Languages Of Libya
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Languages Of Libya
The official language of Libya is Modern Standard Arabic. Most residents speak one of the varieties of Arabic as a first language, most prominently Libyan Arabic, but also Egyptian Arabic and Tunisian Arabic. Major language Arabic The official language of Libya is Arabic. The local Libyan Arabic variety is the common spoken vernacular. Minority languages Berber Various Berber languages are also spoken, including Tamasheq, Ghadamès, NafusiSuknahand Awjilah. Both Berber and Arabic languages belong to the wider Afroasiatic (Hamito-Semitic) family. The most significant berber speaking group, the Nafusi, is concentrated in the Tripolitanian region. Berber languages are also spoken in some oases, including GhadamèsAwjilah Sawknah. Tamahaq is spoken by the Tuareg. Libya's former Head of State Muammar Gaddafi denied the existence of Berbers as a separate ethnicity, and called Berbers a "product of colonialism" created by the West to divide Libya. The Berber language was not recog ...
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Modern Standard Arabic
Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) or Modern Written Arabic (MWA), terms used mostly by linguists, is the variety of Standard language, standardized, Literary language, literary Arabic that developed in the Arab world in the late 19th and early 20th centuries; occasionally, it also refers to spoken Arabic that approximates this written standard. MSA is the language used in literature, academia, print media, print and mass media, law and legislation, though it is generally not spoken as a first language, similar to Contemporary Latin. It is a Pluricentric language, pluricentric standard language taught throughout the Arab world in formal education, differing significantly from many vernacular varieties of Arabic that are commonly spoken as mother tongues in the area; these are only partially mutually intelligible with both MSA and with each other depending on their proximity in the Dialect continuum#Arabic, Arabic dialect continuum. Many linguists consider MSA to be distinct from Clas ...
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Tunisian Arabic
Tunisian Arabic, or simply Tunisian, is a set of dialects of Maghrebi Arabic spoken in Tunisia. It is known among its over 11 million speakers aeb, translit=Tounsi/Tounsiy, label=as, تونسي , "Tunisian" or "Everyday Language" to distinguish it from Modern Standard Arabic, the official language of Tunisia. Tunisian Arabic is mostly similar to eastern Algerian Arabic and western Libyan Arabic. As part of a dialect continuum, Tunisian merges into Algerian Arabic and Libyan Arabic at the borders of the country. Like other Maghrebi dialects, it has a vocabulary that is predominantly Semitic Arabic with a minimal Berber, Latin Tilmatine Mohand, ''Substrat et convergences: Le berbére et l'arabe nord-africain'' (1999), in ''Estudios de dialectologia norteafricana y andalusi 4'', pp 99–119 and possibly Neo-Punic substratum. Tunisian Arabic contains a few Berber loanwords which represent 8% to 9% of its vocabulary. However, Tunisian has also loanwords from French, Turkish, ...
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Tifinagh
Tifinagh ( Tuareg Berber language: or , ) is a script used to write the Berber languages. Tifinagh is descended from the ancient Libyco-Berber alphabet. The traditional Tifinagh, sometimes called Tuareg Tifinagh, is still favored by the Tuareg Berbers of the Sahara desert in southern Algeria, northeastern Mali, northern Niger and northern Burkina Faso for use writing the Tuareg Berber language. Neo-Tifinagh () is an alphabet developed by Berber Academy to adopt Tuareg Tifinagh for use with Kabyle; it has been since modified for use across North Africa. Tifinagh is one of three major competing Berber orthographies alongside the Berber Latin alphabet and the Arabic script. Tifinagh is the official script for Tamazight, an official language of Morocco. However, outside of symbolic cultural uses, Latin remains the dominant script for writing Berber languages both in Morocco and throughout North Africa. The ancient Libyco-Berber script (or the Libyc script) was used by the an ...
