The Moroccan Arabic Zejel as a Cultivated Language. The Poet Mourad Kadiri and his Divan And Hiding under my Tongue the Scent of the Death

Abstract

This article is about the Moroccan poet Mourad Kadiri and his divan entitled And hiding under my tongue the scent of death (2021). More specifically, it presents the author, the contemporary poetic genre known as zejel and also an analysis of the graphemes and literary aspects of the work. With regard to the methodologyand the variety of Arabic, the study is based on the concept of “cultivated language”, with the work of Moreno Cabrera (2021) as a frame of reference. We also make use of the study conducted by Aragón (2019) on the writing of the zejel; for the literary commentary, we are guided by the work of Antas (2005). The most noteworthy results include the substitution of the tāšdīd for the sukūn in deaf roots, at the end of words, and the agglutination of some categories of words. Inrelation to literary figures, the use of alliteration and symbols stands out. Among the most relevant conclusions, we would say that the harmonisation of the writing with the syllabic structure of Moroccan Arabic is one of the defining features of the poet, as are the main themes of the divan: death and absence.