• 1 זגורי אימפריה : “The Zaguri Empire”.
• 2 Maor Mimun Zaguri, born in 1981 in Beersheva, is an Israeli director, playwright, screenwriter, ac (...)
• 3 The parents Albert and Viviane, the sons Aviel, Eviatar, Avi, Avishai and Avir, the daughters Miri (...)

1Zaguri Imperya1 is an Israeli TV show created by Maor Zaguri2. It was broadcast for the first time in 2014 on the Israeli channel HOT 3. It aired for 2 seasons, comprising a total of 51 episodes. The show takes place in the Israeli city of Beersheba, in a neighborhood inhabited by a majority of Israelis of Moroccan origin. The main characters are the members of a Moroccan family; the Zaguri family3, consisting of the parents and their eight children, five boys and three girls, almost all of them adults and still living at their parent’s house.

• 4 Henshke, 2017.
• 5 Henshke, 2017 uses the expression “Hebrew of Israel’s Periphery.”
• 6 Henkin, 2011, p. 75.

2The variety of Modern Hebrew found in the show is quite to be considered as part of a wider sociolect, which is difficult to categorize or to find a proper name to call it. One of the common names is Mizrahi Hebrew (i.e. Oriental Hebrew), that has the drawback of being a cultural only, or even an ethnic criterion. Yehudit Henshke has discussed the denomination of this sociolect and decided, for a series of reasons, to call it Traditional‑Mizrahi Hebrew.4 In this study, I’ll use the name Peripheral Hebrew5 since it has the benefit of targeting the social and/or the geographical criterion. Roni Henkin, when addressing the issue of the waves of immigrations from North‑Africa recalls that: “The newly arrived maghrabis, especially the Moroccans, the largest ʿedá (community/group of single origin) in Israel were relegated to the geographical, economical, and social peripheries where, caught in a vicious circle, they remained for decades.”6 Peripheral Hebrew has to be considered as the language of those “geographical, economical, and social peripheries” of the state of Israel. And indeed, because of the origins of a significant part of the inhabitants of those neighborhoods: Moroccan Arabic (MA) appears to have been a quite influential substrate for that variety of Israeli Hebrew (IH).

• 7 Episode available on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ThDjFMOaES4&t=576s. It lasts 45:26 m (...)

3This influence of MA is actually the main topic of this study. The case of Zaguri Imperya has to be treated carefully. It’s a fictional TV show basically dealing with the subject of Moroccan Israelis’ culture. As a fiction, it gives more clues about the representations of this phenomenon than about the phenomenon itself. But on the other hand, it shows a concentrate of examples, and that’s why it’s at the same time especially rich and obviously exaggerated in terms of demonstrative social behaviors and linguistic specificities. Moreover, this article focuses on the first episode of the show only, the pilot of the series.7 Even more because of that, one has to keep in mind that some elements could be emphasized or even voluntarily highlighted.

• 8 Henkin, 2011, p. 75, reminds that the Moroccan community is the largest group.

6In terms of pronunciation,8 Viviane, the mother of the Zaguri family uses a thick Israeli accent: xaʁam for MA ḥṛām, losing the pharyngeal /ḥ/ for the uvular /x/ and rolled (and pharyngealized) /ṛ/ for the uvular /ʁ/. At first sight, the first part of the sentence xaʁam is in MA and the second one al a-yeled in IH. But the preposition used for “on” is actually between the two languages. It is, as a matter of fact, the proper preposition which must come next ḥṛām in MA as inflected for example in ḥṛām ˁălī‑k [shame on you] or ḥṛām ˁălī‑h [shame on him]. Even if the structure of the MA formula is preserved: ḥṛām + preposition ˁl [on], the word itself is actually the Hebrew form of the cognate preposition: MA ˁlā > IH al (*ˁal). The second part al a‑yeled is certainly completely in Hebrew, but the choice of the preposition echoes the MA expression.

• 9 Henkin, 2011, p. 75 reminds that the Moroccan community is the largest group.