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National Transitional Council
The National Transitional Council of Libya ( ar, المجلس الوطني الإنتقالي '), sometimes known as the Transitional National Council, was the ''de facto'' government of Libya for a period during and after the Libyan Civil War Demographics of Libya is the demography of Libya, specifically covering population density, ethnicity, education level, health of the populace, economic status, and religious affiliations, as well as other aspects of the Libyan population. The ..., in which rebel forces overthrew the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya of Muammar Gaddafi. The NTC governed Libya for a period of ten months after the end of the war, holding 2012 Libyan General National Congress election, elections to a General National Congress on 7 July 2012, and handing power to the newly elected assembly on 8 August. The formation of the NTC was announced in the city of Benghazi on 27 February 2011 with the purpose to act as the "political face of the revolution". On 5 March 20 ...
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Muammar Gaddafi
Muammar Muhammad Abu Minyar al-Gaddafi, . Due to the lack of standardization of transcribing written and regionally pronounced Arabic, Gaddafi's name has been romanized in various ways. A 1986 column by ''The Straight Dope'' lists 32 spellings known from the US Library of Congress, while ABC identified 112 possible spellings. A 2007 interview with Gaddafi's son Saif al-Islam Gaddafi confirms that Saif spelled his own name Qadhafi and the passport of Gaddafi's son Mohammed used the spelling Gathafi. According to Google Ngram the variant Qaddafi was slightly more widespread, followed by Qadhafi, Gaddafi and Gadhafi. Scientific romanizations of the name are Qaḏḏāfī ( DIN, Wehr, ISO) or (rarely used) Qadhdhāfī (ALA-LC). The Libyan Arabic pronunciation is (eastern dialects) or (western dialects), hence the frequent quasi-phonemic romanization Gaddafi for the latter. In English, it is pronounced or . (, 20 October 2011) was a Libyan revolutionary, politician and politic ...
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Tuareg People
The Tuareg people (; also spelled Twareg or Touareg; endonym: ''Imuhaɣ/Imušaɣ/Imašeɣăn/Imajeɣăn'') are a large Berber ethnic group that principally inhabit the Sahara in a vast area stretching from far southwestern Libya to southern Algeria, Niger, Mali, and Burkina Faso. Traditionally nomadic pastoralists, small groups of Tuareg are also found in northern Nigeria. The Tuareg speak languages of the same name (also known as ''Tamasheq''), which belong to the Berber branch of the Afroasiatic family. The Tuaregs have been called the "blue people" for the indigo dye coloured clothes they traditionally wear and which stains their skin. They are a semi-nomadic people who practice Islam, and are descended from the indigenous Berber communities of Northern Africa, which have been described as a mosaic of local Northern African (Taforalt), Middle Eastern, European (Early European Farmers), and Sub-Saharan African-related ancestries, prior to the Arab expansion. Tuareg peopl ...
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Tamahaq Language
Tamahaq (''Tahaggart Tamahaq'', ''Tamahaq Tahaggart'') is the only known Northern Tuareg language, spoken in Algeria, western Libya and northern Niger. It varies little from the Southern Tuareg languages of the Aïr Mountains, Azawagh and Adagh. The differences mostly consist of sound substitutions, such as ''Tamahaq'' instead of ''Tamajaq'' or ''Tamasheq''. Varieties There are three main varieties of Tamahaq: *''Tahaggart'', spoken around the Ahaggar Mountains in southern Algeria by the Kel Ahaggar confederation *''Ajjer'', spoken by the Kel Ajjer confederation *''Ghat'', spoken around Djanet in southeast Algeria and Ghat Ghat, a term used in the Indian subcontinent, depending on the context could refer either to a range of stepped hills with valleys (ghati in Hindi), such as the Eastern Ghats and Western Ghats; or the series of steps leading down to a body of ... in Libya. According to Blench (2006), Tahaggart and Ghat are distinct Tuareg languages. References ...
