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Fessi dialect

The Fessi dialect (Moroccan Arabic: هضرة أهل فاس) is a dialect of Moroccan vernacular Arabic, or Darija, associated with the city of Fes, especially with the old elite families of the city.[1]

Fessi dialect

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It is considered pre-Hilalian and some of its distinguishing phonological features are the pronunciation of rāʾ ( ر ) as a postalveolar approximant (like the American pronunciation of /ɹ/ in the word "red") instead of a trilled [r] and of qāf ( ق or, traditionally, ڧ ) as a pharyngealized glottal stop or voiceless uvular plosive instead of a voiced velar plosive ([g]).


The Fessi dialect has traditionally been regarded as a prestige dialect over other forms of Moroccan Darija, as a function of the historic social and economic power of its speakers.

Linguistic features[edit]

Phonology[edit]

It has traditionally had distinctive linguistic features, many of which were shared with other pre-Hilalian dialects in the region:[2]: 5, 24  on the phonological 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 [r] for /ر/, or a pharyngealized glottal stop or voiceless uvular plosive in the place of a voiced velar plosive ([g]) for /ق/.[1]

Morphosyntax[edit]

On the morphosyntactic level, gender distinction in pronouns and verb inflections is neutralized in the second person singular.[1]

Sociolinguistic features[edit]

The Fessi dialect has traditionally been regarded as a prestige dialect over other forms of Moroccan Darija—particularly those seen as rural or 'arūbi (عروبي "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.[1][4]