The Arabic Language

14.4 Code-mixing and borrowing
The lengthy period of coexistence with French naturally left its traces in the 
linguistic structure of Arabic. We have seen above (p. 234) that in the form of 
Standard Arabic that is current in North Africa, French idiomatic patterns can 
be detected. In the vernacular, too, a host of French borrowings have been 
integrated. According to Heath (1989), the integration of loanwords from another 
language must necessarily be preceded by a period of intensive code-switching. 
Yet, judging from other situations of code-mixing, it appears more likely that the 
most integrated loans from French date back to a period in which most people 
had only a superficial knowledge of French. Only at a later stage, when there was 
a larger number of true bilinguals, did the number of 
ad hoc
borrowings increase.

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270
The Arabic Language
Heath pays special attention to the pattern of integration of French loans into 
Moroccan Arabic. At an earlier stage, Spanish loans had been integrated into the 
language on the basis of the Spanish infinitive (e.g., 
fṛinaṛ-t
‘I braked’, 
n-fṛinaṛ
‘I 
brake’ < Spanish 
frenar
). But for French loans, the basic form seems to have been 
a generalised stem ending in a vowel. In the 
-er
conjugation in French, many 
forms end in a vowel sound (e.g., 
déclarer
‘to declare’, 
déclaré
, 
déclarez
, 
déclarais
); 
according to Heath, these forms provided the canonical pattern for loanwords, 
imperfect 
y-ḍiklaṛi
, perfect 
ḍiklaṛa
, analogous to the Moroccan weak verbs in 
-a
/
-i
. As we shall see below (Chapter 15, p. 278), in Maltese, too, the category 
of the weak verbs provided a suitable pattern for foreign loans. Other examples 
of French loans include 
blisa
/
yblisi
‘to wound’ (French 
blesser
); 
kuṇṭṛula
/
ykuṇṭṛuli
‘to supervise’ (French 
contrôler
); 
ṣuṭa
/
yṣuṭi
‘to jump’ (French 
sauter
). From most 
of these verbs, a passive and a participle may be formed, for example, 
ttblisi
‘to 
be wounded’, 
mblisi
‘wounded’. With regard to loan nouns, it may be noted that 
their gender is determined by the presence or absence of an end-vowel; thus, 
for instance, 
duš
‘shower’ (French 
la douche
) is masculine in Moroccan Arabic, 
whereas 
aṇṭiṛṇa
‘campus’ (French 
internat
) is feminine. Many nouns borrowed 
from French have a plural in 
-at
(e.g., 
dušat
, 
gaṛat
, plural from 
gaṛ
‘station’, French 
gare
). But broken plurals for borrowed nouns are fairly common, for example, 
gid
‘tourist guide’, plural 
gyad
(French 
guide
), 
mašina
‘train’, plural 
mašinat
or 
mwašǝn
(French 
machine
), 
tǝnbǝr
‘stamp’, plural 
tnabǝr
(French 
timbre
). 
A special case of code-switching between French and vernacular Arabic is 
that of the so-called Franco-Arabe, a mixed code that is used predominantly by 
students and completely bicultural families in Morocco, Tunisia and Lebanon. As 
an illustration, we may quote a sentence in which French and (Lebanese) Arabic 
alternate even within conjunctions (
avant mā
):
yā laṭīf kīf ed-dine b-titġayyar, c’était en été avant mā ṣāret el-mašēkil, imagine-toi inno les 
X: kil ši ils ont fait, mā ḥadan qallon un seul mot
‘My dear, how the world is changing! It 
was in the summer before the problems began, imagine that the X family, whatever 
they did, nobody said a single word to them’. (quoted by Abou 1962: 67)
Most users of Franco-Arabe would not call this a language in its own right, 
and when used by students it is generally frowned upon. Nevertheless, speaking 
with a constant mixing of French and Arabic is highly popular in certain circles, 
especially with youngsters in peer groups in certain intimate settings. Its mainte
-
nance is dependent on the status quo: as soon as the linguistic situation changes, 
as it did, for instance, in Lebanon after the civil war, the use of Franco-Arabe 
becomes marginalised. Because of its 
ad hoc
character, it cannot be regarded as a 
new code, since the speakers seldom use it at home and they do not themselves 
feel that it is a separate language. The general attitude towards the mixing of 
codes is negative, most people viewing this mixed register as a sign of insuffi-
cient linguistic proficiency and as being detrimental to the social development 
of children.

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Bilingualism 
271
The study of Franco-Arabe with its frequent use of code-switching is of impor-
tance for our knowledge of the nature of bilingualism. In spite of its seemingly 
improvised and haphazard appearance, it seems that it obeys certain syntactic 
constraints: in other words, speakers avoid certain combinations and seem to 
favour others. Abbassi (1977: 162–3) notes, for instance, that it is perfectly accept
-
able to use combinations such as 
mšina l-dak la salle de cinéma
‘we went to that movie-
theatre’, 
al-lawwal dyal le mois
‘the first of the month’, 
saknin f-une grande maison
‘they live in a big house’, 
umm kaltum kanet une chanteuse mumtaza
‘ʾUmm Kalṯūm 
was an excellent singer’, in which Arabic demonstratives, genitive exponents, 
prepositions or nouns are combined with French nouns and adjectives. The 
reversed combinations (
*cette qāʿat as-sinima
; 
*le début du šhar
, 
*dans waḥǝd ḍ-ḍaṛ
, 
*une excellente muġanniya
) would, however, be less acceptable. Similar constraints 
are found in research in the Netherlands about the language of Moroccan young
-
sters who use a mixture of Moroccan Arabic and Dutch (cf. below, Chapter 15).
The current coexistence of the two languages is also shown in the lexicon, 
where hybrid formations in French have become highly popular in the parlance 
of Algerian youths. Benmayouf (2008) mentions cases like 
infehmable
‘incompre
-
hensible’, 
inšarḥable 
‘inexplicable’, 
tarbiyation 
‘education’ and even 
kariṯastrophe
,
 
a contamination of 
kāriṯa 
and 
catastrophe
. With this last form we have definitely 
crossed the limit of ordinary word formation and reached the domain of word play. 
It remains to be mentioned that with the growing acceptance of French as a 
natural ingredient in the linguistic profile of the Maghreb, the local character of 
French has become more pronounced as well. In the colonial period several levels 
of French were in use. The French colonists contributed to the emergence of a 
basilectal level by addressing their servants on a foreigner-directed register (see 
Chapter 16); the resulting variety was called 
Pataouète
. Some traits of this basilectal 
French are still found today in the French of those without formal training, for 
instance, the use of 
à le 
instead of 
au
, the use of a pronominal support in sentences 
like 
ta mère y t’appelle
‘your mother is calling you’,
 
or the resumptive pronoun in 
relative sentences, such as 
un enfant que je connais son frère 
‘a child whose brother 
I know’ (Lanly 1970: 213, 215, 228).