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Sokna Language
Sokna (also ''Sawknah'', ''Sukna''; native name: Tasuknit) is a presumably extinct Eastern Berber language which was spoken in the town of Sokna (''Isuknan'') and the village of Fuqaha in northeastern Fezzan in Libya. According to Václav Blažek (1999), Sokna was also spoken in the oasis of Tmassa Tmassa is a small town in the Sahara Desert of central Libya Libya (; ar, ليبيا, Lībiyā), officially the State of Libya ( ar, دولة ليبيا, Dawlat Lībiyā), is a country in the Maghreb region in North Africa. It is bordered .... The most extensive and recent materials on it are Sarnelli (1924) for Sokna and Paradisi (1963)Paradisi, Umberto. 1963. "Il linguaggio berbero di El-Fogaha (Fezzan)". ''Istituto Orientale di Napoli XIII''. 93-126. for El-Fogaha. Both articles report that the language was spoken only by a handful of old people at the time, so it is generally presumed to be extinct. Aikhenvald & Militarev (1984) and Blench (2006) consider Sokna and Fezz ...
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Tripolitania
Tripolitania ( ar, طرابلس '; ber, Ṭrables, script=Latn; from Vulgar Latin: , from la, Regio Tripolitana, from grc-gre, Τριπολιτάνια), historically known as the Tripoli region, is a historic region and former province of Libya. The region had been settled since antiquity, first coming to prominence as part of the Carthaginian empire. Following the defeat of Carthage in the Punic Wars, Ancient Rome organized the region (along with what is now modern day Tunisia and eastern Algeria), into a province known as Africa, and placed it under the administration of a proconsul. During the Diocletian reforms of the late 3rd century, all of North Africa was placed into the newly created Diocese of Africa, of which Tripolitania was a constituent province. After the Fall of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century, Tripolitania changed hands between the Vandals and the Byzantine Empire, until it was taken during the Muslim conquest of the Maghreb in the 8th centu ...
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Afroasiatic Languages
The Afroasiatic languages (or Afro-Asiatic), also known as Hamito-Semitic, or Semito-Hamitic, and sometimes also as Afrasian, Erythraean or Lisramic, are a language family of about 300 languages that are spoken predominantly in the geographic subregions of Western Asia, North Africa, the Horn of Africa, and parts of the Sahara/Sahel. With the exception of its Semitic branch, all branches of the Afroasiatic family are exclusively native to the African continent. Afroasiatic languages have over 500 million native speakers, which is the fourth-largest number of native speakers of any language family (after Indo-European, Sino-Tibetan, and Niger–Congo). The phylum has six branches: Berber, Chadic, Cushitic, Egyptian, Semitic, and Omotic. The most widely spoken modern Afroasiatic language or dialect continuum by far is Arabic, a ''de facto'' group of distinct language varieties within the Semitic branch. The languages that evolved from Proto-Arabic have around 313 million na ...
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Awjilah Language
Awjila (also ''Aujila'', ''Augila'', ''Aoudjila'', ''Awgila'', ''Awdjila''; own name: Jlan n Awilen; in other Berber varieties Tawjilit) is a severely endangered (considered "moribund" by ''Ethnologue'') Eastern Berber language spoken in Cyrenaica, Libya, in the Awjila oasis. Due to the political situation in Libya, immediate data on the language has been inaccessible.van Putten, M. 2014. A Grammar of Awjila Berber (Libya). Based on Umberto Paradisi’s Material (Berber Studies 41). Rüdiger Köppe Verlag: Köln. However, Facebook postings by speakers and younger semi-speakers have provided some recent supplementary data. General information Awjila is a member of the Berber branch of the Afroasiatic language family, of the Eastern Berber subgroup. It is closely related to Ghadames of Libya though considerably more endangered, with an estimated 2,000–3,000 native speakers remaining. UNESCO considers Awjila to be seriously endangered as the youngest speakers have reached or p ...
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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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