In modern scholarship, the term ''Punic'' – the Latin equivalent of t ...

substrate. Additionally, Maghrebi Arabic has a

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through ...

substratum, which may have been derived from the African Romance that was used as an urban lingua franca during the

Byzantine Empire The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire primarily in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantinopl ...

period.

Relationship with other languages

Maghrebi Arabic speakers frequently borrow words from French (in Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia), Spanish (in northern Morocco and northwestern Algerian) and Italian (in Libya and Tunisia) and conjugate them according to the rules of their dialects with some exceptions (like passive voice for example). Since it is not always written, there is no standard and it is free to change quickly and to pick up new vocabulary from neighbouring languages. This is somewhat similar to what happened to

Middle English Middle English (abbreviated to ME) is a form of the English language that was spoken after the Norman conquest of 1066, until the late 15th century. The English language underwent distinct variations and developments following the Old Englis ...

after the

Norman conquest The Norman Conquest (or the Conquest) was the 11th-century invasion and occupation of England by an army made up of thousands of Norman, Breton, Flemish, and French troops, all led by the Duke of Normandy, later styled William the Conq ...

Varieties

Varieties of Arabic The varieties (or dialects or vernacular languages) of Arabic, a Semitic language within the Afroasiatic family originating in the Arabian Peninsula, are the linguistic systems that Arabic speakers speak natively. There are considerable vari ...

* Pre-Hilalian Arabic dialects *

Hilalian dialects The Hilalian dialects () are a continuum of Arabic dialects of the Maghreb, which were introduced during the Hilalian invasions between the 11th and 12th centuries, as well as the migration of Arab Hilalian tribes to the Western Maghreb. These di ...

* Koinés: **

Algerian Arabic Algerian Arabic (natively known as Dziria) is a dialect derived from the form of Arabic spoken in northern Algeria. It belongs to the Maghrebi Arabic language continuum and is partially mutually intelligible with Tunisian and Moroccan. Like ...

Moroccan Arabic Moroccan Arabic ( ar, العربية المغربية الدارجة, translit=al-ʻArabīya al-Maghribīya ad-Dārija ), also known as Darija (), is the dialectal, vernacular form or forms of Arabic spoken in Morocco. It is part of the Maghre ...

Tunisian Arabic Tunisian Arabic, or simply Tunisian, is a set of dialects of Maghrebi Arabic spoken in Tunisia. It is known among its over 11 million speakers aeb, translit=Tounsi/Tounsiy, label=as, تونسي , "Tunisian" or "Everyday Language" to distin ...

Libyan Arabic Libyan Arabic ( ar, ليبي, Lībī) is a variety of Arabic spoken mainly in Libya, and neighboring countries. It can be divided into two major dialect areas; the eastern centred in Benghazi and Bayda, and the western centred in Tripoli and M ...

** Jebli Arabic **

Jijel Arabic Jijeli, or Jijel Arabic, is a variety of Arabic spoken specifically in the Jijel Province in northeastern Algeria, but traces of it reach parts of the neighboring Skikda and Mila Provinces. It is quite different from all the other Arabic dialects ...

Andalusian Arabic Andalusi Arabic (), also known as Andalusian Arabic, was a variety or varieties of Arabic spoken mainly from the 9th to the 17th century in Al-Andalus, the regions of the Iberian Peninsula (modern Spain and Portugal) once under Muslim rule. It b ...

(extinct) **

(extinct) ***

(descended from Sicilian Arabic, but influenced lexically by Sicilian, Italian, French, and more recently, English) * Western

Bedouin The Bedouin, Beduin, or Bedu (; , singular ) are nomadic Arabs, Arab tribes who have historically inhabited the desert regions in the Arabian Peninsula, North Africa, the Levant, and Mesopotamia. The Bedouin originated in the Syrian Desert ...

: **

Saharan Arabic Algerian Saharan Arabic (also known as Saharan Arabic, Tamanrasset Arabic, Tamanghasset Arabic) is a variety of Arabic indigenous to and spoken predominantly in the Algerian Sahara. Its ISO 639-3 language code is "aao," and it belongs to Maghrebi ...

Name

Characteristics

Relationship with Modern Standard Arabic and Berber languages

Relationship with other languages

Varieties

See also

References

Further reading