Zenati languages

The Zenati languages, named after the medieval Zenata tribe, are a subgroup of the Northern Berber language family, spoken in North Africa, proposed in Destaing (1915,^[1] 1920/3.^[2]) They are distributed across the central Maghreb, from northeastern Morocco to just west of Algiers, and the northern Sahara, from southwestern Algeria around Bechar to Zuwara in Libya; in much of this range, they are limited to discontinuous pockets in a predominantly Arabic-speaking landscape. The largest languages in this subgroup are Riff in NE Morocco and Shawiya in eastern Algeria.

According to Kossmann (1999:28, 32),^[3] Zenati consists of the following varieties:

• Riff (northeastern Morocco), including Beni Iznasen
• Eastern Middle Atlas: Ait Seghrouchen and Ait Warain (north-central Morocco)
• South Oran and Figuig (southwestern Algeria and southeastern Morocco)
• Northwestern Algerian varieties: Beni Snous, Chenoua, Beni Menacer etc., Metmata^[4]
• Mozabite or Tumzabt (northern Algerian Sahara, near Ghardaia) and Ouargli or Teggargarent (northern Algerian Sahara, near Ouargla) – their close relative, Oued Righ Berber, is not discussed in Kossmann 1999.
• Zenati proper or Taznatit, including Gourara Berber (southwestern Algeria, around Timimoun); the dialects Touat and Tidikelt are not discussed in Kossmann 1999.
• Shawiya (around Batna and Khenchela in eastern Algeria)
• Matmata Berber (Matmata in southeastern Tunisia)
• Djerbi (Djerba in southeastern Tunisia)
• Zuwara Berber (Zuwara in northwestern Libya)

Common innovations defining this subgroup^[5] include:

• The vowel a- in nominal prefixes is dropped in a number of words when it precedes CV, where C is a single consonant and V is a full (non-schwa) vowel. For example, afus "hand" is replaced with fus. (A similar development is found in some Eastern Berber languages, but not Nafusi.)
• Verbs whose original aorist forms end in -u while their perfect forms end in -a end up with -a in the aorist as well, leaving the aorist / perfect distinction unmarked for these verbs. For example, *ktu "forget", Siwi ttu, becomes Ouargli tta. (This also affects Nafusi.)
• Verbs consisting (in the aorist) of two consonants with no vowel other than schwa fall into two classes elsewhere in Berber:^[6][7] one where a variable final vowel appears in the perfect form, and one which continues to lack a final vowel in the perfect. In Zenati, the latter class has been entirely merged into the former in the perfect, with the single exception of the negative perfect of *əγs "want". For example, Kabyle (non-Zenati) gər "throw", pf. -gər (int. -ggar), corresponds to Ouargli (Zenati) gər, pf. -gru. (This change too also affects Nafusi; Basset (1929:9) gives examples where it appears not to occur in Chenoua.)
• Proto-Berber *-əβ has become -i in Zenati.^[8] For example, *arəβ "write" becomes ari. (This change also occurs in varieties including the Central Atlas Tamazight dialect of the Izayan, Nafusi, and Siwi.)
• Proto-Berber palatalised k´ and g´, corresponding to k and g in non-Zenati varieties, become š and ž in Zenati (although a fair number of irregular correspondences for this are found.) For example, k´ăm "you (f. sg.)" becomes šəm. (This change also occurs in Nafusi and Siwi.)

In addition to the correspondence of k and g to š and ž, Chaker (1972),^[9] while expressing uncertainty about the linguistic coherence of Zenati, notes as shared Zenati traits:

• A proximal demonstrative suffix "this" -u, rather than -a
• A final -u in the perfect of two-consonant verbs, rather than -a (e.g. yə-nsu "he slept" rather than yə-nsa elsewhere)

These characteristics identify a more restricted subset of Berber than those previously mentioned, mainly northern Saharan varieties; they exclude, for example, Chaoui^[10] and all but the easternmost Riff dialects.^[11]

The Ethnologue (16th edition)^[12] also includes Senhaja De Srair and Ghomara, along with an extra subgroup, the "East Zenati languages": Ghadamès, Nafusi, and Sened. These do not share all the innovations listed above.

References

1. ^ Edmond Destaing, "Essai de classification des dialectes berbères du Maroc", Etudes et Documents Berbères 19-20, 2001-2002 (1915)
2. ^ Edmond Destaing, "Note sur la conjugaison des verbes de forme C1eC2", Mémoires de la Société Linguistique de Paris, 22 (1920/3), pp. 139-148
3. ^ Maarten Kossmann, Essai sur la phonologie du proto-berbère, Rüdiger Köppe:Köln
4. ^ Kossmann identifies this as the Matmata Berber of Tunisia, but the source he cites for it, Destaing (1914), is for the Matmata of northwestern Algeria.
5. ^ ibid, pp. 31-32, 86, 172
6. ^ Maarten Kossmann, "Note sur la conjugaison des verbes CC à voyelle alternante en berbère", Etudes et Documents Berbères 12, 1994, pp. 17-33
7. ^ André Basset, La langue berbère. Morphologie. Le verbe.-Étude de thèmes. Paris 1929, pp. 9, 58
8. ^ See also Maarten Kossmann, "Les verbes à i finale en zénète", Etudes et Documents Berbères 13, 1995, pp. 99-104.
9. ^ Salem Chaker, 1972, "La langue berbère au Sahara", Revue de l'Occident musulman et de la Méditerranée 11:11, pp. 163-167
10. ^ # Penchoen, Th.G., 1973, Etude syntaxique d'un parler berbère (Ait Frah de l'Aurès), Napoli, Istituto Universitario Orientale (= Studi magrebini V). p. 14
11. ^ Lafkioui, Mena. 2007. Atlas linguistique des variétés berbères du Rif. Köln: Rüdiger Köppe. pp. 207, 178.
12. ^ Ethnologue: Zenati language tree