Languages
See also: Languages of Morocco| Population of Morocco | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Year | Million | ||
| 1971 | 15.7 | ||
| 1990 | 24.8 | ||
| 2009 | 32.0 | ||
Classical Arabic is Morocco's official language (it is the "classical" Arabic of the Qur'an, literature and news media). The country has a distinctive dialect of Arabic known as Moroccan Arabic or Darija.
More than 15 million Moroccans speak Berber in three varieties (Riff, Shilha, and Central Atlas Tamazight), either as a first language or bilingually with Moroccan Arabic. French, which remains Morocco's unofficial third language, is taught throughout school and still serves as Morocco's primary language of commerce and economics; it is also widely used in education and government. Morocco is a member of La Francophonie. Berber activists have struggled for half a century for the recognition of their language as an official minority language of Morocco in the Moroccan constitution.
About 20,000 Moroccans in the northern part of the country speak Spanish. English, while still far behind French and Spanish in terms of the number of speakers, is rapidly becoming the second foreign language of choice among educated youth, after French. It has been taught to Moroccan students after the fourth year of school since the education reforms of 2002.
Read more about this topic: Demographics Of Morocco
Famous quotes containing the word languages:
“It is time for dead languages to be quiet.”
—Natalie Clifford Barney (1876–1972)
“The less sophisticated of my forbears avoided foreigners at all costs, for the very good reason that, in their circles, speaking in tongues was commonly a prelude to snake handling. The more tolerant among us regarded foreign languages as a kind of speech impediment that could be overcome by willpower.”
—Barbara Ehrenreich (b. 1941)
“I am always sorry when any language is lost, because languages are the pedigree of nations.”
—Samuel Johnson (1709–1784)