A Moroccan accent in Dutch: A sociocultural style restricted to the Moroccan community?

Abstract

In the major cities in the Western part of The Netherlands, a general “ethnic” accent is developing, which has characteristics of Moroccan languages (Moroccan, Arabic, and Berber). This accent is mainly used by young people in specific in-group situations. It is slightly different from the accent used by adult first generation learners of Dutch as a second language with a Moroccan background. Not only young people from Moroccan descent, but also young people with other ethnic backgrounds (both native Dutch and others) use this accent which will be abbreviated to MFD (Moroccan flavored Dutch) in the remainder of this article. We will address the following questions: • What are the characteristics of MFD? • Why is MFD based on Moroccan languages, rather than on any other language? • In what situations is MFD used? And how does the use of MFD interact with other group defining factors such as music, religion or clothing? • How does MFD interact with larger dynamic social developments such as politics and with other languages and dialects?

Multi-ethnolects: Kebabnorsk, Perkerdansk, Verlan, Kanakensprache, Straattaal, etc.

“…An example is the city of Utrecht in the Netherlands, where the multidisciplinary research program TCULT was carried out in a multi-cultural neighbourhood between 1998 and 2002. In those days, there was no indication of the existence of the specific multiethnolect MFD, 'Moroccan Flavoured Dutch' as it was labelled by Nortier and Dorleijn (2008). However, a few years later, this MFD multi-ethnolect, spoken by adolescents of a Moroccan, Turkish, Dutch and other ethnic backgrounds had emerged (Dorleijn and Nortier, 2006;Nortier and Dorleijn, 2008).…”

“…In those days, there was no indication of the existence of the specific multiethnolect MFD, 'Moroccan Flavoured Dutch' as it was labelled by Nortier and Dorleijn (2008). However, a few years later, this MFD multi-ethnolect, spoken by adolescents of a Moroccan, Turkish, Dutch and other ethnic backgrounds had emerged (Dorleijn and Nortier, 2006;Nortier and Dorleijn, 2008). In this multi-ethnolect, especially Moroccan (Berber and Arabic) elements were added to the base language (Dutch).…”

“…The unmarked mode among Dutch-Turkish bilinguals is the bilingual code switching mode, which is considered an in-group mode by its speakers and by (Dutch) outsiders; the latter often complain that they feel excluded in all-Turkish company, "because they speak Turkish all the time" (cf. Backus 1996;Nortier and Dorleijn 2008). Moreover, by using Turkish, one shows his/her Turkish identity and pride of being so.…”

“…Nortier and Dorleijn 2008). In the following fragment from the metalinguistic interview mentioned above, R is the respondent and I is the interviewer): Other important deliberate strategies are concerned with pronunciation, intonation and prosody.…”

“…The latter, characterized by non-native lexical elements, is predominantly used in multi-ethnic peer groups (Nortier 2001). Nortier and Dorleijn (2008) found that in order to express identity, the use of a Moroccan accent is spreading among young people with not only Moroccan but also Dutch, Turkish, Greek and many more ethnic backgrounds. The authors showed that the accent is used whenever the speakers find it suitable to express a certain identity and that it can be stressed or exaggerated if necessary.…”