Dialect Variation Across Generations in Berkane (North-Eastern Morocco): the Case of Interdental Fricatives

Abstract

The aim of the present paper is to investigate intergenerational variation in the realization of interdental fricatives among speakers of Berkani Arabic, a variety spoken in north-eastern Morocco. Our survey is based on data gathered during fieldwork in the city of Berkane in December 2019. It is well known that, unlike mainstream Moroccan dia- lects, some varieties in the far north-east have retained old interdental fricatives to this day. Yet it seems that these phonemes are slowly fading or have already disappeared in some of the aforementioned vernaculars. This is the case, for instance, in the western division of the Huwwāṛa tribe and in the city of Oujda, respectively. As regards the city of Berkane, a preliminary analysis of our data indicates an almost complete loss of the voiceless inter- dental /ṯ/ and the voiced interdental /ḏ/. Conversely, instances displaying a voiced pharyn- gealized /ḏ/̣ are abundant in the speech of our informants, even if this sound is seemingly in free variation with its dental counterpart /ḍ/. Interestingly, this phonetic variation seems to be related to the age of the speaker. Thus, the number of occurrences of /ḏ/̣ is higher among middle-aged and older individuals. Such a finding could be indicative of the regres- sion of /ḏ/̣ in the speech of young Berkanis, which may be due to a process of convergence towards the mainstream varieties of Moroccan Arabic. The abandonment of other local features would seem to support this supposition.