My name is Jamal I was born in Morocco,
I came to the US to further my education
I came here when I was about 24.
To be honest when I first came here I was so scared
because back then I didn’t know anything about the US.
Anyway I came for educational purposes, I got married here, I met my wife here, started my career
and now every summer I go to Morocco
I have sisters that live in Austria
They are married there and live there
I am currently in a city called pensacola in florida,
the beach is not that far.
This town is small and beautiful and good for those who want to raise a family, those who don’t like crowded places and places with a tons of traffic
A lot of people know about the existence Berbers, or Amazigh,We call, them Amazigh in our language. Berbers exist a lot in Morocco, we have Chelouh people, Rifi people,
they also exist in Algeria, Tunisia and even Libya,
you find them mostly in Morocco
Some of them only speak Berber.
Many people when they hear about Morocco they think it is an Arab country,
but those who speak Berber outnumber those who speak Arabic
Morocco doesn’t really have Arabs but rather Berbers who became Arabized and forgot their identity , those who basically forgot their history after the coming of Islam
Many of those Berbers, forgot the Berber language and started using Moroccan Derija
but the number of Berbers is very large, the number of those who speak Tachelhit is estimated to be more than 10 millions in Morocco
but they now have a big issue which the arabization of Morocco
the government doesn’t do much for Berbers because it only encourages arabic but Berbers
and their language is not very well taken care of
When I have kids I will teach them Berber in order to speak it because it is who we are, it is our identity ,
it is not only a language, it is our origins, our culture, our traditions
It is who we are, If you don't speak Berber anymore, then you have nothing left
Many people tell me that Berber sounds like German or polish or even Russian to them sometimes
the RIFI Berber is a bit different from Tachelhit though
Subtitles by the Amara.org community