Why do Moroccans say “juj” instead of “ithnayn”?

جوج (juj) is the Moroccan Darija word for two, used in counting, in age, in time, almost everywhere except formal contexts. Standard Arabic counts واحد، اثنان، ثلاثة (wāḥid, ithnān, thalāthah), and most Mashriqi dialects keep some version of ithnayn or tnein. Darija swapped that out for juj, which comes from the Arabic root zawj meaning pair. Speakers from Cairo or Damascus often laugh the first time they hear a Moroccan ask for juj kilo at the market, because the word doesn’t exist in their counting. It’s one of the fastest signals that you’re listening to Moroccan Arabic.

In this clip, a Moroccan mom counts lollipops with her kid: “Wāḥid, juj, thalātha” (“One, two, three”).