The Escalation of English in Morocco: From the blue to the breakthrough

In the present time, English is incontestably the world’s lingua franca. It has become the language of the modern era and its conspicuous spread in all the vital domains of life has made it the world’s global language par excellence. This state of affairs is substantially visible in many non-English-speaking countries around the globe and Morocco is no exception. As an Arabo-Amazigh country, English has remarkably, albeit deliberately, managed to permeate the Moroccan linguistic market to the detriment of French, which has always been deemed as the country’s prioritized second language in the kingdom’s stock of languages. This scene has urged Moroccan politicians and language planners to revisit the linguistic policy in the country aspiring for a full integration of English in the national linguistic repertoire, particularly in the educational realm. In that vein, the present article aims at delineating the spread of English in the country within three different historical eras: the pre-colonial stage, the colonial stage, and the post-colonial stage and the consequential efforts made towards its promotion.