Linguistic standardisation, Moroccan Darija and how the internet plays a role in linguistic convergence.

Linguistic standardisation is the process through which a set standard is established as the norm for the grammar and spelling of a language. This process is seen as an essential step for the inclusion of a language in an administrative system and historically such a process has mostly been the action of state institutions seeking to build a nation-state. Many people know of the French Academy or perhaps the Real Academia Española as the main institutions of linguistic standardisation in the French-speaking and Spanish speaking worlds, but what institution was in charge of setting the norm in the case of other European languages such as German or Italian? Is a central institution always a pre-requisite for standardisation and do languages need to go through a process of standardisation in order to be of use in an academic and/or administrative setting? Join me as I attempt to answer these questions and much more through an exploration of the concepts of linguistic norm and usage, nationalism, and finally how Wikipedia and google’s translation tool can give us new perspectives on how standardisation can occur independently of normative authority.

Understanding the ways through which linguistic standardisation is carried out requires beforehand an understanding of the reasons behind carrying it out in the first place. Indeed, linguistic standardisation does not have a set methodology and the method and means through which it occurs are dependent on the intended utility that one wants to derive from the newly set standard. In the case of the aforementioned standardisation of French, it came in a context of cultural transition away from the domination of the Church on western European politics during the renaissance era. Indeed, while prior efforts were made by grammarians to set a standard on how French can be written, the officialisation of French as the language of the state instead of Latin in 1539 made the need for a normative authority over the language apparent. As such, if a standard has been set in the case of the French language, it is for it to be made into a language that can be put to use in an administrative setting just as Latin had been used. This brief description of French standardisation (a process similar to what occurred in Spain later on) begs the question of the state of the French language prior to it. Just as in other parts of western Europe, the French linguistic landscape was dominated by a variety of regional languages forming a linguistic continuum that extended to the rest of the romance world, with two important linguistic areas: the Langues d’oïl in the north and the Langues d’oc in the south. As a central authority already existed in the French kingdom prior to standardisation, the process ended up being one where the language of the court took precedence over the multitude of other langues d’oïl variants. This is one of the most common forms of linguistic standardisation where the specific court variant of a language is set to become the normative standard on how said language is to be spoken.

However, simply setting the standard based on the court’s language or the capital city is not always an option in a context where such a court is absent or where the purpose of linguistic standardisation is to help in an effort of political unification. The German and Italian examples are often given when referring to standardisation in the context of national unification. In both cases, a standard has been set through a new norm based on a section of the broader dialect continua whilst not exactly corresponding to one set variety of the traditional pronunciation. As such, the newly created standard serves as a roofing language unifying various dialects into a norm rather than one variety overturning them. However in both instances, the newly created standard still only took roots in a limited section of the dialect continuum (high german and Tuscan respectively) and so for reasons pertaining to the political and cultural capital of said section. What is to be done if one seeks to establish a standard for a dialect continuum where either due to a history of oppression or foreign linguistic domination, no single variety has accumulated such political and cultural capital as to be recognisable by a substantial amount of speakers of neighbouring varieties?

It is with this question that we finally come to the cases of Moroccan Arabic, Egyptian Arabic and Moroccan Tamazight and how Wikipedia showcases the potential strengths and shortcomings of a decentralised standardisation based on usage. Indeed, all three previously mentioned languages share a common lack of established standards (although recent standardisation efforts might make this inapplicable to Tamazight in Morocco). Moreover, all three languages have been recently put under the spotlight as their respective countries are faced with a key question in a post-pan-Arabism North Africa: What is to be done when the standardised norm for a people’s language is so separate from the usage that they are barely mutually intelligible? No large scale standardisation efforts were undertaken yet in the case of Moroccan Arabic, and despite the topic of introducing it in the education system resurging occasionally, Government and popular opposition stood in the way of such a project. Left with an ever-expanding ridge between the accepted norm “Fusha” and the usage “darija” (if such categorisation can even be made of these two languages at this stage) one might wonder if standardisation will not become more and more necessary as the damage of gatekeeping knowledge through an education based on foreign languages and archaic linguistic norms will become more wildly accepted. However, even if reform efforts become part of the realm of relevant policy proposals, linguistic questions over the methodology with which to approach such standardisation will be key to understanding how Moroccan Arabic can become an accepted medium of teaching and administration.

