Amazigh language This is the language known as Berber. the origin of the word in English and French derives from the Latin term "Barbarous", which designates the uncultivated people who lived beyond the pale of the Roman world. Nowaday, because of the negative connotations associated with the word, the term "Amazigh" has been adopted to refer to the language..
The the origin of Amazigh is not very clear, they are the oldest known inhabitants of Morocco.Their language is also claimed to be the most ancient in the Maghrib. Amazigh is a spoken language with almost no written history. the Twareg dialects have a writing system called Tifinagh. there is however, no evidence that it has been used, for no texts or documents exist. Nowadays, the language has been essentially reserved to the domains of home, family and friends. the Amazigh literature is transmitted via oral tradition. Thus, the various Amazigh varieties are the vehicle of cultural traditions specific to the areas where they are spoken.
With the growing interest in the Amazigh language and identity and the development of research about the language, both the Arabic and the Latin alphabets are used to write Amazigh. It is very hard, today, to give any exact estimation of the number and percentage of the Amazighs in Morocco, especially in the urban centres where the language is in clear regression becuase it is in high comptetion with Moroccan Arabic. In the rural areas, however, the percentage is estimated to 45 or 50 %. In some isolated areas, it is still possible to find monolingual Amazigh, mainly among women and even very young children, especially before the age of school, that is, below the age of 7 years old.
The areas where Amazigh is spoken are not continuous but broken up into "Islands" or "pockets" surrounded by Arab speaking populations. It is used mainly in the rural and mountainous areas. These areas where Amazigh is still preserved are of different size. the boundaries between the different "language areas" are not always very clear because of the lack of linguistic Atlases. It is, thus, very hard to set the isoglosses with precision.
Morocco counts three major Amazigh varieties namely: Tarifit, spoken in the Rif mountains in the North, Tamazight, is used in the middle of Atlas and Eastern half of the High Atlas mountains and Tashelheit, the variety of high Atlas.
Reference: The lexical and Morphological Structure of Beni Iznassen Amazigh in a Context of Language Loss by El kirat Yamina
Last edited by lahcenrizani; 02-08-2009 at 06:58 PM.
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