Tasawaq (Tuareg name: ''Tesăwăq''),
sometimes also called ''Ingelshi'', is a
Northern Songhay language spoken by the ''Issawaghan'' or ''Ingalkoyyu'', a community surrounding the town of
In-Gall
In-Gall (var. In Gall, I-n-Gall, In-Gal, Ingal, Ingall) is a department, commune and town in the Agadez Region of northeast Niger, with a year-round population of less than 500. Known for its oasis and salt flats, In-Gall is the gathering po ...
in
Niger
Niger, officially the Republic of the Niger, is a landlocked country in West Africa. It is a unitary state Geography of Niger#Political geography, bordered by Libya to the Libya–Niger border, north-east, Chad to the Chad–Niger border, east ...
.
[Michael J. Rueck; Niels Christiansen]
Northern Songhay languages in Mali and Niger, a sociolinguistic survey
Summer Institute of Linguistics (1999).[Catherine Taine-Cheikh. es langues parlées au sud Sahara et au nord Sahel http://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/halshs-00456346/ De l'Atlantique à l'Ennedi (Catalogue de l'exposition « Sahara-Sahel »), Centre Culturel Français d'Abidjan (Ed.) (1989) 155–173] A closely related variety called Emghedeshie was spoken in
Agadez
Agadez ( Air Tamajeq: ⴰⴶⴰⴷⴰⵣ, ''Agadaz''), formerly spelled Agadès, is the fifth largest city in Niger, with a population of 110,497 based on the 2012 census. The capital of the eponymous Agadez Region, the city lies in the Sahara ...
but is now extinct.
It shares some similarities with Berber languages, e.g. Tamasheq. For example in both languages, the grammatical gender of a noun is female if it begins and ends with the letter t.
References
Songhay languages
Languages of Niger
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