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Riff Languages
] In some classifications, the Riff (Rif) languages are a branch of the Zenati languages, Zenati Berber languages ( Northern Berber), of the Rif area of Morocco, that includes Riffian, one of the major Berber languages. Blench (2006) considers Riff to be a dialect cluster, consisting of the following varieties: Blench, ms, 2006 * Riffian * Ghomara * Shawiya * Tidikelt * |
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 so ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Shawiya Language
Shawiya, or Shawiya Berber, also spelt Chaouïa (native form: ''Tacawit'' ), is a Zenati Berber language spoken in Algeria by the Shawiya people. The language's primary speech area is the Awras Mountains in Eastern Algeria and the surrounding areas, including parts of Western Tunisia, including Batna, Khenchela, Sétif, Oum El Bouaghi, Souk Ahras, Tébessa and the northern part of Biskra. It is closely related to the Shenwa language of Central Algeria. Language The Shawiya people call their language ''Tacawit'' (''Thashawith'') ( or ). Estimates of number of speakers range from 1.4 to 3 million speakers. The French spelling of ''Chaouïa'' is commonly seen, due to the influence of French conventions on Algeria. Other spellings are "Chaoui", "Shawia", "Tachawit", "Thachawith", "Tachaouith" and "Thchèwith". In Shawiya, the leading – pronounced in that phonetic environment – is often reduced to an , so the native name is often heard as ''Hašawiθ''. Shawiya Berber w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Languages Of Algeria
The official languages of Algeria are Arabic and Tamazight (Berber), as specified in its constitution since 1963 for the former and since 2016 for the latter. Berber has been recognized as a "national language" by constitutional amendment since 8 May 2002. In February, 2016, a constitutional resolution was passed making Berber an official language alongside Arabic. Algerian Arabic and Berber are the native languages of over 99% of Algerians, with Algerian Arabic spoken by about 90% and Berber by 10%."Aujourd'hui, la majorité des Algériens sont arabophones dans une proportion de 72 %. Parmi les Arabophones, c'est l'arabe algérien qui dominent nettement avec 60 % de la population totale et 83,2 % des arabophones. Les autres arabophones parlent le hassaniyya (11,3 %), l'arabe marocain (0,4 %), l'arabe du Sahara (0,1 %), l'arabe égyptien, voire l'arabe irakien. Toutes les variétés d'arabe appartiennent au groupe sémitique de la famille chamito-sémitique. Mais tous les arabo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Riff Languages
] In some classifications, the Riff (Rif) languages are a branch of the Zenati languages, Zenati Berber languages ( Northern Berber), of the Rif area of Morocco, that includes Riffian, one of the major Berber languages. Blench (2006) considers Riff to be a dialect cluster, consisting of the following varieties: Blench, ms, 2006 * Riffian * Ghomara * Shawiya * Tidikelt * |
Sheliff Basin Berber
Sheliff Basin Berber is a variety of the Berber languages that is spoken in Algeria. It is traditionally taken to be a dialect of Shenwa, one of the Western Algerian 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) (1920 .... Blench (2006) argues instead that the variety is part of the Riffian dialect cluster. Blench, ms, 2006 See also * Chelif River for which Sheliff is an alternative spelling.References [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tlemcen Language
Beni Snous is a Berber variety close to Zenati languages spoken near Tlemcen in Algeria. In the early 20th century, Beni Snous Berber was spoken in the villages of Kef, Tghalimet, Bou Hallou, Ait Larbi, Ait Achir, Adziddaz, and Mazzer; all speakers were bilingual in the Arabic language. The Beni Snous had no trouble conversing with their Berber-speaking neighbours among the Beni Bou Said just to the west, and (with some difficulty) could communicate in Berber with people from Figuig, Beni Iznacen Iznasen (Iznassen, Iznacen) is a Berber language, one of the Zenati languages. It is spoken in the extreme northeast of Morocco, in a speech area near the Berber languages of western Algeria ) , image_map = Algeria (centered o ..., beside the border in Morocco. However, they found Tashelhiyt (in southern Morocco) and Kabyle (in central Algeria) almost unintelligible. Today, only a few elderly people in the region still speak Berber. Most of the Beni Snous have ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tuat Language
Tuwat (''Touat'', ''Tuat'') is a Zenati Berber language. It is spoken by Zenata Berbers in a number of villages in the Tuat region of southern Algeria; notably Tamentit Tamentit () (sometimes spelled Tamantit) is a town and ''commune'' or municipality in Fenoughil District of Adrar Province, in south-central Algeria. According to the 2008 census it has a population of 9,481, up from 7,912 in 1998, with an annual ... (where it was already practically extinct by 1985Anonymous, "Le dernier document en berbère de Tamentit", ''Awal'' 1 (1985)) and Tittaf, located south of the Gurara Berber speech area. '' Ethnologue'' considers them a single language, "Zenati", but Blench (2006) classifies Gurara as a dialect of Mzab–Wargla and Tuwat as a dialect of the Riff cluster. References Berber languages Languages of Algeria Riff languages {{Berber-lang-stub ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tidikelt Language
Tidikelt (also known as Tidikelt Tamazight, Tamazight or Tidikelt Berber) is a Zenati Berber language spoken in Algeria. It is one of the Mzab–Wargla languages. Tidikelt is spoken in the northwest of Tamanrasset Province, including in In Salah District. Tidikelt Tamazight has two dialects; Tidikelt and Tit. Tidikelt Tamazight is considered to be an endangered language, nearly extinct, with only 1,000 speakers of the language and decreasing. Classification Tidikelt Tamazight is part of the Berber branch of the Afroasiatic family. History The northern region of Africa was, at one point in history, was primarily inhabited by Berbers. The name Berber comes from ''Barbari'', which was used by the Romans. ''Barbari'' is a Latin word meaning Barbarians. Their tribes could be found across the northern region. However, when the Muslims invaded and took over the northern region of Africa, they spread the Arabic language, which eventually led to the diminished use of Tidikelt Tamazi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ghomara Language
The Ghomara language is a Northern Berber language spoken in Morocco. It is the mother tongue of the Ghomara Berbers, who total around 10,000 people. Ghomara Berber is spoken on the western edge of the Rif, among the Beni Bu Zra and Beni Mansur tribes of the Ghomara confederacy. Despite being listed as endangered, it is still being passed on to children in these areas. Ghomara Berber is relatively similar to Senhadja de Srair Berber spoken around Ketama. However, it is difficult to understand for a speaker of Rifian. Some typical features that distinguish the Ghomara variety of Berber from Rifian Berber are the use of the preposition ''dar'' instead of the Rifian ''ghar'', the feminine plural ending ''-an'' instead of ''-in'', and the absence of spirantisation in word-initial position. Current status Although elderly Ghomara teach children how to speak Ghomara Berber at home, the language is still considered threatened, with only 10,000 known speakers. A major reason can be ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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 be ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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. In ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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