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Rabat – Morocco’s Darija Promotion Centre has announced it will launch the first Moroccan dialect (Darija-Darija) dictionary in the history of Morocco.
Chaired by Moroccan businessman, Noureddine Ayouch, the center is set to stage a press conference on December 6 in Casablanca.
In an interview with Media 24, Ayouch revealed that “the aim [of the dictionary] is to give importance to this language [Darija]. We’ve worked on this for 4 years – it consists of 1,000 pages and will be available on the Internet.” He went on to say that “the dictionary was created by experts and linguists, including Khalil Magharfaoui, Abdelouahed Mabrour and other professors of linguistics at Al Akhawayn University in Ifrane.”
Ayouch also promised this inaugural edition won’t be the last. There are already plans for future editions, which will include more and more material. “The dictionary does not contain all Moroccan vocabularies, but we are planning to enrich it more in the next editions.”
Creators were inspired in their goal by what they felt was a notable absence of native language studies in the current school system, depriving students of an important cultural component to their learning. Ayouch went on to note that “Moroccan native languages, such as Arabic and Tamazight are very essential in school.”
He also asserted that “even the international organizations that are interested in pedagogy field, such as UNESCO and World Bank and the prominent linguist, such as Noam Chomsky, stress the importance of teaching [students’] in their native language.”
“Students should not study without the assistance of their mother language, whether it was Arabic or Tamazight. Then later [they must] start learning other foreign languages, such as French and English – and this is the way that many theorists recommend students learn.”
Edited by Constance Guindon
