Locale Ar Ma
Use when working with the Arabic (Morocco) locale (`ar-MA`) — its endonym العربية (المغرب), Arabic script, right-to-left (RTL) direction, or spoken-population data. Reference data and translation guidance (register, grammar, idiom, typography) for this specific locale; see [[locale]] for general i18n/l10n concepts (BCP 47, plural rules, RTL) that apply across all locales.
Reference data for the Arabic (Morocco) locale — endonym العربية (المغرب), written in the Arabic script, right-to-left (RTL).
Identifiers
- BCP 47 tag:
ar-MA - ISO 639-1:
ar - ISO 639-3:
ara - Script: Arab (Arabic)
- Region: MA (Morocco)
- Text direction: rtl — right-to-left (RTL)
Speakers (approximate)
- L1 (native): 33,000,000
- L2 (additional): 3,000,000
- L1+L2 (total): 36,000,000
Set dir="rtl" for this locale (per Locale's text-direction guidance) rather than assuming left-to-right layout.
Base locale
This is a regional variant of Locale Ar 001 (Arabic), the base/macro locale for this language.
Pluralization
CLDR plural categories for this locale: zero, one, two, few, many, other (6 forms).
- zero —
n = 0(e.g. 0) - one —
n = 1(e.g. 1) - two —
n = 2(e.g. 2) - few —
n % 100 = 3..10(e.g. 3~10, 103~110, 1003, …) - many —
n % 100 = 11..99(e.g. 11~26, 111, 1011, …) - other — everything else (e.g. 100~102, 200~202, 300~302, 400~402, …)
See Unicode Messageformat for writing plural messages using these categories.
Translating into this locale
Apply Locale Ar 001 with these Moroccan conventions. Arabic and Tamazight are official; the spoken dialect (Darija) is far from MSA and French is widely used in business and education.
- Currency and numbers: Moroccan dirham (MAD, د.م.); Western digits (0-9) are the norm in Morocco. Check CLDR
ar-MA. - Month names: يناير, فبراير, مارس, أبريل, ماي, يونيو, يوليوز, غشت, شتنبر, أكتوبر, نونبر, دجنبر are the Moroccan forms of several months (يوليوز, غشت, شتنبر, نونبر, دجنبر differ from the Mashriqi names).
- French influence: many technical terms enter through French; for formal text prefer the MSA terms (حاسوب, برنامج) unless the project glossary specifies otherwise.
- Tamazight: use Tifinagh (the official script) where Tamazight is provided; do not auto-translate it with Arabic tools.
Common pitfalls
- Using Eastern Arabic-Indic digits by default.
- Using the Mashriqi month names in Moroccan documents.
- The general pitfalls in Locale Ar 001 (calques, passive overuse, bidirectional text, and gender agreement) also apply.
Learn more
- Locale for BCP 47 identifiers, locale-sensitive formatting, pluralization, and text-direction concepts that apply across all locales.
- Unicode Messageformat for writing plural/selection messages correctly for this locale's grammar.
- Microsoft Localization Style Guide, Arabic (https://aka.ms/arabic-styleguide)
- Unicode CLDR locale data for digits, calendars, and currency formats (https://cldr.unicode.org)