Jebli Arabic

Jebli (Jebelia) is a pre-Hilalian Arabic dialect spoken in the mountains of northwestern Morocco.^[1][2]

The historical development of this Moroccan dialect is unclear.

The word jebli means "of/from the mountain". It is mainly spoken in the western Rif by tribes of Sherifian, Berber and Morisco descent over the past ten centuries.

• Jbalas: all its 44 tribes speak Jebli Arabic;
• Ghomaras: out of nine tribes, seven are fully Jebli-speaking, the two remaining are partially Jebli-speaking, with a significant Ghomara Berber-speaking community;
• Sanhajas de Srayr: three arabophone tribes – Targuist, Aït Bouchibet, Aït Gmil^[3] – while Ketama is both Berberophone and Arabophone. Therefore, out of twelve tribes, the remaining (eight) speak Sanhaja Berber^[4][5];
• Riffians: out of twenty tribes, six are fully or partially Arabophone; among them, four speak Mountain Arabic − Aït Itteftf, Aït Boufrah, Mestasa and Metioua − while the last one (Settout) speak Hilalian Arabic;
• Tribes of Zerhoun (Zerahnas) and the neighborhood of Sefrou (Kechtala, Behalil and Yazgha): although not belonging to the same ethno-linguistic group than Jebalas, their pre-Hilalian dialects are sometimes classified as belonging to the same macro-family (westernmost pre-Hilalian village dialects) as Jebli.

Jebli is influenced by Berber; most of the words are Arabic but the vocabulary is highly influenced by Spanish.