| South Oran and Figuig Berber | |
|---|---|
| tašəlḥit, tabəldit | |
| Spoken in | Algeria, Morocco |
| Region | Ksour Mountains, Saoura basin, Figuig region |
| Language family |
Afro-Asiatic
|
| Writing system | Arabic, Latin, Tifinagh |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | – |
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South Oran Berber speakers are found in oases scattered across southwestern Algeria and far eastern Morocco.
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South Oran and Figuig Berber[1] is a Zenati Berber dialect group spoken in a number of oases of southwestern Algeria, as well as nearby ones in Morocco. These include most of the ksour between Mecheria and Béni Abbès: Tiout, Ain Sfisifa, Boussemghoun, Moghrar, Chellala, Asla, Fendi, Mougheul, Lahmar, Boukais, Sfissifa, Ouakda, Barrbi near Taghit, Igli, and Mazzer in Algeria, and Figuig, Iche and Ain Chair in Morocco.[2] Of these towns, the only one whose dialect has been studied in any detail is Figuig (Kossmann 1997).[3] A cursory study of the northern dialects, including texts and vocabulary, is Basset (1885),[4] while a sketch grammar of its southernmost member, Igli, is provided by Kossmann (2010).[5]
Like many other Berber varieties, these dialects use bipartite verbal negation. The preverbal negator is ul (locally un, il); the postverbal negator is ša (Igli, Mazzer) / šay (Figuig, Iche, Moghrar) / iš (Boussemghoun, Ain Chair), with both the latter two appearing as allomorphs in Tiout.[6] The numerals 1-2 are Berber, while higher numerals are Arabic borrowings throughout.[7]
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