Surveying Perspectives on Language Technology and the Perceived Needs of Moroccan Arabic and Tamazight Speakers

Morocco is a country home to around 34 million speakers of Moroccan Arabic (Darija) and nine million speakers of the Moroccan Tamazight varieties (Central Atlas Tamazight, Tarifit, and Tachelhit). Language technologies are increasingly being applied to non-standardized languages and dialects. However, outside of Europe, very few countries have conducted NLP community needs surveys for unofficial and minority languages. Darija and Tamazight fall, respectively, into those categories. We survey speakers of these languages (N=29) and ask both about their attitudes towards emerging language technologies and which ones they would find useful. We found the majority of respondents were Darija-native speakers that spoke English, who shared a positive view of emerging language technologies, especially chatbots. We also noted the community was split on the topic of spell and grammar checkers and standardized spelling for Darija. While the survey captured Tamazight speakers, all respondents reported Darija as the language they felt closest to.