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Eastern Zenati
The East Zenati languages (Blench, 2006) or Tunisian and Zuwara (Kossmann, 2013) are a group of the Zenati Berber dialects spoken in Tunisia and Libya. Maarten Kossmann considers the easternmost varieties of Zenati dialects as transitional to Eastern Berber, but they are quite different from the neighboring Nafusi. According to Kossmann, the dialect cluster of Tunisian Berber and Zuwara is consisting of the varieties spoken in mainland Tunisia ( Sened (extinct), Matmata and Tataouine), Jerba and Zuwara, but not Nafusi which is considered a dialect of Eastern Berber.M. KossmannThe Arabic Influence on Northern Berber p.24 (Brill, 2013) Before Kossmann, Roger Blench Roger Marsh Blench (born August 1, 1953) is a British linguist, ethnomusicologist and development anthropologist. He has an M.A. and a Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge and is based in Cambridge, England. He researches, publishes, and work ... (2006) considered East Zanati to be a dialect cluster consis ...
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North Africa
North Africa, or Northern Africa is a region encompassing the northern portion of the African continent. There is no singularly accepted scope for the region, and it is sometimes defined as stretching from the Atlantic shores of Mauritania in the west, to Egypt's Suez Canal. Varying sources limit it to the countries of Algeria, Libya, Morocco, and Tunisia, a region that was known by the French during colonial times as "''Afrique du Nord''" and is known by Arabs as the Maghreb ("West", ''The western part of Arab World''). The United Nations definition includes Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Sudan, and the Western Sahara, the territory disputed between Morocco and the Sahrawi Republic. The African Union definition includes the Western Sahara and Mauritania but not Sudan. When used in the term Middle East and North Africa (MENA), it often refers only to the countries of the Maghreb. North Africa includes the Spanish cities of Ceuta and Melilla, and plazas de s ...
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Nafusi Language
Nafusi (also spelt Nefusi; ber, Ažbali / Maziɣ / Mazoɣ, script=Latn, label=in Nafusi) is a Berber language spoken in the Nafusa Mountains (), a large area in northwestern Libya. Its primary speakers are the Ibadite communities around Jadu, Nalut () and Yafran. The dialect of Yefren in the east differs somewhat from that of Nalut and Jadu in the west. A number of Old Nafusi phrases appear in Ibadite manuscripts as early as the 12th century. The dialect of Jadu is described in some detail in Beguinot (1931). Motylinski (1898) describes the dialect of Jadu and Nalut as spoken by a student from Yefren. Nafusi shares several innovations with the Zenati languages The Zenati languages are a branch of the Northern Berber language family of North Africa. They were named after the medieval Zenata Berber tribal confederation. They were first proposed in the works of French linguist Edmond Destaing (1915) (19 ..., but unlike these other Berber varieties it maintains prefix vowels b ...
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East Zenati Languages
The East Zenati languages (Blench, 2006) or Tunisian and Zuwara (Kossmann, 2013) are a group of the Zenati languages, Zenati Berber dialects spoken in Tunisia and Libya. Maarten Kossmann considers the easternmost varieties of Zenati dialects as transitional to Eastern Berber languages, Eastern Berber, but they are quite different from the neighboring Nafusi language, Nafusi. According to Kossmann, the dialect cluster of Tunisian Berber and Zuwara is consisting of the varieties spoken in mainland Tunisia (Sened language, Sened (extinct), Matmata Berber, Matmata and Tataouine Berber, Tataouine), Jerba language, Jerba and Zuwara language, Zuwara, but not Nafusi language, Nafusi which is considered a dialect of Eastern Berber languages, Eastern Berber.M. KossmannThe Arabic Influence on Northern Berber p.24 (Brill, 2013) Before Kossmann, Roger Blench (2006) considered East Zanati to be a dialect cluster consisting of Sened language, Sened (extinct, including Tmagurt language, Tmagurt) ...
