Culture of MoroccoThe culture of Morocco is a blend of Arab, Amazighs, Andalusian cultures, with African, Hebraic and Mediterranean influences. It represents and is shaped by a convergence of influences throughout history. This sphere may include, among others, the fields of personal or collective behaviors, language, customs, knowledge, beliefs, arts, legislation, gastronomy, music, poetry, architecture, etc. While Morocco started to be stably predominantly Sunni Muslim starting from 9th–10th century AD, in the Almoravids empire period, a very significant Andalusian culture was imported and contributed to the shaping of Moroccan culture.
Arabic chat alphabetThe Arabic chat alphabet, Arabizi, or Arabeezi, refer to the romanized alphabets for informal Arabic dialects in which Arabic script is transcribed or encoded into a combination of Latin script and Arabic numerals. These informal chat alphabets were originally used primarily by youth in the Arab world in very informal settings—especially for communicating over the Internet or for sending messages via cellular phones—though use is not necessarily restricted by age anymore and these chat alphabets have been used in other media such as advertising.
Varieties of ArabicThe varieties (or dialects or vernacular languages) of Arabic, a Semitic language within the Afroasiatic family originating in the Arabian Peninsula, are the linguistic systems that Arabic speakers speak natively. There are considerable variations from region to region, with degrees of mutual intelligibility that are often related to geographical distance and some that are mutually unintelligible. Many aspects of the variability attested to in these modern variants can be found in the ancient Arabic dialects in the peninsula.
Fez, MoroccoFez or Fes (fɛz; fās; fizaz; Fès) is a city in northern inland Morocco and the capital of the Fès-Meknès administrative region. It is the second largest city in Morocco, with a population of 1.11 million according to the 2014 census. Located to the northwest of the Atlas Mountains, it is surrounded by hills and the old city is centered around the Fez River (Oued Fes) flowing from west to east. Fez was founded under Idrisid rule during the 8th–9th centuries CE. It initially consisted of two autonomous and competing settlements.
MeknesMeknes (maknās, maknaːs; amknas; Meknès) is one of the four Imperial cities of Morocco, located in northern central Morocco and the sixth largest city by population in the kingdom. Founded in the 11th century by the Almoravids as a military settlement, Meknes became the capital of Morocco under the reign of Sultan Moulay Ismaïl (1672–1727), son of the founder of the Alaouite dynasty. Moulay Ismaïl created a massive imperial palace complex and endowed the city with extensive fortifications and monumental gates.
MoroccansMoroccans (المغاربة) are the citizens and nationals of the Kingdom of Morocco. The country's population is predominantly composed of Arabs and Berbers (Amazigh). The term also applies more broadly to any people who are of Moroccan nationality, sharing a common culture and identity, as well as those who natively speak Moroccan Arabic or other languages of Morocco. In addition to the approximately 37 million residents of Morocco, there is a large Moroccan diaspora.
TétouanTétouan (tiṭwān, tiṭṭawan; Tetuán), also known as Tettawen, is a city in northern Morocco. It lies along the Martil Valley and is one of the two major ports of Morocco on the Mediterranean Sea, a few miles south of the Strait of Gibraltar, and about E.S.E. of Tangier. In the 2014 Moroccan census, the city recorded a population of 380,787 inhabitants. It is part of the administrative division Tanger-Tetouan-Al Hoceima. The city has witnessed many development cycles spanning over more than 2,000 years.
Tunisian ArabicTunisian Arabic, or simply Tunisian, is a set of dialects of Maghrebi Arabic spoken in Tunisia. It is known among its over 11 million speakers as Tounsi ˈtunsi, "Tunisian" or Derja "Everyday Language" to distinguish it from Modern Standard Arabic, the official language of Tunisia. Tunisian Arabic is mostly similar to eastern Algerian Arabic and western Libyan Arabic. As part of a dialect continuum, Tunisian merges into Algerian Arabic and Libyan Arabic at the borders of the country.
Arabic verbsArabic verbs (فِعْل ALA; () أَفْعَال ALA), like the verbs in other Semitic languages, and the entire vocabulary in those languages, are based on a set of two to five (but usually three) consonants called a root (triliteral or quadriliteral according to the number of consonants). The root communicates the basic meaning of the verb, e.g. ك-ت-ب ALA 'write', ق-ر-ء ALA 'read', ء-ك-ل ALA 'eat'. Changes to the vowels in between the consonants, along with prefixes or suffixes, specify grammatical functions such as person, gender, number, tense, mood, and voice.
Arab identityArab identity (الهوية العربية) is the objective or subjective state of perceiving oneself as an Arab and as relating to being Arab. Like other cultural identities, it relies on a common culture, a traditional lineage, the common land in history, shared experiences including underlying conflicts and confrontations. These commonalities are regional and in historical contexts, tribal. Arab identity is defined independently of religious identity, and pre-dates the spread of Islam and before spread of Judaism and Christianity, with historically attested Arab Muslim tribes and Arab Christian tribes and Arab Jewish tribes.
