Language Attitudes Toward Berber: Two Decades After the Official Recognition

This study aims to reexamine the attitudes of Moroccans toward the Berber language two decades after it was first recognized – and later made official by the state of Morocco. The findings in this study are compared to research carried out in Morocco between 2005 and 2007, which was published in the Journal of North African Studies in 2008 (Mohammed Errihani (2008) Language attitudes and language use in Morocco: effects of attitudes on ‘Berber language policy’, The Journal of North African Studies, 13: 4, 411–428, DOI: 10.1080/13629380701800492.). The goal is to investigate whether these attitudes have changed with the officialization of Berber, or have remained unchanged. The conclusions reached are based on data collected in Morocco in 2018 and 2019 using various methods: participant observation, public comments collected from newspaper articles, and social media outlets dealing with the Berber question; also, a survey of 180 respondents. Two decades after the initial recognition of Berber and the call for its inclusion in the educational system, and a decade after it gained official status in Morocco, attitudes toward this language appear to have generally become more positive, especially as a result of its officialization in 2011. However, although most respondents agree that Berber represents an essential component of Moroccan identity and heritage, many continue to oppose its teaching to ‘all’ Moroccans mainly on practical grounds, citing its lack of instrumental value to guarantee employment and upward mobility, the saturation of the linguistic scene in Morocco, and the politicization of the language policy that requires all schools to teach Berber, which the state has so far failed to implement.