Lexical borrowing into Riffian-Amazigh proverbs

Abstract

The present study seeks to shed light on the issue of lexical borrowing in Riffian- Amazigh (RA) proverbs. It aims to describe the process of adopting words or phrases from other languages such as Arabic, Spanish and Latin into RA proverbs. Incorporating words from Arabic is due to different factors. First, RA and Moroccan Arabic (MA) are in perpetual contact. Second, there is large interaction between the two languages and how significantly this contributes to increasing cultural proximity and constructing Moroccan oral culture as a whole. As for adopting words from Spanish, this is accounted for by the fact that the Rif region was colonized by Spain in the beginning of the twentieth century. Such colonization has had great impact on the linguistic landscape in the North of Morocco in general, and on the Rif region in particular. Therefore, encountering Spanish words or expressions in a few specific RA proverbs is not a surprise. In fact, when a language borrows a word or an expression from another language, it may either retain its original pronunciation and spelling or modify it to conform to the phonetic and grammatical structures of the adopting language. The current study is based on a mixed methodological approach to data analysis, i.e. quantitative and qualitative methods. The findings show that RA proverbs tend to borrow from Arabic more than any other language for reasons stated earlier, leading to linguistic diversity and cultural exchange.