Zuwara Berber or Twillult language (also: ''Zuara'', ''Zwara'', (
Berber
Berber or Berbers may refer to:
Ethnic group
* Berbers, an ethnic group native to Northern Africa
* Berber languages, a family of Afro-Asiatic languages
Places
* Berber, Sudan, a town on the Nile
People with the surname
* Ady Berber (1913–196 ...
name: Twillult, ⵝⵡⵉⵍⵍⵓⵍⵝ) is a
Berber
Berber or Berbers may refer to:
Ethnic group
* Berbers, an ethnic group native to Northern Africa
* Berber languages, a family of Afro-Asiatic languages
Places
* Berber, Sudan, a town on the Nile
People with the surname
* Ady Berber (1913–196 ...
dialect, one of the Berber
Zenati languages. It is spoken in
Zuwara
Zuwarah, or Zuwara or Zwara (Berber language: At Willul or Zwara, ) is a coastal Berber-speaking city in Libya.
Zuwara or At Willul is famous for its beaches and seafood. It is situated west of Tripoli and from the Tunisian border. It is the ...
city, located on the coast of western
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 o ...
in northwestern
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 Egypt–Libya bo ...
.
Several works of
Terence Mitchell
Terence Croft Mitchell (17 June 1929 – 21 April 2019) was a British archaeologist, scholar and curator. He was Keeper of Western Asiatic Antiquities at the British Museum from 1985 to 1989. He specialised in West Semitic languages, Near Eas ...
, most notably ''Zuaran Berber (Libya): Grammar and texts'', provide an overview of the language's grammar along with a set of texts, based mainly on the speech of his consultant Ramadan Azzabi. Some articles on this subject were also published by
Luigi Serra
Luigi Serra (June 8, 1846 – July 11, 1888) was an Italian painter, known for his watercolors.
Biography
In 1858 Serra began studies at the Collegio Artistico Venturoli, working first under Gaetano Serrazanetti and then under Luigi Busi. In 18 ...
.
The speakers refer to their specific variety of the language as ''twillult'' /t.ˈwil.lult/ ‘the language of Willul’, and the word "Mazigh" /ˈma.ziʁ/ may refer both to the wider Amazigh language or to any
Amazigh person.
[Gussenhoven, C. (2018). Zwara (Zuwārah) Berber. ''Journal of the International Phonetic Association'', ''48''(3), 371-387. URL : http://gep.ruhosting.nl/carlos/zwara_zuwarah_berber.pdf] Although rare for a Berber idiom, the masculine form is used to refer to the language.
''
Ethnologue
''Ethnologue: Languages of the World'' (stylized as ''Ethnoloɠue'') is an annual reference publication in print and online that provides statistics and other information on the living languages of the world. It is the world's most comprehensiv ...
'' considers this language a dialect of
Nafusi, although the two belong to different branches of Berber according to
Kossmann (1999).
[Maarten Kossmann, ''Essai sur la phonologie du proto-berbère'', Rüdiger Köppe:Köln, pp. 28, 32]
Number of Speakers
By some estimates, 297,000 people speak Zuwara Berber or a similar dialect. Approximately 247,000 of these speakers reside 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 Egypt–Libya bo ...
.
Writing System
This language uses the
Naskh variant of the Arabic script.
Phonology
Zuwara Berber has many consonants compared to vowels. However, words can end in both consonants and vowels. For instance, the Latinized words "ˈa.man" and "ˈa.nu" mean "water" and "water well" in English, respectively.
Consonants
Zuwara Berber has a total of 31 consonants.
Vowels
Zuwara Berber has a total of four vowels: /i/, /u/, /ə/, and /a/.
Prosody
Stress
In roughly 85% of words, the stress goes on the
penultimate syllable, especially for native Zuwara Berber words. For instance, the Latinized word "a.ˈzi.zaw" means "green" in English and has three syllables. Thus, the stress is on the second syllable, "ˈzi".
References
Berber languages
Berbers in Libya
Languages of Libya
Tripolitania
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