8One of the main difficulties of this research is to separate the MA loanwords from the Palestinian ones. In practice, some of the Arabic words used in IH could be borrowed from lots of other varieties of Arabic, but borrowings from Iraqi or Libyan Arabic are more unlikely considering the smallest number of speakers in contact with IH.9 In Peripheral IH, and even more in Moroccan families such as the Zaguri family of the show, the convincing options are most often MA or Palestinian Arabic (PA). Even if it is sometimes complicated, it’s often possible to determine where the word is from.

• 10 Ibid., p. 68.

10In this study, I got rid of words like falafel or yalla, used in the show but also by any speaker of IH, not specifically speakers of Peripheral IH. Besides, for those ones usually, the speakers themselves are usually aware it’s PA.10 I kept here only the words for which a discussion can take place.

• 11 About the shift of the first vowel /ə/‑/a/, see Henshke, 2013, p. 215.
• 12 *pāˁūl, פָּעוּל, *mupˁāl, מֻפְעָל and *məpuˁˁal, מְפֻעַּל.
• 13 Henshke, 2013, p. 215; Henkin, 2011, pp. 70, 73. Henkin quotes maC1C2ūC3 examples and adds that th (...)

14The word *maḍrūb could have reached IH from various ways, with possible multiple concordant origins and trajectories, leading to the pronunciation madʁub. In this version of the word, the pronunciation of the consonants is characteristic of IH: /ḍ/ cannot be pharyngealized as it is in Arabic and then turns to /d/, which is available in IH; /r/ is not rolled and turns to the uvular /ʁ/, which is precisely how historical Hebrew /r/ has evolved too: Ancient Hebrew /r/ > IH /ʁ/. Thus, both consonantal evolutions are regular and quite expected. But the vowel distribution /a/‑/u/ is very different from what is found in MA, i.e. /ə/‑/o/.11 This contrast could indicate that the word is not derived from it. But it could be more complicated too. First, the speakers could have borrowed it as məḍṛōb and then adapted the vowels to /a/ and /u/ which is at the same time what is available in IH and reflecting the vowels of the Hebrew past participles C1aC2uC3, maC1C2uC3 or meC1uC2aC3.12 However, an influence of the PA stem maC1C2ūC3 is very likely too. PA words from that stem, such as maṣṭūl, maǧnūn, maˁrūf, mabrūk or the name Maḥmūd, are attested in IH.13

• 14 Rosenthal, 2005, p. 363 lists both šufuni, שׁוּפוּנִי and šufuni ya nas, שׁוּפוּנִי יָא נָאס as attested (...)

17The expression šūfū‑nī, plural imperative form of MA šāf/išūf [to see] with suffixed personal pronoun nī [me]: “look at me” is actually common IH slang today and often considered a single word: šufuni. In MA, šūfū‑nī can be used with its normal verbal and lexical meaning “look at me!” or as it is here, as an expression meaning “a show‑off.” Although it’s usually considered short for šūfū‑nī yā nās [look at me you people!].14

• 15 Premare, 1999 (4), pp. 329‑330.

19b‑əẓ‑ẓăˁṭ is an exclamation, almost an interjection, that used to be very popular in Morocco especially among children. The word ẓăˁṭ always comes with the preposition b and the definite article əẓ‑. The Premare Moroccan‑French dictionary suggests that its first meaning could be “squeak,” and more specifically refereeing to the sound of the leather of a babouche as in the expressions hād əl‑bəlġa kā‑tˁăyyəṭ b‑əẓ‑ẓăˁṭ [this pair of babouches squeaks > this is a new pair]. MA has a past participle too: mzăˁṭəṭ for “someone who doesn’t respect anyone or anything.”15

• 16 Biographies found online: https://www.edb.co.il/name/n0000593/bio/; https://he.wikipedia.org/wiki/ (...)

21Some sentences (or sequences) of the episode are entirely in MA. Actually, these sentences are always said by Albert, the father of the family. Not only the character is, in the show, described as a fluent speaker of MA (unlike the children), but the actor playing him (i.e. Moshe Ivgi16) is one of the few seemingly real fluent speaker of MA. With those sentences only, MA is fully translated in the subtitles, indicating they are considered sequences of a foreign language and not part of the Peripheral IH sociolect any longer.

• 17 Lévy, 2009, p. 189.
• 18 Ibid., p. 226.

