Berber languages
The Berber languages (or Tamazight) are mainly spoken in Morocco and Algeria. A very sparse population extends into the whole Sahara and the northern part of the Sahel. They belong to Afro-Asiatic languages phylum. There is a strong movement among Berbers to unify the closely related northern Berber languages into a single standard, Tamazight.
Among the Berber languages are Rif-Berber or Riffi (northern Morocco), Kabyle (Algeria) and Tamazight (central Morocco). Tamazight has been a written language, on and off, for almost 3000 years; however, this tradition has been frequently disrupted by various invasions. It was first written in the Tifinagh alphabet, still used by the Tuareg; the oldest dated inscription is from about 200 BC. Later (starting around year 1000), it was written in the Arabic alphabet (particularly by the Shilha of Morocco); in this century, it is often written in the Latin alphabet, especially among the Kabyle. A variant of the Tifinagh alphabet was recently made official in Morocco.
The Berber languages have two cases of the noun, organized ergatively: one is unmarked, while the other serves for the subject of a transitive verb and the object of a preposition. They also have two genders, masculine (unmarked) and feminine (marked with reflexes of the prefix t-). These are illustrated for the noun amghar "old man, sheikh":
| masculine | feminine | |||
| default | agent | default | agent | |
| singular | amghar | wemghar | tamghart | temghart |
| plural | imgharen | yemgharen | timgharin | temgharin |
The Berber languages are subdivided into:
- Eastern Berber languages
- Guanche
- Northern Berber languages
- Tamasheq languages
- Zenaga
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