| Judeo-Berber language | |
|---|---|
| Spoken in | Israel |
| Native speakers | 2,000 (date missing) |
| Language family |
Afro-Asiatic
|
| Writing system | Hebrew alphabet |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | jbe |
Judeo-Berber (Hebrew: יהודית ברברית) (Yiddish: ייִדיש בערבער), is a term used primarily for the Berber varieties traditionally spoken by the Jewish communities of certain parts of central and southern Morocco. Speakers emigrated to Israel in the 1950s and 1960s. While mutually comprehensible with the Tamazight spoken by most inhabitants of the area (Galand-Pernet et al. 1970:14), these dialects are distinguished by the use of Hebrew loanwords and the pronunciation of š as s (as in many Jewish Moroccan Arabic dialects).
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Communities where Jews spoke Judeo-Berber included Tinerhir, Ouijjane, Asaka, Imini, and Ait Bou Oulli (in the Tamazight-speaking Middle Atlas), and Oufrane and Illigh (in the Tasheliyt-speaking Sous). (Galand-Pernet et al. 1970:2)
Almost all speakers of Judeo-Berber left Morocco in the years following its independence, and their children have mainly grown up speaking other languages. As of 1992, about 2,000 speakers remain, mainly in Israel; all are at least bilingual in Judeo-Arabic.
Apart from its daily use, Judeo-Berber was used for explaining religious texts, and occasionally written, using Hebrew characters; a manuscript Pesah Haggadah written in Judeo-Berber has been reprinted (Galand-Pernet et al. 1970.) A few prayers, like the Benedictions over the Torah, were recited in Berber.[1]
Taken from Galand-Pernet et al. 1970:121 (itself from a manuscript from Tinghir):
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