[lg policy] Morocco: The Berber Language: Officially Recognized, Unofficially, Marginalized?

Tue Jul 28 15:28:08 UTC 2015

The Berber Language: Officially Recognized, Unofficially, Marginalized? Ursula
Lindsey <http://www.al-fanarmedia.org/author/ulindsey/> / 27 Jul 2015

 [image: berber-people]
<http://www.al-fanarmedia.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/berber-people.jpg>

Berber people in the Sahara (credit: Flickr)

Ten years after Tamazight—the language of the Amazigh, the country’s Berber
population— began being taught in schools here, and four after it was
constitutionally recognized as an official language, it remains unclear how
it will be incorporated into education.

The recognition of Tamazight has been very meaningful, a redefinition of
Moroccan identity, says Paul Silverstein, an anthropologist at Reed College
who has studied the issue.

Tamazight is the standardized version of the Amazigh languages. An
estimated 25 to 30 million speakers of Tamazight and of other Berber
dialects are spread throughout the North African countries, from the
Atlantic Ocean to Egypt. (See related story “In Algeria, the Berber
Language Can’t Get an Educational Foothold <http://bit.ly/1JJXt0v>.”)

In Morocco, a host of questions surround the place of the Berber language
in schools: “What language is being taught? For whom? For what purpose? Is
it purely a gesture?”, asks Mr Silverstein.

Amazigh languages (there are three main regional variants) are spoken by an
estimated 35 to 40 percent of Morocco’s population. But North African
political discourse, whether nationalist or Islamist, has long been hostile
to the Amazigh language, perceived as a threat to national cohesion. For
decades, giving children Amazigh names was forbidden in Morocco. Not
recognizing the language spoken in the country’s poor rural interior was an
effective means of discrimination that shut the Berbers out from
participating politically, socially and economically from Moroccan society.

In 1994, King Hassan II came out in favor of teaching Tamazight in schools,
partly due to a larger political opening and partly in response to the
pressure of Amazigh-rights activists. In 2003, his son, now King Mohamed
VI, put the initiative in practice. In the new constitution he helped
create in 2011, Tamazight was recognized as one of Morocco’s official
languages. Tamazight writing now adorns the facades of most public
buildings.

But “there isn’t a real language policy yet,” says Abdeslem Khalafi, a
researcher at the Royal Institute for Amazigh Culture (Institut Royale de
la Culture Amazigh du Maroc, IRCAM). “There’s hesitation. Mentalities
aren’t ready to integrate Tamazight and give it a chance. There’s a change
in discourse, but not yet in practice.”

The king created the institute in 2003, and its researchers came up with a
standardized written alphabet for a language that has many dialects and has
been transmitted orally for millennia. Mr. Khalafi worked on the
development of the new alphabet and new textbooks to teach the language.
Creating a new alphabet was controversial in and of itself. Tamazight has
historically more often been written in Arabic or the Roman alphabet.
Tamazight is now only taught to about 12 percent of Moroccan students.
Because of this, thousands of children whose first language is Tamazight
flunk out of school, he says.

Khalafi and his colleagues at the Royal Institute believe that students
should begin their education in their native languages—the Moroccan dialect
of Arabic or whatever Amazigh dialect they speak—and then learn the
standardized version. They are calling for six hours a week of Tamazight
throughout primary and secondary education.
[image: berber-girl]
<http://www.al-fanarmedia.org/2015/07/the-berber-language-officially-recognized-unofficially-marginalized/berber-girl-2/>

A Berber girl in Morocco (credit: Justin Clemens, Flickr)

Opponents of the addition of Tamazight to the curriculum argue that it
muddles an already complicated linguistic landscape, and that students are
better served by learning languages that can benefit them in the global
economy.

“It’s not the language of instruction that is an obstacle for students,”
replies Mr. Khalafi, “but the [poor] training of teachers. Integrating
Tamazight is a gain even for the other languages,” he argues, because
studies have shown that “a child who is welcomed to school in his native
language learns other languages more easily.”

Five thousand Tamazight teachers who trained at the Royal Institute are in
the field today. Fatima Ibrahimi, who teaches Tamazight in a school in the
capital city of Rabat, is one of them. Ms. Ibrahimi was trained as an
Arabic teacher, but as a native speaker of Tamazight, she volunteered to be
re-trained to teach that language.

Arabic, French and other foreign languages may be openings on the region
and the rest of the world and carry professional advantages, says the
teacher. But to teach those languages alone is a “materialist way of
thinking,” she says. She believes Moroccans should learn Tamazight because
it is part of their heritage. Pointing to an Arabic-speaking friend who sat
with her during an interview, Ms. Ibrahimi said: “We’re both Moroccan. Why
is his language taught in school and not mine?”

For many speakers of Tamazight, teaching their language is a question of
social justice. His mother and grandmother only spoke Tamazight, says Mr.
Khalafi. “It was their only opening on the world. Their whole life they
couldn’t watch TV, listen to the radio, or make themselves understood if
they went to a hospital.” Today there are some media in the Amazigh
language. But courts, hospitals and other parts of the public
administration still operate exclusively in Arabic.

When Mr. Khalafi was a university student, he had to argue with his advisor
to be allowed to do research on Amazigh folk tales. University departments
of Amazigh language and culture exist at the universities of Fez, Oujda,
Rabat and Agadir, each with several thousand graduates.

Abdellah Bounfour is a researcher at the Centre de Recherche Berbere
(Berber Research Center), which is part of the historic Institute National
des Langues et Civilizations Orientales (National Institute of Oriental
Languages and Civilizations) in Paris. The center is the oldest and one of
the very few to focus on Berber culture, linguistics and language; it
cooperates with IRCAM and the programs at Moroccan universities.

Mr. Bounfour suggests it would have been better to focus on introducing
Tamazight at the university level first. The introduction of Tamazight has
largely failed, he wrote in an e-mail, due to general problems with
Morocco’s underperforming education, the poor training of teachers, and the
creation of standardized Tamazight that doesn’t correspond to any spoken
language. “Teaching a language is a political, not a pedagogical decision,”
says Mr. Bounfour.

One of Mr. Bounfour’s colleagues, Salem Chaker, has written that “the
Berber language presents an inarguable scientific interest: it constitutes
a veritable ‘laboratory situation’: a ‘stateless’ language, marginalized
for the last two thousand years, in close and permanent contact with other
languages, extremely rich in dialect but also homogenous over an enormous
geographic area, presenting many original features.”

The decision to include Tamazight in the curriculum is important
symbolically, says Mr. Silverstein, as “a recognition that being Berber is
not something you should hide.”

But “there’s a gap between the symbolic value of Tamazight and the
pragmatic way in which Tamazight will be actually, functionally important
for people,” says Mr. Silverstein. Even Amazigh activists and intellectuals
do not generally work and write in the language. According to the Royal
Institute, only 250 books have been written in Tamazight.

Mr. Silverstein doubts that the new education policy will stem the ongoing
decline in Tamazight-speakers. The language competes with English, French,
and Arabic, and when young people think about what they will need in the
future, Tamazight often takes second place, he says.

Berber identity is more recognized than ever before in the country’s
history, but this recognition is unlikely to stem the language’s decline.
http://www.al-fanarmedia.org/2015/07/the-berber-language-officially-recognized-unofficially-marginalized/

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