Re: Congratulation to this newsgroup!

On Thu, 15 Dec 2005 18:50:24 -0600, Django Cat typed:


> Is there a language called Mauritanian? Spoken in Mauritania, way
> south of Morocco proper? I thought people there were Arabic or
> Francophone, mais que sais?
>
> The language of the indigenous peoples of Morocco is Berber, people
> on the coast, in the cities, and away from the mountains speak
> Arabic.

The official language of Mauritania is Hassaniyya, which, according
to the Ethnologue, is a variety of Arabic that is not mutually
intelligible with other varieties.
<http://www.ethnologue.com/show_country.asp?name=MR>

A friend of mine, who comes from a family that emigrated from southern
Morocco, grew up trilingual and still speaks the Berber language of
his parents (Tachelhit, I think). Still, when he visited the region,
he was surprised to find people in the town where he was staying using
Spanish to as a vehicular language: a vestige of the former Spanish
holdings in Morocco. (They also supported Barcelona in a match
against Paris SG that was being shown on a TV set in a café there.)

Another acquaintance, a man in his sixties or seventies who is a
speaker of Mauritanian Arabic (his label for the language), mentioned
that speaking Arabic with other people from the neighbourhood (most
of whom, if they are Arabic-speakers at all, speak the Algerian
variety) isn't easy for him. In my experience most such conversations
take place in a mixture of French and Arabic, as is often the case in
a multilingual environment.

Chris Waigl

--
blog: http://serendipity.lascribe.net/
eggcorns: http://eggcorns.lascribe.net/
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Congratulation to this newsgroup!
    ... >> Is there a language called Mauritanian? ... >> The language of the indigenous peoples of Morocco is Berber, ... > of whom, if they are Arabic-speakers at all, speak the Algerian ...
    (alt.usage.english)
  • Re: Congratulation to this newsgroup!
    ... > of whom, if they are Arabic-speakers at all, speak the Algerian ... and is itself composed of many sub-varieties of the language ... My own 'teacher' was from Khartoum, actually he was a fellow student from ... rare language and culture studies. ...
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