No one has asked me this question but it is something I would like to explain. The Darija dialect is mostly evolved from Arabic although there are some French and Berber influences. As such the majority of the words spoken have some connection to Arabic. Because of this, you could make the argument that we should be using the Arabic alphabet to display Darija words. So then why do I use Latin letters instead of Arabic?
The reason I use English is for 2 main reasons. The first is most people visiting my site will be learning Darija without any previous Arabic training. Using the Latin letters will be a lot easier, even with using the numbers to represent some of the Arabic sounds.
The second reason is because it doesn’t really matter. Darija is dialect that is more of a spoken language. It is loosely based in Arabic grammar but you will find sometimes those rules just do not apply. So, if it is a spoken language, I should be able to use any type of script to represent Darija.
A perfect example of this is the language of Urdu. A large part of the world, swears this is a distinct language but it is almost exactly the same as Hindi. I have actually seen a Hindu from India and a Pakistani speaking to each other in their distinct languages and there was no lose in translation. Besides a few words here or there, the difference is Hindi is represented with Sanskrit and Urdu is represented with an Arabic script.
In the end, Darija is a language that is spoken. There is no official Darija script (at least not that I know of) so writing it in any language is ok as long as the meaning is clear. Before I end, if you want to see how the language sounds check out the conversation page in the Member section. You can hear real conversations in the Darija dialect, with translations and analysis of the spoken words.
If you are interesting in learning Arabic, there is a free 6 day course that will teach you everything you need to know to get started. Arabic has helped me a lot with my darija journey. If you’re serious about learning just click on the laptop and begin your journey.