Before I came to Morocco, my various Arabic teachers and Arab friends warned me against the uselessness of learning Moroccan Arabic, or Derija. It was the least known the dialects, and Moroccans (as they said) had perverted the language so badly that it more closely resembled French than its Arab roots. Therefore, I was warned against attempting to learn the language, and as usual, I did not heed said warning. During my first sojourn in Morocco, I decided to add to my class load and take private lessons in Derija. I was already taking 3 hours a day of classical Arabic, but I had quickly learned that my friends were remotely correct – the Moroccan dialect was so perverted that speaking classical Arabic was almost useless.
I mean, honestly, useless. I would have been better off learning French.
Derija is a combination of Arabic, French, Spanish and random pieces from the Berber languages. Ever since the founding of Morocco, it has had a closer relationship with its European partners than its Arab ones. Constant Northern conquest (as opposed to conquest in the Eastern direction) has tied numerous words in Derija and Spanish together, and after the French occupation of Morocco, it’s almost silly to think that French would NOT permeate the langauge. Therefore, my knowledge of standard Arabic quickly rendered me a fish out of water, and I realized that despite the warnings, Derija was quite useful, in Morocco at least.
Plus, it turns out that my original effort was not for loss because I did end up returning to the-country-of-the-useless-dialect. I entered my Fulbright with a foundation in Derija so that after a few months of classes, I was perfectly conversational. I could do my interviews in Derija and I could have perfectly normal conversations with most anyone. So, I thought, ‘take that pessimists! see? this language is useful!’ again, in Morocco.
During my trip to Cairo, I could barely stammer out a few words in Standard Arabic, and evidently my Moroccan accent is now so thick that it was still impossible to understand me. I kept wandering around attached to my friend, who is fluent in Arabic, feeling rather silly and realizing that maybe, I should focus on Standard again, and maybe the pessimists were right.
However, during a recent trip to Europe, I realized that I’ve been missing the point of it all. I wandered into a shop looking for a cheap memory card reader, and while I was asking for this object (in very pitiful spanish, I might add) I noticed that the owner turned and spoke to his employee in Derija. Relived that my attempts at Spanish could now be put aside, I switched easily and comfortably into this seemingly ‘useless’ language. The shop owner, without even blinking, continued to talk to me, only really needing to inform me that they didn’t have what I was looking for. Afterwards, he expressed his surprise and joy at my switch to his mother tongue. In that moment, I had extended a friendly ‘hand’ to him, and although it wasn’t some monumental occasion, I realized that this was the point of learning Derija: to communicate.
Sometimes I think we place a large emphasis on the acquisition of language and less on the acquisition of communication. The point of communicating is just that, and when we stop attempting because we fear it might be ‘useless’ then I am afraid the concept of language in general is useless. Plus, I’ve learned that language, culture and respect all go hand in hand. Yes, maybe there is a finite number of people that I can talk to using Moroccan Arabic, but that is a group of people that I can talk to now that I was not able to before. Plus, as I have noticed, Moroccans are all over the world, and who knows when my useless Derija could get me out of a jam – or at least, out of a high price.
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