Linguistic marginalisation and intersectional vulnerabilities: Amazigh women in Morocco’s 2023 earthquake aftermath

The 08 September 2023 Al Haouz earthquake in Morocco revealed how language-based inequalities can intensify vulnerability during crises. This essay examines disaster linguicism – the marginalisation of minority language speakers in disaster contexts – through the experiences of Amazigh (Berber) women in the High Atlas region. Drawing on disaster studies, sociolinguistics and gender theory, the analysis indicates the limited use of Tamazight in emergency communication as a critical barrier to equitable disaster response. Although Tamazight was constitutionally recognised as an official language in 2011, crisis communications and aid distribution continued to prioritise Arabic and French. This exclusion disproportionately affected monolingual Tamazight-speaking women, who faced compounded obstacles due to both linguistic and gendered marginalisation. The analysis underscores the urgent need to integrate linguistic inclusion into disaster risk reduction (DRR) strategies. Contribution: This essay contributes to the growing body of decolonial disaster studies by introducing disaster linguicism as a structural risk factor. It recommends policy shifts towards linguistically inclusive risk communication, empowerment of Amazigh women as cultural mediators, and reforms to ensure that language equity is embedded in Morocco’s disaster governance framework.