Morocco Travel Forums
Home Forums Register Photos Accommodation Chat Blogs Links News

Go Morocco Forums

Welcome, Guest! Please Register or Login:
  

Members have access to more features, better search, and see fewer ads! It's free, what are you waiting for?

Go Back   Morocco Travel Forums > Forum > Morocco Travel Forums > Chit Chat

Amazigh language

This is a discussion on Amazigh language within the Chit Chat forums, part of the Morocco Travel Forums category; This is the language known as Berber. the origin of the word in English and French derives from the Latin ...

  

Reply
 
LinkBack Thread Tools Display Modes
Old 12-23-2008, 05:24 PM   #1
Super Moderator
 
lahcenrizani's Avatar
 
Join Date: Oct 2008
Location: Rabat
Posts: 268
Default 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.
lahcenrizani is offline   Reply With Quote
Sponsored Links
Old 03-08-2010, 10:47 AM   #2
Registred User
 
Join Date: Mar 2010
Posts: 10
Lightbulb

This is really nice experience to learn a new language ... i love to try it once. When i visited last month turkey. I have started using two three words in there local language. there was little bit difference in language of that particular villa.
cleondann is offline   Reply With Quote
Reply

Bookmarks


Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is On
Trackbacks are On
Pingbacks are On
Refbacks are On



Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.6
Copyright ©2000 - 2012, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.
SEO by vBSEO 3.3.0
All times are GMT. The time now is 08:34 PM.
Skyrocket Design
Ad Management plugin by RedTyger