Diglossia and Social Prestige
While being a natural localization of Classical Arabic for geographic and historical reasons, as French has evolved from Vulgar Latin, Moroccan Arabic is considered as a language of low prestige whereas it is Modern Standard Arabic that is used in more formal contexts. While Moroccan Arabic is the mother tongue of nearly twenty million people in Morocco it is rarely used in written form. This situation may explain in part the high illiteracy rates in Morocco.
This situation is not specific to Morocco but occurs in all Arabic-speaking countries. The French Arabist William Marçais coined in 1930 the term diglossie (diglossia) to describe this situation, where two (often) closely related languages co-exist, one of high prestige (the standard language), which is generally used by the government and in formal texts, and one of low prestige, which is usually the spoken vernacular tongue.
Read more about this topic: Moroccan Arabic
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