Читать книгу The Politeness/Impoliteness Divide. English-Based Theories and Speech Acts Practice in Moroccan Arabic онлайн

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Within this complicated sociolinguistic panorama, Berber has survived all these invasions and re-invasions taking refuge in the mountains as if waiting for a better social climate to reappear. For decades, Berber was neglected as a language and Berbers were considered Moroccans of “second type”. To speak Berber was synonymous with under-civilization. As an approximation to the linguistic persecution that Berber has experienced as a language and as a culture, we find the case of “Valenciano” in Valencia the capital city of Comunidad Valenciana where those who speak Valenciano were identified as “gent de poble” (in Valenciano) as a pejorative denomination. Similar to this sociolinguistic infra-evaluation we find in MA the appellative “3robi” used by Arabic speaking Moroccans to Berbers to denote a lack of civism and culture. However, if we consider the etymology of the word “3robi” I think that the word “3robi” is a corruption of “3arabi” CA meaning someone who speaks Arabic as a pejorative appellative to those who speak Arabic at a time when Berber was the dominant language in Morocco and Arabic was the language of the “invader”. It might also be a corruption of the word “A3rabi” from CA also meaning “country man”. Even the word “Berber” is pejorative in itself, or at least this is how it could be understood granting that Berbers never refer to themselves as Berbers but as “Imazighen” the plural of “Amazigh” who speaks “Tamazight” i.e.: the Berber language. Tamazight is classified as belonging to the Afro-asiatic branch and descending from the Proto-Afro-Asiatic language. From a linguistic migration theory, and as claimed by historical linguists, Berber is believed to have existed in Eastern Africa 12.000 years ago. However, Berbers today are located principally in Northern Africa and the language represents an estimated population of 36 million Berber speakers distributed in countries all over the world. The most representative country in terms of the density of the Berber population is Morocco (18.980.000) then Algeria (12.800.000). Then, to a lesser degree, Niger (1000.000); also Mali (700.000); Libya (280.000); Mauritania (150.000); Tunisia (130.000); Israel /100.000); and Egypt (20.000).