The Fessi dialect () is a dialect of
Moroccan vernacular Arabic, or Darija, associated with the city of
Fes
Fez or Fes (; ar, فاس, fās; zgh, ⴼⵉⵣⴰⵣ, fizaz; french: Fès) is a city in northern inland Morocco and the capital of the Fès-Meknès administrative region. It is the second largest city in Morocco, with a population of 1.11 mi ...
, especially with the old elite families of the city.
It has traditionally been regarded as a
prestige dialect
Prestige refers to a good reputation or high esteem; in earlier usage, ''prestige'' meant "showiness". (19th c.)
Prestige may also refer to:
Arts, entertainment and media Films
* ''Prestige'' (film), a 1932 American film directed by Tay Garnett ...
over other forms of Moroccan Darija—particularly those seen as rural or ''
'arūbi'' ( "of the rural Arabs")—due to its "association with the socio-economic power and dominance that its speakers enjoy at the national level," in the words of
Mohammed Errihani.
Like other urban Moroccan dialects, it is considered "pre-Hilalian," as the dialect predates the migration of the
Banu Hilal
The Banu Hilal ( ar, بنو هلال, translit=Banū Hilāl) was a confederation of Arabian tribes from the Hejaz and Najd regions of the Arabian Peninsula that emigrated to North Africa in the 11th century. Masters of the vast plateaux of t ...
and their settlement in the Maghreb.
It has traditionally had distinctive linguistic features, many of which were shared with other "pre-Hilalian" dialects in the region:
on the
phonological
Phonology is the branch of linguistics that studies how languages or dialects systematically organize their sounds or, for sign languages, their constituent parts of signs. The term can also refer specifically to the sound or sign system of a ...
level, these include the stereotypical use of a
postalveolar approximant (like the American pronunciation of /ɹ/ in the word "red") in the place of a
trilled for /
ر/, or a
pharyngealized
Pharyngealization is a secondary articulation of consonants or vowels by which the Human pharynx, pharynx or epiglottis is constricted during the articulation of the sound.
IPA symbols
In the International Phonetic Alphabet, pharyngealization can ...
glottal stop or
voiceless uvular plosive
The voiceless uvular plosive or stop is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. It is pronounced like a voiceless velar plosive , except that the tongue makes contact not on the soft palate but on the uvula. The symbol in th ...
in the place of a
voiced velar plosive
The voiced velar plosive or stop is a type of consonantal sound used in many spoken languages.
Some languages have the voiced pre-velar plosive, which is articulated slightly more front compared with the place of articulation of the prototyp ...
(
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On the morphosyntactic level, gender distinction in pronouns and verb Inflection, inflections is neutralized in the second Grammatical person, person singular.
Due to social and demographic changes that started in the 20th century such as mass rural migration into the city and the departure of most of the city's old urban elites to Casablanca, these old linguistic features are no longer dominant in the speech of Arabic speakers in Fes today.
Prior to the departure of most Jewish residents in the second half of the 20th century, the
Jewish community in Fes also spoke
an Arabic dialect similar to the rest of city.
Notes
References
{{Arabic-lang-stub
Moroccan Arabic
Fez, Morocco