Moroccan Arabic being “non-standard” and non-standardized has a certain amount of variation in its lexicon. Here you can find a table containing different translations for the colors red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, pink, brown, black, and white from five different Darija books in their masculine, singular form, as well as the MSA (Modern Standard Arabic) words for each. To see how they change according to gender and case, I recommend looking at the Peace Corps Moroccan Arabic Textbook, page 85. I have included recordings of my resident Moroccan Arabic speaker saying each color in the most common form.
It is worth noting that the Chekayri book seems to keep the MSA spelling where the Darija word comes directly from MSA. The transcriptions in the book, however, were closer to the spellings of the other books (e.g. though red is written احمر in the Arabic script, its transcription was حmer rather than aحmer).
Additionally, here are some interesting (to me) facts about the names for purple:
*”حمامي” comes from the word for pigeon, referring to the purple color often found on their breast.
*”مْنِيّل” is now almost exclusively used in the deep South. It refers to the powder used to dye cloth.
*”مدادي” comes from the word for ink.
Color | MSA | Chekayri (2011) | Peace Corps (2011) | Sakulich (2011) | Muñoz-Cabo (2009) | Harrell (1963) |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Red | أحمر | احمر | حمر | حمر | حْمَر | حْمَر |
? | ||||||
Orange | برتقال | ليموني | ليموني، لتشيني | رَنْجِ | ||
? | ||||||
Yellow | أصفر | اصفر | صفر | صفر (in Tetouan حميسي) | صْفَر | صْفَر |
? | ||||||
Green | أخضر | اخضر | خضر | خضر | خْضَر | خْضَر |
? | ||||||
Blue | أزرق | ازرق | زرق | زرق | زْرَق | زْرَق |
? | ||||||
Purple | بنفسجي | مدادي | حجري، مدادي | مدادي، حمامي، موڤ | حْمَمِ | مْنِيّل |
? | ||||||
Pink | زهري | وردي | وردي | وردي، حميسي | وَرْدي | وَرْدي، فَنِدِ |
? | ||||||
Brown | بنّيّ | قهوي | قهوي | قهوي | قَهْوي | صْمَر، قَهْوي |
? | ||||||
Black | أسود | اكحل | كحل | كحل | كْحَل | كْحَل |
? | ||||||
White | أبيض | ابيض | بيض | بيض | بْيَض | بْيَض |
? |