CausativeIn linguistics, a causative (abbreviated ) is a valency-increasing operation that indicates that a subject either causes someone or something else to do or be something or causes a change in state of a non-volitional event. Normally, it brings in a new argument (the causer), A, into a transitive clause, with the original subject S becoming the object O. All languages have ways to express causation but differ in the means. Most, if not all, languages have specific or lexical causative forms (such as English rise → raise, lie → lay, sit → set).
RabatRabat (rəˈbɑːt, also UKrəˈbæt, USrɑːˈbɑːt; a-Ribāṭ; ṛṛbaṭ) is the capital city of Morocco and the country's seventh-largest city with an urban population of approximately 580,000 (2014) and a metropolitan population of over 1.2 million. It is also the capital city of the Rabat-Salé-Kénitra administrative region. Rabat is located on the Atlantic Ocean at the mouth of the river Bou Regreg, opposite Salé, the city's main commuter town. Rabat was founded in the 12th century by the Almohads.
Semitic rootThe roots of verbs and most nouns in the Semitic languages are characterized as a sequence of consonants or "radicals" (hence the term consonantal root). Such abstract consonantal roots are used in the formation of actual words by adding the vowels and non-root consonants (or "transfixes") which go with a particular morphological category around the root consonants, in an appropriate way, generally following specific patterns.
Maltese languageMaltese (Malti, also L-Ilsien Malti or Il-Lingwa Maltija) is a Semitic language derived from late medieval Sicilian Arabic with Romance superstrata spoken by the Maltese people. It is the national language of Malta and the only official Semitic and Afro-Asiatic language of the European Union. Maltese is a Latinised variety of spoken historical Arabic through its descent from Siculo-Arabic, which developed as a Maghrebi Arabic dialect in the Emirate of Sicily between 831 and 1091.
Arabic scriptThe Arabic script is the writing system used for Arabic and several other languages of Asia and Africa. It is the second-most widely used alphabetic writing system in the world (after the Latin alphabet), the second-most widely used writing system in the world by number of countries using it or a script directly derived from it, and the third-most by number of users (after the Latin and Chinese scripts). The script was first used to write texts in Arabic, most notably the Quran, the holy book of Islam.
Berber languagesThe Berber languages, also known as the Amazigh languages or Tamazight, are a branch of the Afroasiatic language family. They comprise a group of closely related but mostly mutually unintelligible languages spoken by Berber communities, who are indigenous to North Africa. The languages are primarily spoken and not typically written. Historically, they have been written with the ancient Libyco-Berber script, which now exists in the form of Tifinagh.
MarrakeshMarrakesh or Marrakech (məˈrækɛʃ or ˌmærəˈkɛʃ; murrākuš, murraːkuʃ; ) is the fourth largest city in Morocco. It is one of the four Imperial cities of Morocco and the capital of the Marrakesh-Safi region. It is situated west of the foothills of the Atlas Mountains. The region has been inhabited by Berber farmers since Neolithic times. The city was founded in 1070 by Emir Abu Bakr ibn Umar as the imperial capital of the Almoravid Empire. The Almoravids established the first major structures in the city and shaped its layout for centuries to come.
Western SaharaWestern Sahara (الصحراء الغربية aṣ-Ṣaḥrā' al-Gharbiyyah; Taneẓroft Tutrimt ; Sáhara Occidental) is a disputed territory on the northwest coast and in the Maghreb region of North and West Africa. The Western Sahara, given its name in 1975 by the UN, is the last African colonial state yet to achieve its independence. About 20% of the territory is controlled by the self-proclaimed Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR); the remaining 80% of the territory is occupied and administered by neighboring Morocco.
Stratum (linguistics)In linguistics, a stratum (Latin for "layer") or strate is a language that influences or is influenced by another through contact. A substratum or substrate is a language that has lower power or prestige than another, while a superstratum or superstrate is the language that has higher power or prestige. Both substratum and superstratum languages influence each other, but in different ways. An adstratum or adstrate is a language that is in contact with another language in a neighbor population without having identifiably higher or lower prestige.
CasablancaCasablanca, also known by its Arabic name Dar al-Bayda (ad-Dār al-Bayḍāʾ, adˈdaːru ɫbajdʕaːʔ, (): "White House"; Taddart Tumlilt), is the largest city in Morocco and the country's economic and business center. Located on the Atlantic coast of the Chaouia plain in the central-western part of Morocco, the city has a population of about 3.71 million in the urban area, and over 4.27 million in the Greater Casablanca, making it the most populous city in the Maghreb region, and the eighth-largest in the Arab world.
