AMSTERDAM -
Although he was born and lived in the Netherlands, researcher Khaled Mourig devotes much of his time to the subject of the Amazigh languages, the languages of his parents who immigrated from Morocco to Holland more than 4 centuries ago.
Maurig's interest in ancestral languages will lead to the extent that he devoted his doctoral studies at Leiden University to researching the language of the Berber Ghamra tribe in northern Morocco, where he collected the rules of this language and published a book about it, and today is one of the rare references on this language that is close to extinction.
In addition to his work as an independent researcher, Khaled Mourig writes poetry and organizes periodic lectures in the Netherlands on the subject of Amazigh languages. A year ago, he published a book entitled: “The Guest from the Rif Mountains,” in which he recalls his grandfather’s trip to Holland in the mid-sixties of the last century, and she met Al Jazeera Net is the writer and conducted this interview with him about his research in the Amazigh languages.
You wrote two books on the two types of languages that make up what are known as the Berber languages. How would you describe this language?
And what distinguishes it?
In the first, I would like to say that many speakers of the Berber language do not prefer the name Berber for their language, and choose the name "Amazigh", or "Tamazight".
Berber (or Berber) is a separate language family, with many different types, and these different types of Berber languages are spoken from the Siwa region in Egypt to Ghamra in Morocco, passing through the Tuareg region in the African coast.
The Tamazight language has a very distant relationship with the Semitic languages, but all the basic words in the Tamazight language are very different from the same words in the Semitic languages.
This is what you see in words such as: water (aman), fire (timessi), hand (afus), and homeland (tammurt).
Even we release words and sentence structure in the Amazigh language has its own form, and it differs greatly from the Semitic languages.
At the same time, there are significant differences between the Berber languages.
The book “The Guest from the Rif Mountains” by researcher Khaled Morig was recently published in Dutch (Al-Jazeera)
Your book on the Amazigh language of Ghamra is one of the rare references that present the rules of this language. How was the book's research journey?
How was the grammar collected?
Today, the Ghamra Berber language is spoken by less than 10 thousand people, and this makes it at risk of extinction, as the number of families who speak this language with their children is decreasing.
I researched it by living and working for a while in the western countryside, also known as Jabala, and there I spoke with people from the area and translated lists of words they spoke in the Ghamra language, and also recorded other conversations with different speakers of the same language, and I also recorded traditional tales from which It is passed down through generations in the region.
Then I analyzed the data I collected at the Dutch university where I completed my studies, and categorized the grammar used in the Ghamra language.
This language is interesting not only because it is a unique form of the Berber languages, but also because the grammar of this language underwent a change under the influence of the spoken Arabic (what is known as Darija).
The experience of living with the people of the country was wonderful, and I still think a lot about the hospitality and care of the people there, those experiences I will never forget. For example, they baked fresh bread every day and carried it to me.
When I help them pull their boats ashore I get some fish as a gift, many people have helped me there, but I had to work hard at first to gain their trust.
Khaled Moorrig told the stories of his late grandfather's immigration in a Dutch-language book (Al-Jazeera)
This book of yours was part of your academic research in which you obtained your Ph.D. How did your research work in Morocco?
I got my scientific research permit in Morocco first, then I went to the local authorities, then I met the head of the village (the lieutenant colonel), after which I ended up in a beautiful fishing village called “Sidi Yahya Al Arab”.
I communicated with the people of the village, especially the men of the village, and I sat with them every day;
I wrote down what they said, asked questions from an Arabic lexicon, and recorded traditional stories from the region.
I accompanied them in daily life, to see closely how the language is spoken in everyday matters.
I used to fish and go to the market to be near people.
Meanwhile I was saving the data I collected, and once I arrived in the Netherlands I stored the data in a database of the words I had collected.
I also analyzed grammar, phonology, morphology, and grammar.
During the analysis, new questions appeared, and each time I returned to the village to ask questions and collect new data.
Born in the Netherlands to a family from the Rif region of Morocco, what attracted a boy who studied in the Dutch schools and educational system for the Amazigh language?
I noticed from my childhood that the Berber Rifian language - and this language I learned in the family home where I grew up in Holland - is not recognized anywhere, there was no literature or media in this language.
In contrast to the absence of this language from literature and popular media, there was a lively musical culture written in the Berber languages, and I became interested in the meanings of the words in the songs of the Berber protest singers, such as Al-Walid Maimoun and others.
Then I started researching and became acquainted with the spoken Amazigh poetry, and I read in the bilingual (Berber-Dutch) pamphlets that are sometimes issued in Holland.
During my studies I discovered that the University of Leiden offers Berber linguistics, I registered and obtained a master's degree and then a doctorate in Berber linguistics.
Since the advent of the Arabs to North Africa, there has been an influence of the Arabic language on Tamazight. This is a process that took centuries, and there are pre-existing influences even before the arrival of the Arabs.
On the lexical level, the Berber language influenced the Arabic language in Morocco (the bicycle), and there are Arabic words today taken from the Berber language, such as the key (Sarout), and other words in the fields of plants and animals.
How do you see the impact of the Arabic language on the Amazigh languages in North Africa?
Since the advent of the Arabs to North Africa, there has been an influence of the Arabic language on Tamazight. This is a process that took centuries, and there are pre-existing influences even before the arrival of the Arabs.
On the lexical level, the Berber language influenced the Arabic language in Morocco (the bicycle). There are Arabic words today taken from the Berber language, such as the key (Sarout), and other words in the fields of plants and animals.
On the other hand, the Berbers took a lot of Arabic words, so that it can be said that about 50% of the Berber language lexicon is taken from Arabic.
This means that if the language does so, it becomes a copy of another language;
Borrowed words are a natural phenomenon among languages, even in contemporary European languages.
I did a research on the language of young Dutch people of Moroccan origin, and I said that the language that dominates these new languages will be the one that belongs to the stronger party. How has their lives in the Netherlands affected?
Can this idea be explained?
Moroccans in immigrants quickly lose the language of their parents, after a generation or two of Maghreb immigration to Holland diminished mastery of the spoken Arabic (Darija) and the Berber language, if not completely disappeared in some quarters.
This happens most clearly at the death of the first generations of the family, when the Dutch language becomes the first language of interaction among the new generations of Moroccans who were born in Holland.
At the same time, the Dutch Moroccans have been suffering for many years from a negative image of them in the Netherlands, and because of their Islamic background and stereotyping in some Dutch media, which means that they want to distinguish themselves by adopting a certain style of speech and communication among themselves, or during their interactions With the Dutch community around them.
What many of these guys did was pronounce Dutch a little differently, using some Moroccan words and swear words here and there;
In this way, young people of Moroccan origin create their own identity through the language they have created.
Mobility and large migrations play a major role in the disappearance or change of languages.
For example, if people from small communities speaking rare languages move to a city where another language is spoken, they will out of necessity adopt the language of that city and lose interest in their native languages.
How do you see the future of languages spoken by small peoples and nationalities in the era of globalization in which we live?
Is this future affected by the geographical location and economic location of these societies?
Many small languages are at risk of extinction during these times, and both factors I mentioned are important;
If a community changes or disappears entirely, language will usually disappear or be replaced by a larger language.
Mobility and large migrations play a major role in the disappearance or change of languages.
For example, if people from small communities speaking rare languages move to a city where another language is spoken, they will out of necessity adopt the language of that city and lose interest in their native languages.
It sometimes happens that some societies decide not to pass the language on to future generations, because the larger language that is close to them - in their view - is more useful; As a result, many lose the knowledge recorded by these small languages; For this reason it is important to preserve and record as many languages as possible.