22The composition of this sentence seems to reflect the will to put forward some specificities of the Jewish MA dialects. First, the pronunciation /ş/ for /š/ is a well‑known feature of those dialects, that usually lack the paleo‑alveolar fricative consonants /š/ and /ž/.17 They merged with the corresponding alveolar consonants /s/ and /z/ and are often produced with a lisp, noted here /ş/ and /ȥ/. Secondly, the choice of the verb ṛā [to see] is substantial too. This verb, largely absent in the Muslim MA dialects, is usually considered as the Jewish equivalent of Muslim šāf [to see]. This is for example what illustrates the two expressions from the city of Fez for “May you not experience (see) misfortune” where Fassi Jews say ma ţṛā bāş but Muslims would rather say ma tšūf bās.18

• 19 Lévy, 2009, p. 190.
• 20 Pereira, 2010, p. 224.

23Here again, the pronunciation is very noticeable and could be voluntarily stigmatized. Albert counts to six and says ȥūȥ for “two”. In Morocco, this pronunciation has a Jewish connotation, because of the specific lisp and the loss of the paleo‑alveolar consonant /ž/. The Muslim dialects have zūž, žuz or experience assimilation (or dissimilation) z‑ž leading to žūž.19 In other places, a form similar to ȥūȥ can be found in Muslim dialects, not because of a loss of the paleo‑alveolar consonants (as in the Jewish dialects) but resulting from a dissimilation/assimilation the other way round as for example in Tripoli (Libya): zōz.20

• 21 Lévy, 2009, pp. 224‑225.

25Here is seen another specificity of some Moroccan Jews’ Arabic dialects, less well‑known. Probably conditioned by liquid consonants as second radical, verbs that usually appear in MA on stem C1C2əC3 turn to C1əC2C3: gləs [to sit], ḫrəž [to go out] or ḍṛəb [to hit] are produced gəls, ḫərz and ḍəṛb in the Jewish dialects. Lévy21 shows that it is effective in all forms and tenses. He compares the conjugations of the Muslim and the Jewish dialects of Fez as seen in the imperative forms in the table below, which fit the sentence yā ḷḷāh, ḍəṛb əḍ‑ḍərbūka:

• 22 Actually, this pronunciation is most probably influenced by Arabic.

27This is quite accurate. Indeed, the traditional Moroccan pronunciation did “maintain”22 some theoretical ancient pronunciations such as ח, /ḥ/, ק, /q/, צ, /ṣ/ and ר, /r/, as seen here in words ṣadiq (Standard IH tsadik), peger (Standard IH pegeʁ) and aḥi (Standard IH axi). However, this traditional pronunciation was influenced as well by that of the Jewish dialects of MA. Therefore, just as in those dialects, /š/ turns to /s/ or /ş/, as in şel and yaşar (Standard IH šel and yašaʁ, theoretical Ancient Hebrew šel and yāšār).

• 23 Dvora Kedar was born in Lithuania in 1924: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0444289/i.

28Yet, the actress playing Masuda (Dvora Kedar) is not an actual speaker of MA herself.23 The whole pronunciation being the result of a (re‑)construction for the role, some inaccuracies and inconsistencies appear sometimes, such as phonetical hypercorrections:

• 24 See Sibony, 2019b: the curse can still be heard nowadays in some non‑Jewish Arabic dialects.

31The curse uses the word mȥal, from Hebrew מזל *mazzāl, indicating that it is originally specifically Jewish.24 The pronunciation mȥal is typical of that of Moroccan Jews and is actually once more a demonstration of the confusion of the sibilant consonants in their dialects. If the sequence l‑o mȥal‑o is “properly” produced, in contrast, itax should be pronounced iṭēḥ. The switch iṭēḥ > itax reveals an Israeli phonetical reflex: loss of emphasis /ṭ/ > /t/ and switch from pharyngeal to uvular /ḥ/ > /x/.

• 25 Bahat, 2001, p. 385.

