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Mordechai Hanoun has published the first dictionary of the Jewish Moroccan language. The two-year effort contains about 10,000 words, idioms, phrases and sayings from the Jewish Arabic of Morocco and their Hebrew translations. Hanoun told Arutz Sheva's Hebrew journal that words and phrases from English, French, Hebrew and Italian were mixed into this unique language, along with ancient Akkadian and Ugaritic. He also used the Hebrew word Me'arah, as in Ma'arat Hamachpelah, the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hevron, as an example of a word whose meaning (in this case that of "tomb") was preserved through the Jewish Moroccan language.
Hanoun said, "An injustice has been done to this language, which has been related to as vulgar and not as poetic as it is." He added that the time has come for people to get to know this language, which was created by the people. He thinks the general public, as opposed to academia, will take an interest in the language and the ancient heritage filled with stories and roots.
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