Tamazight iHla bzaff!

By far, the most challenging thing so far has been learning the various language(s) spoken in our communities (it’s worth noting that learning the language(s) narrowly beat out using a Turkish toilet for the challenging task award, the details of which I will leave out for now, out of respect for my mother. In the meantime, please excuse typos since I am still getting used to typing exclusively with my right hand). I am learning Tamazight—a Berber dialect spoken primarily in the Middle and High Atlas Mountains. Many of the words and sentence structures are similar to Darija (Moroccan Arabic), and in some places, like my CBT site (community-based training), the population speaks a mix of Darija and Tamazight.

What does it look like?

Well, for the most part, it looks however you want it to look, because it’s primarily an oral language. There is a Berber script that looks a bit like Russian, but I am told a small minority of Berber speakers are literate in Berber script. For the most part, if written at all, Berber is written in transliteration, generally in Arabic script but it can also be written in English script. Check out the picture below to see my name written in Berber (below) and Arabic (above).

 

 

 

 

 

 

What does it sound like?

I was hoping to insert an MP3 file of myself reading the following dialogue, but the internet connection is so slow I doubt it will be possible. Hopefully I’ll upload it in the future, but for now, read the following aloud and you’ll get an idea of what Tamazight sounds like.

            M’barek: S-salamu alakum!

            Said: Wualakum salam! Mayd tenit?

            M’barek: Kulshi bixir, l’hamdullah.

            Said: Labas?

            M’barek: Labas, l’hamdullah.

            Said: TeHena?

            M’barek: TeHena. Ima kyyin? Kulshi bixir?

            Said: Kulshi bixir, l’hamdullah.

            M’barek: Labas?

            Said: Labas, l’hamdullah.

[We basically just finished saying “Hello.” The exchange would normally begin with a handshake, after which it is often the custom put your hand to your heart (some kiss their hand instead). This is the abbreviated version—in practice, saying “Hello, how are you?” takes anywhere from 1-5 minutes of asking the same questions over and over again. I am pretty fond of these extended salutations since they slow us down and force us to connect with everyone we meet, even if we get absolutely no information out of the exchange. They’re also a great way to show locals that we’re trying to learn the language, even if we don’t know much more than these pleasantries. My teachers explain that it’s basically making sure someone is really as “good” as they say when you first ask “how are you?” But I’m still waiting to hear someone change their answer on the 5^th “Labas?” to say “Well, now that I’ve had the chance to think about it, I’m actually quite miserable. Thank you for your persistence.”

Also, it’s worth noting the word l’hamdullah, meaning “Thanks be to God.” Part of being fluent in Darija/Tamazight is saying l’hamdullah after just about everything. Dinner’s delicious? L’hamdullah! Sleep well? L’hamdullah! Just burped? L’hamdullah!—No joke, you say l’hamdullah after burping and sneezing—a good burp is considered an indicator of satisfaction and thus merits a l’hamdullah.]

            M’barek: Isminu M’barek. Msmnk?

            Said: Isminu Said, mtsharfin.

            M’barek: Mtsharfin.

            Said: Is kyyin turist?

            M’barek: La, mashi tourist. Nkkin da xdema g’hay et salam.

            Said: Mzyan! Sg mi ayd tgit?

M’barek: Nkkin sg mirican. Nikkin sg wilayat Illinois, tamdint n’Chicago. SmHi, rig ad ddug a madrassa. Bislama!

            Said: Bislama!

[We introduced ourselves to each other, Said asked me if I’m a tourist and I said “No, I work for the Peace Corps.” Said asked me where I’m from and I told him, and then said “Excuse me, I have to go to school. Bye!”]

As someone who loves to learn languages, I’m like a kid in a candy store in Morocco—unfortunately I don’t recognize any of the candy and the shop keeper is absolutely convinced I’m French. 9 times out of 10, I will start speaking Tamazight or Darija to someone on the street, and they will respond with at least one French word combined with Darija, Tamazight or a mix of all three. Sometimes I think I hear pig Latin and Elvish thrown in there, but it’s hard to be sure.

So, before I can begin to think about what someone is saying to me, I first have to figure out what language(s) they’re speaking. For example, I’ll say salamu alakum! Labas? [hello! How are you?] and they might say bonjour! Kulshi bixir, l’hamdullah. Ima kyyin? Ca va?  [hi! Everything’s great, thanks be to God. And you? How are you?] (in French, Darija/Tamazight and then French again). Or still more confusing, I’ll ask how much something costs in Tamazight, and they’ll respond in French—a problematic exchange, since I learned the numbers in French about a month ago, and just learned the numbers in Arabic in the last two weeks, it’s hard to prepare myself to hear either set of numbers when all of them still sound very foreign to me.

To further complicate things, my community isn’t exactly fluent in Tamazight. Or more accurately, they don’t necessarily know what Tamazight is. I frequently ask Said about words I learned at home that my host family absolutely swore were in Tamazight and it turns out they’re in Darjia. Sure, my host family speaks a lot of Tamazight and may be as fluent as one can be in Tamazight, but they use such a mixture of Tamazight and Darija that they don’t always know which one is which.

This was frustrating at first, especially when I only have a month and a half to learn Tamazight before venturing to my final site. But one of the lessons I’m learning early on is that I don’t need to become fluent in Tamazight. Of course, I want to speak Tamazight as much as possible to fully integrate into the community, and I still aspire to write catchy folk songs with Tamazight lyrics. But if my final site is anything like my CBT site, they won’t necessarily be fluent in the Tamazight I learned in school and I still need to be able to communicate using whatever language or combination of languages gets the point across.

So I have stopped trying to separate all the languages and turned my attention to figuring out what’s going on and how to best express myself and so far it’s been working surprisingly well. I can carry on a reasonably complete conversation with my family members using a combination of Tamazight, Darija, French, gestures and the occasional Spanish or English word that I pray sounds similar to a word in one of the languages my family speaks.

Note: I starting writing this post a few weeks ago and during that time my language has improved dramatically—hamdullah since I am about to go to my final site in less than two weeks. More details about that in the next post—but for now I’ll say it’s going to be gorgeous, mountainous, cold, remote, very poor and very Berber (one of the purest Tamazight areas in the country), so I may very well end up fluent in Tamazight after all!

Inshallah everyone is well—I’ll leave you with a Peace Corps Moroccable moment, brought to you by our grueling but productive 6 weeks of Community Based Training.

Moroccable Moment: The “Kill Board”

Our training schedule is very intense. We study the language from 8AM-6PM, Monday through Friday, and 8-12 on Saturday. Our classes are great and I’m amazed by how well I can communicate after only 6 weeks in the country. But I also cannot remember a time when I have felt quite so burnt-out by classes.  My fellow CBT students and I have literally started to go insane.

As an example of our precipitous descent into madness, I direct your attention to exhibit A: the “Kill Board” on the wall of our classroom on which we place a tally next to our name for each izi (fly) we kill. We put the board up a few days ago—I have 30 tallies next to my name and you bet I’m proud of it. We have no fly swatters and rarely use anything other than our bare hands (after many unsuccessful attempts I finally trapped one inside my pen cap the other day—it was amazing! ….I guess you had to be there…).

Gross, right? Well, don’t judge until you’ve tried studying Tamazight all day and then going home to your host family and not having time to study but still kind of studying because you have to speak Tamazight with them anyway and doing all this for 5 weeks in a row while constantly assaulted by hordes of flies you have seen landing in every type of excrement you can imagine. On a related note, my group wrote and recorded a catchy a capella song called Izi Graveyard which I hope to post soon.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Llay eaown!

M’barek