The Berber Language: Officially Recognized, Unofficially Marginalized?
Tamazight is the standardized version of the Amazigh languages. An estimated 25 to 30 million speakers of Tamazight and other Berber dialects are spread throughout the North African countries, from the Atlantic Ocean to Egypt. Amazigh languages (there are three main regional variants) are spoken by an estimated 35 to 40 percent of Morocco’s population. But North African political discourse, whether nationalist or Islamist, has long been hostile to the Amazigh language, perceived as a threat to national cohesion. For decades, giving children Amazigh names was forbidden in Morocco. Not recognizing the language spoken in the country’s poor rural interior was an effective means of discrimination that shut the Berbers out from participating politically, socially and economically in Moroccan society. In 1994, King Hassan II came out in favor of teaching Tamazight in schools. In 2003, his son, now King Mohamed VI, put the initiative into practice.
