Zenati languages

Zenati
Geographic
distribution:
North Africa
Linguistic classification:

Afro-Asiatic

Subdivisions:
Glottolog: zena1250[1]

The Zenati languages, named after the medieval Zenata tribe, are a branch of the Northern Berber language family of North Africa, first proposed in the works of French linguist Edmond Destaing (1915)[2] (1920–23).[3] They are distributed across the central Maghreb, from northeastern Morocco to just west of Algiers, and the northern Sahara, from southwestern Algeria around Bechar to Zuwara in Libya; in much of this range, they are limited to discontinuous pockets in a predominantly Arabic-speaking landscape. The largest languages are Riffian in NE Morocco and Shawiya in eastern Algeria, each with over a million speakers.

Languages

Kossmann (2013)

According to Kossmann (2013: 2124),[4] Zenati is a rather arbitrary grouping, in which he includes the following varieties:

Blench & Dendo (2006)

Blench & Dendo (ms, 2006) considers Zenati to consist of just three distinct languages, with the rest (in parentheses) dialects:[5]

Shenwa and Zuwara are not addressed.

Features

According to Kossmann (1999:31-32, 86, 172),[6] common innovations defining the Zenati languages include:

In addition to the correspondence of k and g to š and ž, Chaker (1972),[10] while expressing uncertainty about the linguistic coherence of Zenati, notes as shared Zenati traits:

These characteristics identify a more restricted subset of Berber than those previously mentioned, mainly northern Saharan varieties; they exclude, for example, Chaoui[11] and all but the easternmost Riff dialects.[12]

References

  1. Nordhoff, Sebastian; Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2013). "Zenatic". Glottolog. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.
  2. Edmond Destaing, "Essai de classification des dialectes berbères du Maroc", Etudes et Documents Berbères 19-20, 2001-2002 (1915)
  3. Edmond Destaing, "Note sur la conjugaison des verbes de forme C1eC2", Mémoires de la Société Linguistique de Paris, 22 (1920/3), pp. 139-148
  4. Maarten Kossmann (2013) The Arabic Influence on Northern Berber
  5. AA list, Blench & Dendo, ms, 2006
  6. Maarten Kossmann, Essai sur la phonologie du proto-berbère, Rüdiger Köppe:Köln
  7. Maarten Kossmann, "Note sur la conjugaison des verbes CC à voyelle alternante en berbère", Etudes et Documents Berbères 12, 1994, pp. 17-33
  8. André Basset, La langue berbère. Morphologie. Le verbe.-Étude de thèmes. Paris 1929, pp. 9, 58
  9. See also Maarten Kossmann, "Les verbes à i finale en zénète", Etudes et Documents Berbères 13, 1995, pp. 99-104.
  10. Salem Chaker, 1972, "La langue berbère au Sahara", Revue de l'Occident musulman et de la Méditerranée 11:11, pp. 163-167
    1. Penchoen, Th.G., 1973, Etude syntaxique d'un parler berbère (Ait Frah de l'Aurès), Napoli, Istituto Universitario Orientale (= Studi magrebini V). p. 14
  11. Lafkioui, Mena. 2007. Atlas linguistique des variétés berbères du Rif. Köln: Rüdiger Köppe. pp. 207, 178.
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