The Eastern Berber languages are a group of
Berber languages spoken in
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 by the Mediterranean Sea to the north, Egypt to the east, Suda ...
and
Egypt
Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Medit ...
. They include
Awjila,
Sokna and Fezzan (El-Fogaha),
Siwi and
Ghadamès, though it is not clear that they form a valid
genealogical
Genealogy () is the study of families, family history, and the tracing of their lineages. Genealogists use oral interviews, historical records, genetic analysis, and other records to obtain information about a family and to demonstrate kin ...
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
Sokna is a small village located between Hønefoss and Krøderen in the municipality of Ringerike, in the county of Buskerud, Norway. Its population is 543.
Location
Sokna is located in the valley of Soknedalen, between the Sogna and Ver ...
(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
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 E ...
.
*
Siwa
*
Awjila
*
Sokna
Sokna is a small village located between Hønefoss and Krøderen in the municipality of Ringerike, in the county of Buskerud, Norway. Its population is 543.
Location
Sokna is located in the valley of Soknedalen, between the Sogna and Ver ...
†
*
Ghadamès
*
Zurg
Extraterrestrial supervillains
Film characters introduced in 1999
Galactic emperors
Toy Story characters ...
†
The "Lingvarium Project" (2005) cites two additional languages: the
extinct language of
Jaghbub
Jaghbub ( ar, الجغبوب) is a remote desert village in the Al Jaghbub Oasis in the eastern Libyan Desert. It is actually closer to the Egyptian town of Siwa than to any Libyan town of note. The oasis is located in Butnan District and was ...
and the still-spoken Berber language of Tmessa, an oasis located in the north of the
Murzuq District
Murzuq ( ar, مرزق ''Murzuq'') is one of the districts of Libya. It is in the south of the country. Its capital is Murzuk. The city was occupied by the Ottoman Empire in 1578 and served as the capital of Fezzan off and on until the Ottomans ...
. Blažek (1999) considers the language spoken in Tmessa as a dialect of
Fezzan
Fezzan ( , ; ber, ⴼⵣⵣⴰⵏ, Fezzan; ar, فزان, Fizzān; la, Phazania) is the southwestern region of modern Libya. It is largely desert, but broken by mountains, uplands, and dry river valleys (wadis) in the north, where oases enable ...
.
[Václav Blažek, "Numerals: Comparative-etymological Analyses of Numeral Systems and Their Implications : Saharan, Nubian, Egyptian, Berber, Kartvelian, Uralic, Altaic and Indo-European Languages", in: Filozofická Fakulta: Opera Universitatis Masarykianae vol. 332, p. 57, Facultas Philosophica - Masarykova Univerzita Brno, 1999 ()]
Notes
External links
"Oriental Berber", a collaborative blog on the Berber languages of Tunisia, Libya, and Egypt
Eastern Berber languages
Berber languages
Berbers in Egypt
Berbers in Libya
Languages of Egypt
Languages of Libya
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