By Majid Dardour- Rabat- Some
people say that Tamazight is a language. Others say that Tamazight is a
dialect. Nowadays, there is a movement among speakers of Tamazight
language varieties to unite them into a single standard language. This
enables, Tamazight to include all the indigenous related dialects.
The national charter of Moroccan
education was the turning point in the standardization of Tamazight.
Furthermore, political and cultural factors might be crucial to
determine the state of any language or language varieties. So, to what
extent has the national charter contributed to the standardization of
Tamazight and unified its varieties into a single language?
Any
language can contain many dialects. One of the main characteristic of
Tamazight that has confused Tamazight linguists and Tamazight speakers
themselves is that there are many dialects. Tamazight has three major
varieties. Tashlhit, Tamazight and Tarifit. And each of these dialects
consists of many sub-dialects. For example, within the geographical area
of Tarifit, there are Tagznayt, Takhlfit and so on and so forth.
However, geographical proximity facilitates mutual understanding, as the
case of Amazigh and Chleuh shows. They understand each other with
almost no difficulty. Structurally, there are similarities between
Tamazight dialects. So, the diversity of dialect is superficial rather
than essential. Let’s now examine the possibility of standardizing the
Tamazight language through the national charter.
The concept of standardization is a
necessary and vital process in any language. A language must be codified
by standardizing its phonology, morphology, syntax, spelling and
vocabulary. For this reason, the national charter gave a paramount value
to Tamazight in terms of its existence within educational institutions.
Tamazight has shifted from a predominantly oral system to a written one
and has gained a wider acceptance by speakers throughout Morocco. Ahmed
Chafik claims 80 per cent of Moroccans are Berber. Besides, Tamazight
gets a particular identity when it is fixed and codified in written
form. A modernized form of the Tifinagh alphabet was made official in
Morocco in 2003. Before this point Tamazight did not have a literacy
tradition, and it has only recently developed a strong literary
tradition.
In the past, Tamazight in Morocco was
neglected and marginalized by political decisions. So, the
standardization of Tamazight cannot be achieved if there are no legal
and political initiatives to protect it. Due to the rising Berber
cultural and political activism, the popularity of the term Tamazight
made it known and recognizable by every citizen. On June 17, 2011 King
Mohammed VI announced in a speech about constitutional reform that
Tamazight would become an official language of Morocco, alongside
Arabic, and will be used in all the administrations in the future.
In conclusion, Tamazight, due to the
national charter, is now ubiquitous in Morocco. You can hear it and
find it in schools, universities, media, and in the government.
Nonetheless, Tamazight cannot achieve a purely standardized status that
is understood by all Imazighen because, in reality, such a single
standard does not exist.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Morocco World News’ editorial policy
