Gurara language

Gurara
تازناتيت (Taznatit) / ⵜⴰⵣⵏⴰⵜⵉⵜ
Native to Algeria
Region Gourara (wilaya of Adrar)
Native speakers
11,000, including Tuwat (2014)[1]
Language codes
ISO 639-3 grr (included)
Linguist list
grr-gou
Glottolog tazn1238[2]

Map of the ksour of Gourara by spoken language

Gurara (Gourara) is the Zenati Berber language of the Gourara (Tigurarin) region, an archipelago of oases surrounding Timimoun in southwestern Algeria. Ethnologue gives it the generic name Taznatit ('Zenati'), along with Tuwat to its south; however, Blench (2006) classifies Gurara as a dialect of Mzab–Wargla, and Tuwat as a dialect of the Riff cluster.

Characteristics

Gurara and Tuwat is the only Berber language to change r in certain coda positions to a laryngeal ħ;[3] in other contexts it drops r, turning a preceding schwa into a,[4] and this latter phenomenon exists also in Zenata Rif-Berber in the far northern Morocco.

There is inconclusive evidence for Songhay influence on Gurara.[5]

Ahellil

A group of men performing ahellil

The local tradition of ahellil poetry and music in Gurara, described in Mouloud Mammeri's L'Ahellil du Gourara,[6] has been listed as part of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity by UNESCO.

References

  1. Gurara at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
  2. Nordhoff, Sebastian; Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2013). "Taznatit". Glottolog. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.
  3. René Basset, "Notes de lexicographie berbère", Journal Asiatique, ser. 8, vol. X, 1887: p. 390.
  4. Maarten Kossmann, "Cinq notes de linguistique historique berbère", Études et Documents Berbères, 17, 1999 : pp. 131–152
  5. Maarten Kossmann, "Is there a Songhay substratum in Gourara Berber?", in ed. Maarten Kossmann, Rainer Vossen, Dymitr Ibriszimow, Nouvelles études berbères: Le verbe et autres articles, Rüdiger Köppe: Köln 2004, pp. 51–66.
  6. Mouloud Mammeri, L ‘Ahellil du Gourara, M.S.H.:Paris 1984.


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