The Mohammed Bin Rashid School of Government in Dubai has released the seventh edition of its Arab Social Media Report. It shows that social media has impacted cultural and social realities in the Arab World in general, and affected communication between Arab societies and their governments.
As for Moroccans in particular, the report indicates that the use of Arabic in Facebook posts, comments and interactions has seen a rapid rise in recent years, from 32 percent to 69 percent, at the expense of the French language.
The Head of the National Coalition for Arabic language, Fouad Boali, is quoted in Aljazeera as saying that “the wars waged on the Arabic language on a daily basis under different titles have not been able to budge Arabic from its throne as a language of identity and cultural belonging to Moroccans.”
Commenting on the findings of the report, Boali explained that Moroccans, if given the choice, prefer to use Arabic in their communication because it lies at the heart of their very existence, adding that Arabic will continue to prevail on social media now due to “the spread of means of communication and the democratization of Internet access.”
The Director of the Institute for Studies and Research of Arabization, Mohammed Farran, also commented on the report and linked the prevalence of the Arabic language in social media to its dominance in Moroccan schools.
Farran pointed out that several national reports about the linguistic situation in the educational system have recorded a decline in the demand for learning foreign languages in Morocco. He added that this is not so much a victory for the Arabic language as much as it is a weakness in language proficiency among students.
Source: https://www.moroccoworldnews.com/2017/03/210128/210128/