Darija the ‘natural’ language of Moroccan theater?

Abstract

«Darija the ‘natural’ language of Moroccan theater?». In its beginnings the Moroccan theater, animated mainly by young people coming from the nationalist and reformist movements, adopted classical or literary Arabic as its main language. But very quickly the Darija or Moroccan Arabic, will be more and more adopted by Moroccan playwrights, until becoming, starting from the years 1950, the main language of the fourth Moroccan art. This article will draw a panoramic picture of the use of darija in Moroccan theater by considering the most important periods of this process and by highlighting the most striking experiences of some playwrights like Bouchïb el Bodaoui, Abdellah Chakroun, Tayeb Al-Alj, Tayeb Saddiki, and Mohamed Kaouti, who have not only used this linguistic variety as the language of communication but also have considered it as a means of artistic and literary expression.