Welcome and introduction
The main purpose of this blog is to document my imminent fieldwork in Morocco. In Morocco, I’m going to look at words borrowed by Moroccan Arabic speakers from French (a.k.a. loanwords). Speakers of every language do this, so why is Moroccan Arabic so unique? Well, Morocco has always been a good place for kingdoms and rulers to hold, as it serves as a link between Europe and Africa. For this reason, it changed hands so many times, and every group left its mark architecturally, culturally, and, relevant to my study, linguistically. Future posts will be dedicated to the details of what specifically I’ll be looking at in my study, but more generally I’ll be looking at how certain native phonological features and processes (i.e. what is unique to Moroccan Arabic in terms of the consonants and vowels speakers use and their relations) interact with the sounds structure of French and specifically the French words used by Moroccan speakers.
The Moroccan word for Taxis (Taksiyat) is a direct borrowing from French.
Note how the Arabic plural form -at is used instead of the French -s (unpronounced in this case)
And so, equipped with my laptop, a recording device, and a whole lot of patience and sense of humour, I’ll head to Rabat in August to record people as they describe pictures of objects and situations. Should be fun.
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19:37:25
