Sokna (also ''Sawknah'', ''Sukna''; native name: Tasuknit) is a presumably extinct
Eastern Berber language
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 ...
which was spoken in the town of
Sokna (''Isuknan'') and the village of
Fuqaha in northeastern
Fezzan
Fezzan ( , ; ; ; ) 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 ancient towns and villages to survive deep in the otherwise in ...
in
Libya
Libya, officially the State of Libya, is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It borders the Mediterranean Sea to the north, Egypt to Egypt–Libya border, the east, Sudan to Libya–Sudan border, the southeast, Chad to Chad–L ...
. According to Václav Blažek (1999), Sokna was also spoken in the oasis of
Tmassa.
The most extensive and recent materials on it are Sarnelli (1924) for Sokna and Paradisi (1963)
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 Fezzan to be separate languages. Blench lists Tmessa and Al-Foqaha as dialects of Fezzan.
References
Berber languages
Berbers in Libya
Languages of Libya
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