View source for Fessi dialect

{{Short description|Dialect of Moroccan vernacular Arabic}}
{{Infobox language
| name             = Fessi dialect
| altname          = Fessi Darija
| states           = [[Morocco]]
| familycolor      = Afro-Asiatic
| fam2             = [[Semitic languages|Semitic]]
| fam3             = [[West Semitic languages|West Semitic]]
| fam4             = [[Central Semitic languages|Central Semitic]]
| fam5             = [[Classification of Arabic languages|North Arabian]]
| fam6             = [[Arabic]]
| fam7             = [[Maghrebi Arabic|Maghrebi]]
| fam8             = [[Moroccan Arabic|Moroccan]]
| script           = [[Arabic alphabet]]
| glotto           = fezm1238
}}
The '''Fessi dialect''' ({{Langx|ary|هضرة أهل فاس}}) is a dialect of [[Moroccan Arabic|Moroccan vernacular Arabic]], or Darija, associated with the city of [[Fez, Morocco|Fes]], especially with the old elite families of the city.<ref name=":34">{{Cite journal |last=Hachimi |first=Atiqa |date=2012-05-23 |title=The urban and the urbane: Identities, language ideologies, and Arabic dialects in Morocco |url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0047404512000279 |journal=Language in Society |volume=41 |issue=3 |pages=321–341 |doi=10.1017/s0047404512000279 |issn=0047-4045 |s2cid=144607607}}</ref> 

It is considered [[Pre-Hilalian Arabic dialects|pre-Hilalian]] and some of its distinguishing phonological features are the pronunciation of ''[[Resh#Arabic Rāʾ|rāʾ]]'' ( ر ) as a [[postalveolar approximant]] (like the American pronunciation of /ɹ/ in the word "red") instead of a [[Trilled r|trilled [r]]] and of [[Qoph#Arabic Qāf|''qāf'']] ( ق or, traditionally, ڧ ) as a [[Pharyngealization|pharyngealized]] [[glottal stop]] or [[voiceless uvular plosive]] instead of a [[voiced velar plosive]] ([<nowiki/>[[G (IPA)|g]]]).

The Fessi dialect has traditionally been regarded as a [[Prestige (sociolinguistics)|prestige dialect]] over other forms of Moroccan Darija, as a function of the historic social and economic power of its speakers.

== History ==
Like other urban Moroccan dialects, it is considered [[Pre-Hilalian Arabic dialects|pre-Hilalian]].<ref name=":34" /> 'Pre-Hilalian' in this context refers to dialects believed to descend from the Arabic spoken in the region prior to the arrival of the [[Banu Hilal]] and the [[Banu Ma'qil]] tribes that began in the 12th century. After this event, "Hilalian" dialects became dominant in the rural regions of central Morocco and are a major component of wider Moroccan Arabic today.<ref name=":31" />{{Rp|2–10}}

Due to social and demographic changes that started in the 20th century such as mass rural migration into the city and the departure of most of the city's old urban elites to Casablanca, the traditional linguistic features are no longer dominant in the speech of Arabic speakers in Fes today.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Hachimi |first=Atiqa |title=The Languages of Urban Africa |publisher=Bloomsbury |year=2011 |isbn=9781441158130 |editor-last=Mc Laughlin |editor-first=Fiona |chapter=The story of old urban vernaculars in North Africa |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=DdCWpuRrAogC&dq=fez+languages&pg=PT70}}</ref><ref name=":31" />{{Rp|5, 24}} 

=== Jewish Fessi dialect ===
The [[Mellah of Fez|Jewish community in Fes]], prior to the departure of most of the city's Jewish residents in the second half of the 20th century, also spoke [[Judeo-Moroccan Arabic|an Arabic dialect]] similar to the rest of city.<ref name=":31" />{{Rp|24}}{{Efn|There are competing theories about the historical roots of Moroccan Jewish dialects of Arabic. Some scholars argue that they were strongly influenced by [[Andalusi Arabic]] dialects (which were similar to North African dialects) brought by Jewish refugees from Spain after 1492, while other scholars argue that these same refugees mostly spoke [[Judeo-Spanish]] when they arrived and eventually adopted existing Arabic dialects in the cities.<ref name=":31" />{{Rp|10–12}}}}

== Linguistic features ==

=== Phonology ===
It has traditionally had distinctive linguistic features, many of which were shared with other pre-Hilalian dialects in the region:<ref name=":31">{{Cite book |last=Heath |first=Jeffrey |title=Jewish and Muslim Dialects of Moroccan Arabic |publisher=Routledge |year=2002 |isbn=9780415567787 |pages=}}</ref>{{Rp|5, 24}} on the [[Phonology|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|trilled [r]]] for /[[ر]]/, or a [[Pharyngealization|pharyngealized]] [[glottal stop]] or [[voiceless uvular plosive]] in the place of a [[voiced velar plosive]] ([<nowiki/>[[G (IPA)|g]]]) for /[[Qoph|ق]]/.<ref name=":34" /> 

=== Morphosyntax ===
On the [[morphosyntactic]] level, gender distinction in pronouns and verb [[Inflection|inflections]] is neutralized in the second [[Grammatical person|person]] singular.<ref name=":34" />

=== Sociolinguistic features ===
The Fessi dialect has traditionally been regarded as a [[Prestige (sociolinguistics)|prestige dialect]] over other forms of Moroccan Darija—particularly those seen as rural or ''<nowiki/>'arūbi'' ({{Lang|arz|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]].<ref name=":34" /><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Errihani |first=Mohammed |date=2016-07-28 |title=Language and social distinction: speaking Darija* with the right accent |url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13629387.2016.1212706 |journal=The Journal of North African Studies |volume=21 |issue=5 |pages=741–764 |doi=10.1080/13629387.2016.1212706 |issn=1362-9387 |s2cid=147855077}}</ref>

==Notes==
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== References ==
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{{Arabic-lang-stub}}
[[Category:Moroccan Arabic]]
[[Category:Fez, Morocco]]
[[Category:Judeo-Arabic languages]]