Sorry More Politics

It also annoys me that so many Moroccans refer to Moroccan Arabic or darija as argot or slang when it’s the language of the people. Fuhsa, or modern standard Arabic, is spoken only by the educated and (from what I understand, I ain’t no Arabist or nothing, or even speak Arabic except for like three words) is not really spoken anywhere with some Persian Gulf dialects just being close to it. Some Arabic speakers couldn’t understand each other, but for political reasons you can’t say the truth which is that most “Arabic” speakers don’t speak the same language. Which brings me to the other side of the language issue in Morocco: Berber. Or rather the different Berber dialects which are spoken by many Moroccans. A bit of Moroccan history: many groups have invaded Morocco throughout the centuries, the last being the French and Spanish, but before them were the Arabs and before them the Romans and before them the Phoenicians and before them the Berbers. The folks who were there before the Berbers are no longer relevant to the mix, so the Berbers get default native peoples status. The Berbers are notorious for their “fiercely independent” spirit and the Arabs, Romans and others never could quite control certain parts of the country where the Berbers were able to do their thing. Still, they were disadvantaged in a society dominated by Arabic speaking Berbers. The difference now is mainly cultural and linguistic, although some people say that Berbers are lighter than the Arabs. These are also the same people who will tell you that Berbers are from Europe and that while Europe is the head, Morocco is the roots. This self-hating, negrophobic attempt to distance themselves from Black Africa and claim an elusive whiteness (being Dominican I understand and disapprove of the impulse) is laughable. The fact is, Moroccans—including the Berbers—are a diverse bunch and I was constantly surprised by the number of Moroccans that wouldn’t be perceived as “Arab” in the US i.e. wouldn’t get racially profiled by Department of Homeland Security. Some would get away as white, but many more would be profiled for being black. Gnawa, in fact, is the subculture created by black slaves. Unfortunately, coming into Moroccan society mostly as slaves black folks have kept their low status and now traditional prejudice has mixed with modern racism to make life quite hard for dark-skinned Moroccans. Natasha lamented the racist taunts and jokes, people chasing her asking if she was from Senegal. Again I saw many people as dark as Natasha in Morocco. It’s a damn shame. I wonder why God chose black folks to suffer so. That being said, I think it’s cool that the Berbers are trying to pressure the Moroccan and Algerian governments to teach Berber in the schools as one of the main aims of a rising Berber Pride movement after centuries of repression.

Ils Sont Forts

In Senegalese French at least, to say someone is good at something you say il est fort, or “he is strong,” as in “he is strong in swimming.” Well the French were good at colonizing. As I keep seeing, they were really good at spreading their culture (although I wish they had spread some money instead so cats in Senegal could afford all of the tasty, fancy French cheeses) and their language. French takes you much further in Morocco than English in Egypt. Two Arabic countries (although the language situation in Morocco is more complicated) which strongly emphasized Arabic after “independence” but the French ils sont forts. It’s even worse in Senegal where people are always surprised to learn that French is the only official language. The only language allowed in government is French. Almost everything written is in French. Unlike Anglophone African countries, Francophone Africans have not developed their native languages into literary languages. So that some Yoruba in Nigeria write in Yoruba, while much fewer do so in neighboring Benin. It was really hard to find anything written in Wolof. Moreover, this is the same country where magazines will translate from Wolof to French when interviewees use Wolof proverbs and idioms as if Wolof were not the language of the majority and French the clearly foreign language.

Second Childhood

I feel like learning a new language is like being a child again. All of the sudden you get reduced from adult banter, like “why are there goats everywhere and how come you are allowed to have animals in your house?” To toddler-level conversation like “thirsty where water?” After 10 weeks here, my French is decent. I couldn’t tell you how to change the battery on your cell phone but I can now construct complex sentences like “I didn’t think you were coming so I left without you.” Now that I speak enough French I have started taking Wolof lessons in French. It’s been hard. The “what-did-you-just-fucking-say?” stares and the “boy-are-you-retarded?” looks have diminished with French, not disappeared by far, but diminished and now it’s hard to go back there with Wolof. It’s even harder cause with French I can at least try to guess what the word might be. This usually entails trying to “frenchify” whatever the corresponding word is in Spanish. It actually works often with the big words, like “colonizar” in Spanish is “colonizer” in French, but when I try the same trick with other words like bed (“cama” in Spanish) and say things like “came” I get one of those “boy-are-you-retarded?” stares (the word in French is “lit”). It’s also really annoying when people tell me how easy their language is. Of course it’s easy for you, you already speak it!