gayvildeee:

hello this is a psa from a student of arabic linguistics: elias and sana are speaking darija stop calling it arabic

i was talking to @unromansapphique about this earlier and we are tired of people talking about elias and sana speaking arabic.

the language that sana and elias speak to each other is a dialect called darija that is spoken in the maghreb (morocco, algeria, tunisia, and libya). it’s similar to arabic, and is widely considered a dialect of arabic, but it’s more complicated than that. arabic dialects are so different that they can actually be considered different languages, and darija is very very different from the arabic spoken in other regions. 

(darija is different because the maghreb was conquered by the arabs a long time ago and then colonized so there are a lot of different influences on it but mostly ancient tribal languages and french)

some comparisons because i’m a nerd and because i want to show how different it really is:

(i’m using the male conjugation here and using lebanese as another example of a spoken dialect since it’s what i speak best)

english: what’s your name?

modern standard arabic: maa ismuka?

lebanese arabic: shuu esmak?

moroccan darija: shnoo smiitek?

as you can see they’re quite different. i, as a student of standard arabic and the dialects of the levant, have quite a hard time understanding it.

darija is a really important cultural symbol in the maghreb. it reflects the complex culture and history of the area, and speaking it is an important part of the identity of many maghrebis. it’s part of their cultural pride. sana and elias almost certainly wouldn’t call their language arabic; they would call it darija.

tl;dr: when you talk about the bakkoush siblings remember that they’re moroccan and they speak darija