| Nafusi | |
|---|---|
| Tanfusit | |
| Spoken in | Libya |
| Native speakers | 184,000 incl. Zuara, 210,000 incl. Zuara & Tunisian Berber (date missing) |
| Language family | |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | jbn |
Nafusi (also spelled Nefusi, Berber name: Maziɣ or Tanfusit) is the Berber language of the Nafusa Mountains (Drar n infusen), a large area in northwestern Libya. This variety of the Berber language is spoken by the Ibadite communities around Jadu, Nalut (Lalut), and Yafran. According to the Ethnologue, it has some 184,000 speakers in Libya[1] (controversially including Zuara Berber.) The dialect of Yefren in the east differs somewhat from that of Nalut and Jadu in the west.[2] A number of Old Nafusi phrases appear in Ibadite manuscripts as early as the 12th century,[3] representing some of the earliest manuscript records of Berber.
The Ethnologue includes nearby Zuara Berber, Matmata Berber, and Djerbi under the rubric "Nafusi", which corresponds neither to local nor to academic usage of the term.
The dialect of Jadu is described in some detail in Beguinot (1931).[4] Motylinski (1898) describes the dialect of Jadu and Nalut as spoken by a student from Yefren.[5]
Nafusi shares several innovations with the Zenati languages, but, unlike them, maintains prefix vowels before open syllables; for example, ufəs "hand" < *afus, rather than Zenati fus; it appears especially closely related to Sokni and Siwi to its east.[6]
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