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Taujjut Language
Matmata Berber is a Zenati Berber dialect spoken around the town of Matmâta in southern Tunisia, and in the villages of Taoujjout, Tamezret and Zrawa. According to Ben Mamou's lexicon, its speakers call it ''Tmaziɣṯ'' or ''Eddwi nna'', meaning "our speech", while it is called ''Shelha'' or ''Jbali'' (جبالي) in local Tunisian Arabic dialects. The total population speaking this variety was estimated at 3,726 in 1975. Documentation of Matmata Berber is limited. A collection of fairy tales in this variety was published by Stumme in 1900. Basset (1950) provides a few dialect maps of Tunisian Berber including this region, showing lexical variation, while Penchoen (1968) offers a general discussion of Tunisian Berber and the effects of schooling. Collins (1981) discusses its verbal morphology along with that of other Tunisian Berber varieties. The only general grammatical sketch and vocabulary available is the website put together by Larbi Ben Mamou, a native speaker of the ...
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Zrawa Language
Matmata Berber is a Zenati Berber dialect spoken around the town of Matmâta in southern Tunisia, and in the villages of Taoujjout, Tamezret and Zrawa. According to Ben Mamou's lexicon, its speakers call it ''Tmaziɣṯ'' or ''Eddwi nna'', meaning "our speech", while it is called ''Shelha'' or ''Jbali'' (جبالي) in local Tunisian Arabic dialects. The total population speaking this variety was estimated at 3,726 in 1975. Documentation of Matmata Berber is limited. A collection of fairy tales in this variety was published by Stumme in 1900. Basset (1950) provides a few dialect maps of Tunisian Berber including this region, showing lexical variation, while Penchoen (1968) offers a general discussion of Tunisian Berber and the effects of schooling. Collins (1981) discusses its verbal morphology along with that of other Tunisian Berber varieties. The only general grammatical sketch and vocabulary available is the website put together by Larbi Ben Mamou, a native speaker of t ...
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Tamezret Language
Matmata Berber is a Zenati Berber dialect spoken around the town of Matmâta in southern Tunisia, and in the villages of Taoujjout, Tamezret and Zrawa. According to Ben Mamou's lexicon, its speakers call it ''Tmaziɣṯ'' or ''Eddwi nna'', meaning "our speech", while it is called ''Shelha'' or ''Jbali'' (جبالي) in local Tunisian Arabic dialects. The total population speaking this variety was estimated at 3,726 in 1975. Documentation of Matmata Berber is limited. A collection of fairy tales in this variety was published by Stumme in 1900. Basset (1950) provides a few dialect maps of Tunisian Berber including this region, showing lexical variation, while Penchoen (1968) offers a general discussion of Tunisian Berber and the effects of schooling. Collins (1981) discusses its verbal morphology along with that of other Tunisian Berber varieties. The only general grammatical sketch and vocabulary available is the website put together by Larbi Ben Mamou, a native speaker of t ...
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Tmagurt Language
Sened is an extinct East Zenati Berber language that was spoken in the nearby towns of Sened and Majoura (Berber ''Tmagurt'') in southern Tunisia until the mid-20th century. In 1911, the whole town of Sened spoke Berber; by 1968, only the elderly did. Sample From a section translated from the epic Taghribat Bani Hilal, detailing the incursion of the Banu Hilal, in Provotelle's ''Etude sur la Tamazir't ou Zenatia de Qalaât Es-sned (Tunisie)'' (1911). The Arabic and French transcriptions of the text are reproduced unchanged; in the latter, r' represents a voiced uvular fricative, kh a voiceless uvular fricative, ch represents English sh, ou represents /u/ or /w/, i represents /i/ or /j/, and e represents schwa. References External linksTamazight in Tunisia: by Ahmed Boukous(Internet Archive The Internet Archive is an American digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It provides free public access to collections of digitized ...
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Roger Blench
Roger Marsh Blench (born August 1, 1953) is a British linguist, ethnomusicologist and development anthropologist. He has an M.A. and a Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge and is based in Cambridge, England. He researches, publishes, and works as a consultant. Career Blench is known for his wide-ranging interests and has made important contributions to African linguistics, Southeast Asian linguistics, anthropology, ethnomusicology, ethnobotany, and various other related fields. He has done significant research on the Niger–Congo, Nilo-Saharan, and Afroasiatic families, as well as the Arunachal languages. Additionally, Blench has published extensively on the relationship between linguistics and archaeology. Blench is currently engaged in a long-term project to document the languages of central Nigeria. He has also carried out extensive research on the herder–farmer conflicts in Nigeria. Blench collaborated with the late Professor Kay Williamson, who died in January 2005, ...
