Derija, or Moroccan Arabic: مرحب

My Arabic course at CCCL meets twice a week (Wednesday and Friday) for 1.5 hours. I've been trying for about a month to learn to both speak and read. It's not easy, and I genuinely wish that I had a lot more time to spend learning the language.

Moroccan Arabic is different from Classical Arabic in the way that Spanish is different from (a derivative of) Latin. When university (or high school, etc.) classes are taught in Arabic in Morocco, they are taught in Classical Arabic. Moroccans can understand Egyptians speaking Egyptian Arabic, for example, but communication isn't easy.

Standard (spoken) Moroccan Arabic is unique, and I have a suspicion that some of the differences have to do with the French Protectorate that lasted until 1956. The Classical Arabic that I learned at Rutgers uses an alphabet with /TH/ and /th/ sounds. The Moroccan alphabet does not have these letters, and coincidently, the French pronunciation system does not produce them either.

All of this leads to the problem of explaining to Moroccans my first name, since neither language that Moroccans know has prepared them for pronouncing it. « Heather » has the /th/ in the middle and the /r/ at the end that poses problems for the French, but that is also unpronounceable in Moroccan Arabic, as it turns out. I've decided, for the second time while in Morocco, to introduce myself as Léa (my middle name). It just leaves more time for having more interesting exchanges, either in very limited Arabic, or in French.

بسلامَ (Goodbye)