Daarija

Daarija is the name Moroccans use when they talk about the language they use every day. Actually it's a sort of Arabic, but mixed with lots of local words (Spanish, French, Berber, etc) so for people outside of Morocco it's hard to understand. There is no written Daarija yet, it is still not considered a language of its own, so people try to write it using the Arabic alphabet. But Daarija has lots of sounds which Arabic doesn't, like "p" and "g". Someone speaking Arabic from another part of the Arabic world would probably say "Bark your car" whereas a Moroccan would say "Park your car". That makes it difficult to write Daarija using the Arabic alphabet because they have to invent new letters.

I think it's very interesting to live in Morocco at a time like this, especially when you look at life here from a Linguistic point of view. we are actually living the same language evolution as with Latin, when Latin became Spanish, French, Catalán, Romanian, Portuguese, etc. I think it's really exciting and I wish my Daarija were better. I still speak it very, very badly and I need to practise a lot. Hopefully I'll be able to go to class next year,so I can learn the grammar. The problem is, that since the language is changing there are no fixed rules of grammar. It makes it very hard to learn to speak properly. I will have to spend more time with my mother in law, she's very patient with me and she enjoys helping me learn.