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Tataouine Berber
Tataouine ( ber, Tiṭṭawin; ar, تطاوين) is a city in southern Tunisia. It is the capital of the Tataouine Governorate. The below-ground "cave dwellings" of the native Berber population, designed for coolness and protection, render the city and the area around it a tourist and film makers' attraction. Etymology The name means 'eyes' and 'water springs' in the Berber language. It is sometimes transliterated in European languages as ''Tatahouine'', ''Tatahouïne'', ''Tatawin'' or ''Tatooine''. The names "Tataouine", "Tatahouine" and "Foum Tatahouine" all appeared in the postcards portraying the city in the 1920s. The city used to be called (), alternatively spelled , , , or , which means 'mouth of the springs'. History From 1892 to 1951, Tataouine was the garrison town of the French penal military unit known as the " Battalion of Light Infantry of Africa". After the French established the town, a mosque (built in 1898) and homes were built in Tataouine. On June 27, ...
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Dialect Cluster
A dialect continuum or dialect chain is a series of language varieties spoken across some geographical area such that neighboring varieties are mutually intelligible, but the differences accumulate over distance so that widely separated varieties may not be. This is a typical occurrence with widely spread languages and language families around the world, when these languages did not spread recently. Some prominent examples include the Indo-Aryan languages across large parts of India, varieties of Arabic across north Africa and southwest Asia, the Turkic languages, the Chinese languages or dialects, and subgroups of the Romance, Germanic and Slavic families in Europe. Leonard Bloomfield used the name dialect area. Charles F. Hockett used the term L-complex. Dialect continua typically occur in long-settled agrarian populations, as innovations spread from their various points of origin as waves. In this situation, hierarchical classifications of varieties are impractical. Inst ...
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Eastern Berber Languages
The Eastern Berber languages are a group of Berber languages spoken in Libya and Egypt. They include Awjila, Sokna and Fezzan (El-Fogaha), Siwi and Ghadamès, though it is not clear that they form a valid genealogical group. Eastern Berber is generally considered as part of the Zenatic Berber supergroup of Northern Berber. Classification Kossmann (1999:29, 33) divides them into two groups: * one consisting of Ghadamès and Awjila. These two languages are the only Berber languages to preserve proto-Berber *β as β;Kossmann 1999:61. elsewhere in Berber it becomes ''h'' or disappears. * the other consisting of Nafusi (excluding Zuwara and southern Tunisia), Sokna (El-Foqaha) and Siwi. This shares some innovations with Zenati, and others (e.g. the change of *ă to ə and the loss of *β) with Northern Berber in general. Blench (ms, 2006) lists the following as separate languages, with dialects in parentheses; like ''Ethnologue'', he classifies Nafusi as Eastern Zenati. ...
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Berber Languages
The Berber languages, also known as the Amazigh languages or Tamazight,, ber, label=Tuareg Tifinagh, ⵜⵎⵣⵗⵜ, ) are a branch of the Afroasiatic language family. They comprise a group of closely related languages spoken by Berber communities, who are indigenous to North Africa.Hayward, Richard J., chapter ''Afroasiatic'' in Heine, Bernd & Nurse, Derek, editors, ''African Languages: An Introduction'' Cambridge 2000. . The languages were traditionally written with the ancient Libyco-Berber script, which now exists in the form of Tifinagh. Today, they may also be written in the Berber Latin alphabet or the Arabic script, with Latin being the most pervasive. Berber languages are spoken by large populations of Morocco, Algeria and Libya, by smaller populations of Tunisia, northern Mali, western and northern Niger, northern Burkina Faso and Mauritania and in the Siwa Oasis of Egypt. Large Berber-speaking migrant communities, today numbering about 4 million, have been livin ...
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