While it could be easy to do what has already been done in the case of French and standardise Moroccan Arabic around the relatively unifying Casablanca dialects, doing so will still involve the usage of state power to impose one variety of a language above all else. As arguments in favour of a standardised Moroccan language base themselves on a rejection of linguistic pragmatism and the usage of languages solely for the pragmatic purposes of communication, such a methodology would be self-contradictory. We find ourselves left with the option of creating a new standard that would seek to include as many influences from regional variations as possible. The issue, however, with such methodology is that such conlang would have to awkwardly merge Hillalian dialects and pre-Hillalian dialects, likely with a larger bias in favour of the former as it has the benefit of a larger pool of speakers. The arguments for the preservation of regional identities in the face of foreign languages, as well as the rejection of state power in order to impose a language on a population, are two key arguments for Moroccan Arabic as a standard that can be utilised for administrative purposes. Going with the constructed language method will thus go against the base premises that justify the project in itself, and as such the loss of one key element of Morocco’s pre-hillalian linguistic landscape through the usage of state power cannot be tolerated. We are thus left with a dilemma at the core of any standardisation effort that seeks not to justify itself simply through nationalism, how not to make the new standard a foreign language solely imposable through the usage of state force?

The answer to this question is not easy to find, and it could be argued that an exact answer can never be found, as such, the factor of intelligibility will always have to be taken into account when deciding which language to be imposed through state force. We find, however, some elements of the answer in an unlikely place: Wikipedia! Indeed, Wikipedia includes representations of both Moroccan Arabic and Egyptian Arabic. In both cases, languages that were previously mainly spoken are set to be put in a written form without the presence of a normative standard. From reading articles on both languages, we notice a lot of irregularities in the way words are written (mainly a divide between more archaic spellings that preserve the original Arabic spelling vs. more phonetic spellings). The situation in the case of Egyptian Wikipedia, despite the presence of some irregularities, displays much more homogeneity than the Moroccan Arabic one. There are many reasons why this is, and the proximity of Egyptian Arabic to the modern standard relatively to Moroccan Arabic definitely plays a role, but it seems that the number of articles is an important factor in the matter. Indeed, while Moroccan Wikipedia only has around 5000+ articles, the Egyptian portal counts more than 1.5 million articles (a far greater number than the Standard Arabic portal). Having a large sample of writers, editors, and moderators all having to write in their own language through whichever variation they have grown into creates the conditions where, through constant exposure to the different regional variations, linguistic convergence occurs. The same process can happen in the case of Moroccan Arabic, however, Wikipedia cannot be the only platform for such convergence. Through literature being produced in the language, visual media, or articles on Wikipedia or blogs we can create media of exposure to Moroccan Arabic that go beyond the Casablanca-dominated TV and Radio. It should also be noted, for the sake of realism, that such efforts, if aimed in the short run, can only be targeted towards relatively close varieties of the language and as such some varieties like Hassaniya and Judeo-Arabic will have to stay out of such standardisation efforts. Indeed, and as can be demonstrated through the community efforts to include Tamazight in Google’s translation tool, when the different linguistic variations oppose each other even on basic elements of grammar, such organic efforts at linguistic convergence are hardly imaginable in the short run.

It should be concluded that, while we could simply impose a variety of Moroccan Arabic on the Arabic speaking part of the nation, doing so would be falling back into the trap of linguistic nationalism. An effort of standardisation should seek to let the process of convergence be as organic as possible. As such, while most grammar rules of Moroccan Arabic are common across all regional varieties, variations in Vocabulary should not be recorded in a way that prefers one word over the other but in a way that recognises all variations as correct elements of the standardised vocabulary. The imposition of such a standard in the educational system and administration, as well as the growth in literature that would follow from it, will serve to facilitate linguistic convergence in a way that will move the originally diverse standard into one that converges towards fewer and fewer variation in vocabulary, and as such into a standard that can be more easily understood by all and recorded.