Culture of Morocco

The culture of Morocco is a blend of Arab, Berber, Andalusi cultures, with Mediterranean, Hebraic and African influences.^[1][2][3][4] It represents and is shaped by a convergence of influences throughout history. This sphere may include, among others, the fields of personal or collective behaviors, language, customs, knowledge, beliefs, arts, legislation, gastronomy, music, poetry, architecture, etc. While Morocco started to be stably predominantly Sunni Muslim starting from 9th–10th century AD, during the Almoravid period, a very significant Andalusi culture was imported, contributing to the shaping of Moroccan culture.^[5] Another major influx of Andalusi culture was brought by Andalusis with them following their expulsion from Al-Andalus to North Africa after the Reconquista.^[3] In antiquity, starting from the second century A.D and up to the seventh, a rural Donatist Christianity was present, along an urban still-in-the-making Roman Catholicism.^[6][7] All of the cultural super strata tend to rely on a multi-millennial aboriginal Berber substratum still present and dating back to prehistoric times.

The linguistic landscape of Morocco is complex. It generally tends to be horizontally diverse and vertically stratified. It is though possible to broadly classify it into two main components: Arab and Berber. It is hardly possible to speculate about the origin of Berber languages as it is traced back to low antiquity and prehistoric times.^[8] The Semitic influence, on the contrary, can be fairly documented by archaeological evidence.^[9] It came in two waves: Canaanite, in its Punic, Carthaginian and Hebrew historic varieties, from the ninth century B.C and up to high antiquity, and Arabic, during the low Middle Ages, starting from the seventh century A.D. The two Semitic languages being close, both in syntax and vocabulary it is hard to tell them apart as to who influenced more the structure of the modern Moroccan Arabic dialect.^[10] The Arab conquerors having certainly encountered large romanized urban Punic population as they advanced.^[11] In any case, the linguistic and cultural identity of Morocco, just as its geography would predict, is the result of the encounter of three main circles: Arab, Berber, and Western Mediterranean European.

The two official languages of Morocco are Modern Standard Arabic and Standard Moroccan Berber, according to the 2014 general census, 92% of Moroccans speak Moroccan Arabic.^[12] About 26%^[12] of the population speaks a Berber language, in its Tarifit (4%), Central Atlas Tamazight (7.9%), or Tashelhit (14.1%) varieties.^[13][14]