Zenati languages

Zenati
Geographic
distribution
North Africa
Linguistic classification

Afro-Asiatic

Subdivisions
Glottolog zena1250[1]

The Zenati languages are a branch of the Northern Berber language family of North Africa. They were named after the medieval Zenata Berber tribal confederation. They were first proposed in the works of French linguist Edmond Destaing (1915)[2] (1920–23).[3] Zenata dialects 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 most widely spoken Zenati languages are Riffian in northeastern Morocco and Shawiya in eastern Algeria, each of which have over a million speakers.

Languages

Kossmann (2013)

According to Kossmann (2013: 2124),[4] Zenati is a rather arbitrary grouping, in which he includes the following varieties:

Blench & Dendo (2006)

Blench & Dendo (ms, 2006) considers Zenati to consist of just three distinct languages, with the rest (in parentheses) dialects:[5]

Shenwa and Zuwara are not addressed.

Features

According to Kossmann (1999:31-32, 86, 172),[6] common innovations defining the Zenati languages include:

In addition to the correspondence of k and g to š and ž, Chaker (1972),[10] while expressing uncertainty about the linguistic coherence of Zenati, notes as shared Zenati traits:

These characteristics identify a more restricted subset of Berber than those previously mentioned, mainly northern Saharan varieties; they exclude, for example, Chaoui[11] and all but the easternmost Riff dialects.[12]

References

  1. Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin; Bank, Sebastian, eds. (2016). "Zenatic". Glottolog 2.7. Jena: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.
  2. Edmond Destaing, "Essai de classification des dialectes berbères du Maroc Archived September 4, 2011, at the Wayback Machine.", Etudes et Documents Berbères 19-20, 2001-2002 (1915)
  3. Edmond Destaing, "Note sur la conjugaison des verbes de forme C1eC2", Mémoires de la Société Linguistique de Paris, 22 (1920/3), pp. 139-148
  4. Maarten Kossmann (2013) The Arabic Influence on Northern Berber
  5. AA list, Blench & Dendo, ms, 2006
  6. Maarten Kossmann, Essai sur la phonologie du proto-berbère, Rüdiger Köppe:Köln
  7. Maarten Kossmann, "Note sur la conjugaison des verbes CC à voyelle alternante en berbère", Etudes et Documents Berbères 12, 1994, pp. 17-33
  8. André Basset, La langue berbère. Morphologie. Le verbe.-Étude de thèmes. Paris 1929, pp. 9, 58
  9. See also Maarten Kossmann, "Les verbes à i finale en zénète Archived July 18, 2011, at the Wayback Machine.", Etudes et Documents Berbères 13, 1995, pp. 99-104.
  10. Salem Chaker, 1972, "La langue berbère au Sahara", Revue de l'Occident musulman et de la Méditerranée 11:11, pp. 163-167
    1. 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.
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