34Moroccan Israelis usually think fsaʁa is a word in Standard MA meaning “bad situation.” But it’s actually built on the Hebrew word ṣārâ צרה (IH tsaʁa) and consequently only occurs in the Jewish dialects of MA. The Moroccan pronunciation of the word ṣāṛa is close to the theoretical ancient one ṣārâ but very different from the IH one tsaʁa, which makes it quite difficult to identify as doubloon. Moreover, since a majority of speakers of Peripheral IH don’t speak MA, or at least, not as a fluent language, they usually don’t have the tools to understand that the f of fsaʁa is retrospectively a preposition and think it is part of the word. Originally, f‑ is the MA preposition meaning “in, with” and does correspond to Standard Arabic fī, في. In the Jewish dialects of MA, the word can be used without the preposition or detached from it: ḥnā f‑wāḥd ṣāṛa kbīra [we are in a very bad situation], as well as with the preposition, i.e. the way it was borrowed in IH: howa f‑ṣ‑ṣāṛa [he has problems, he is in a bad situation].25 Actually, just like the IH word can be used: hu be-tsaʁa, הוא בצרה.

• 26 For example in this sample of the 15^th episode of Zaguri Imperia, at 00:35: https://vilook.com/vid (...)

35Today, people say a‑fsaʁa [the bad situation], eze fsaʁa [what a bad situation] or even a‑fsaʁa še‑ba‑fsaʁa [the worst situation ever!].26

• 27 Among others: https://www.mako.co.il/music-24/24new-yasu/Article-808c6a2bfa0d621006.htm; https://w (...)
• 28 https://he.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D7%94%D7%90%D7%97_%D7%94%D7%92%D7%93%D7%95%D7%9C_%D7%A2%D7%95%D7%A0 (...)
• 29 https://www.zira.ninja/watch/600-האח-הגדול-ha-ah-hagadol/season/2/episode/2.
• 30 21 years old at the time: https://www.mako.co.il/tv-bigbrother/season2-housemates/maayan-buzaglo-h (...)

37The last word I’ll comment on this study is a verb used in the episode but who first appeared on Israeli television in 2009 and who drew at that time a great number of comments in the online press.27 In the Israeli reality game show האח הגדול, ha/a‑ax a‑gadol (Big Brother), season 228 episode 2,29 a young candidate, Maayan Buzaglo‑Hodeda30 was interviewed during the game by the “Big Brother”:

• 31 Nait-Zerrad, 2002 (3), p. 755.

40The verb, perfectly integrated to the Hebrew verbal morphology, comes at first from a Berber language, although it’s complicated to determine which one. In the Berber languages, the word appears with various shapes: agəždur (Shilha), aždur (Central Morocco), ayəždur (Beni Iznacen), ayəžḍur (Central Algeria), aǧəždur/ayeždor (Riffian), agəždur (Kabyle).31 These words mean “laments” and more specifically refer to the screams, shouts and tears of women during a funeral, scratching their faces and tearing their clothes. In Shilha, as well as in other varieties, it comes with a verb gəždər, meaning “to do Agejdur, to lament.” Regarding the shape and the locations, the Shilha word is probably the one who was borrowed in MA. The word was largely used in the Jewish dialects as in the expression:

• 34 Premare, 1999 (10), p. 691.

41However in Morocco, the first meaning of the verb “to scratch/scar one’s face as a sign of mourning” is outdated today, as well as the figurative meaning “to lament.” Actually, a semantic shift has occurred from “to lament” to “to damage.”34 And from there, the verb is still in use but means “to do wrong, to rush, to not pay attention” as in the sentences:

• 36 Vicente, 2010, p. 148.
• 37 Henshke, 2013, p. 217.

44The Jewish dialects of MA did already show archaic features in the 50’s and that before the immigration waves to Israel. They’re usually described as showing archaic syntactic structures belonging to earlier stages of the language than other MA dialects,36 due to the particular history of the Jewish communities; mainly migration and social isolation. In addition, the Jewish speakers almost completely lost contact with the evolution of the language in Morocco, that is to say with Standard MA. In this context, in the Jewish dialects of MA, the verb gəždər/gəȥdər/gəzdər preserved one of the ancient meanings “to cry during a funeral, to do ageždur.” And that’s probably with that meaning it first entered IH. Henshke mentions a noun gejdor in IH with meaning “mourning, scoring the face with fingernails” alongside the verb legajdeʁ [to lament].37 And that’s indeed usually how the verb is used today in Israel’s peripheries, as in this sentence heard in another reality show: