Talk:Berber languages/Archive 1

Archive 1

untitled comments

Many consider the word "Berber" to be insulting and prefer "Tamazight".

"Tamazight was an oral language only". How do you know that??.

It isn't and hasn't been for a long time, as the article now shows. - Mustafaa 17:20, 27 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Orthography

Would it not be better to amend the orthography for the prefixes? The stem would then remain constant.

In many European languages (ie. the Indo-European family), the distinctions come in the form of suffixes: eg.: Scot-land. Scot-tish. Scot/Scots. We file all of these under the letter 'S', and 'Scot' is the stem for all things in the country north of England.

In many African languages,whether Berber dialects, Semitic-Cushitic languages as a family, or even languages from other families, such as Bantu (Uingereza, Kiingereza) the distinctions come as prefixes.

This can mask which element is constant, ie. the stem, and this in turn an confuse the unwary (the most person most in need of assistance...). It takes a while to make sense of a list such as: the Iznaten, the Tamazight dialects, the Chaoui, Tuareg, Imazighen,Tachawit, Tamzabt, Targui, Amazigh, Moroccan Zenata. Some of the are synonymous, some aren't. Which?

MAZIGH is clearly the stem for all things to do with 'that which was traditionally called, in English, "Berber" '. a Berber person is an: a-Mazigh. the Berber peoples are: the i-Mazigh-en.(or, due to the definite article & definitive sense, even: I-Mazigh-en). the Berber language is: ta-Mazigh-t.

Just all the forms with the traditional 'pejorative' or 'Arabic' word were constant: filed under 'B', so all the 'indigenous/more POV neutral/accurate' forms would now be constant: filed under 'M'.

At present, the languages/dialects would be filed under 'T' in English, but the people would be under 'A' or 'I'.

Also, some people are speaking of 'Amazigh' languages, but the form 'Amazigh' is that for an individual. It is like saying: 'playa' is the word for 'beach' in: "Spaniard"...

With a logical orthography we can probably deduce by ourselves the connection between the words, say: Iznaten and Zenata. ie.: i-Z'nat-en.

Discuss! (a somewhat superfluous exhortation?). Protozoon (talk) 05:26, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

inaccurate?

Why was this removed from article? Is it inaccurate?

"The Berber languages in the Maghreb have officially been subjected to Arab, as part of government policy and was mainly spoken at home and in villages. However, with a growing tribe-awareness and desire for (at least cultural) independence (especially among the Kabyl people), the mother tongue has become more important and efforts are made to make for instance formal education bi-lingual. In this sense, Berber languages have become political tools to support the struggle for (more) independence."

Rmhermen 15:56, Feb 26, 2004 (UTC)

• http://www.libyamazigh.org/
• http://ennedi.free.fr/tifin.htm

I don't see when that was in the article. It's not entirely inaccurate (although "tribe-awareness" is both insulting and inaccurate), but something like that could be mentioned. - Mustafaa 17:20, 27 Apr 2004 (UTC)

revert of nl version

I did this revert because it looked like it was simply a machine translation like f. ex. this of the nl: version of this article. There is probably stuff worth considering and implementing, but not the way it was done this time. ---Dittaeva 19:07, 9 Jun 2004 (UTC)

language errors

it is very possible that there are language errors (and that weet I), and for this reason asks I it pleasantly my language errors at verbetern. without removing the supplement. source :*http://www.tawiza.nl/content/awid.php?id=465&sid=2&andra=artikelAziri 20:42, 9 Jun 2004 (UTC)

This Wikipedia is in English and contributions have to be in that language. I do not have time to improve such a long paragraph about a subject that I am only slightly familiar with. In its current state the quality is just not good enough. I am leaving it there for now, but unless someone else improves it I will probably remove it later.---Dittaeva 07:45, 10 Jun 2004 (UTC)

hey Dittaeva, which are a translation, it has been translated badly because that was by translation machine. but I believe that the someone would improve language errors. what concerns the contents, you must none improve character, and if you have sources necessary, you can get them (the article were fairly by me written).Aziri 14:39, 23 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Tamazight

tamazight or tamazight languages is the correct name , berber language is a shield name .Aziri 14:39, 23 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Prof. Salem Chaker, among many other Berbers, would disagree. But suit yourself. - Mustafaa 05:54, 24 Jun 2004 (UTC)

i speak berber not chines . we don't have any word for "berber" . we speak "tamazight" . if you are malingnant think that the arab speal arabic. and the imazighen speaks tamazight. the imazighen are all the berber not allong the Ichelhiyyen.Aziri 11:18, 24 Jun 2004 (UTC)

No doubt they do. And the Kel Tamasheq speak Tamasheq, and the Mzabis speak Tumzabt, and the Zenata speak Taznatit, and the Siwis speak Tasiwit... and all of them speak Berber languages. - Mustafaa 19:09, 28 Jun 2004 (UTC)

i'am a reffijn , i speak tarifit, but i say also that i speak tamazight . berber language is a schield word. berber exist not in tamazight (berber language). mean that that we don't speak tamazight (berber language) ?

That wasn't the case historically in many dialects. You check old dictionaries of Kabyle, you won't find any word "tamazight"; there was a word "amazigh", but it just meant "noble man", and didn't have an ethnic meaning. Morocco is a different matter. - Mustafaa 19:53, 29 Jun 2004 (UTC)

counterfeiting

"long Article with much counterfeiting", eh? If you claim there's "counterfeiting" in this article, Aziri, then prove it. Merely deleting facts that you don't happen to like is unacceptable - who do you think you are, Qaddafi or something? - Mustafaa 19:09, 28 Jun 2004 (UTC)

whre is tassoussit in morocco , did you hiding it ? and why are you acoord with basset not with karl prasse and harry stroomer ???Aziri 13:00, 30 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Tasoussit is called part of Tachelhit by the Ethnologue; I've added a note to that effect. What are you talking about "acoord with basset not with karl prasse and harry stroomer"? I have included both Karl Prasse and Andre Basset's estimate, and I have not seen Harry Stroomer's, so how can I include that? - Mustafaa 18:12, 30 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Qaddafi and Saddam Hussein and Abou Mos3ab ez Zarqawi and Bin Laden , are arabs. and i don't want to be an arab. why would i be alqaddaffi ? Aziri 12:22, 29 Jun 2004 (UTC)

dialect in morocco

there are three dialect in morocco : tachelhit and tassoussit and tarifit. tarifit know you. and the tachelhit is wgat you call the language of atls mountain and tassoussit is the language of south of morocco. the names of them in tamazight language are : tarifesht and tashelhesht and tassoussesht. Aziri 10:54, 1 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Very well; I can certainly believe the Ethnologue got its terminology wrong. I have added a note to that effect. - Mustafaa 06:59, 2 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I've moved this back to Berber languages - as User:RickK points out, it's Wikipedia policy to stick with the most commonly used English name, and that's Berber by a mile. - Mustafaa 22:01, 2 Jul 2004 (UTC)

i know that you are very simpathy with wikipedia and that the reason. but you can better write about the arabs not about the berber.Aziri 14:43, 4 Jul 2004 (UTC)

And you would be better off writing in Dutch than in English. - Mustafaa 20:53, 4 Jul 2004 (UTC)

i'm here because you are counterfeting about the berber. if will go, then i have not remove any article.Aziri 10:47, 5 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I have a few remarks I want to add to this discussion. First of all, it was stated that usage of the most commonly used English name is Wikipedia policy. However, there are a number of Wikipedia entries whith a preference for native nomen clatura: for example Inuit vs Eskimo, Indian vs Native American and The Netherlands vs Holland. Secondly, shouldn't text be as neutral as possible (Wikipedia:NPOV)? I don't think Berber is that neutral (e.g. compare with Eskimo/Inuit). Lastly, I'd like to refer to The Berbers (The Peoples of Africa), Michael Brett and Elizabeth Fentress, pg. 5, 1997: ... Of cource, even the use of the name 'Berber' is somewhat arbitrary: ... The word for Berber today is either 'Tamazight' or 'Imazighen', ... Both have been recently adopted throughout North Africa, although their first attestations are only known from Moroccan dialects... There is, however, some evidence that the term was used more widely in the classical period. Under the Romans tribal name 'Mazices' ... too widespread to refer to a specific tribe: it is probably a cognate of Imagizhen, and it may have been one of the terms used to refer to indigenous Africans in general. Moes 02:27, 10 May 2005 (UTC)

The view that 'Tamazight' is a proper name for Berber as a whole is mentioned in the first paragraph of the article. This article has been moved back and forth in the past and I don't see a new argument to revert yet again to Tamazight. Additionally, the problem of Tamazight is that it really is not truly applicable to all of the Berber languages. See Tuareg languages for the names of the Tuaregs for their (Berber) languages, and see Zenaga language and Siwi language for examples of other Berber languages whose speakers would not refer to their language as 'Tamazight'.

In recent years, there have been attempts (mainly by Morrocan and Algerian Berber speakers) to apply the term 'Tamazight' to all of the Berber languages (an important reason for choosing this term has been the fact that it is derived from the old Berber word Amazigh, 'free, noble men'). This has certainly resulted in wider use of the term among the more 'culturally conscious' Berbers, to the extent that one may be able to find some Kabyles who say they speak 'Tamazight' rather than the more specific Taqbaylit — but the term 'Tamazight' has by no means gained as wide a use as 'Berber' or 'Berber languages'. — mark ✎ 11:42, 10 May 2005 (UTC)

It looks as if the Germans would say: "What a wrong name, you English-speakers, use for us?! The only appropriate name is the Deutschs and Deutsch language! So please change names of corresponding articles." 'Tamazight' is a proper name for Berber in (some) Berber languages themselves, and it is translated into English like 'Berber'. Koryakov Yuri 12:07, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Possible copyvio, POV, and factual inaccuracies of recent additions

This following paragraphs were added recently to the article:

Professional anthropologists have already postulated, in a classic work on European ethnology, that the modern day Basque people of the Pyrenees Mountains (northern Spain/southern France) speak a language inherited directly from Cro-Magnon Man (Ripley, 1899). To give a couple of illustrative examples of the reasons for the above postulation, the Basque word for knife means literally "stone that cuts," and their word for ceiling means "top of the cavern" (Blanc, 1854).

But what about the little-known Iberian language (generally believed to be related to the Berber language of North Africa)? The defunct Iberian language is known to us only through inscriptions (the Iberian script is mainly syllabic, but also partly alphabetic). It was once spoken throughout the entire Iberian peninsula, and through Iberian language specialist William J. Entwhistle (1936) we learn that this language is also related to the modern Basque language.

"Prof. Henry Fairfield Osborn"[1] (1915-1923), declared that the Cro-Magnon people of the Stone Age left two cultural "relics" that survived into modern times: (1) the Berber-speaking Guanches of the Canary Islands, and (2) the unique Basque language of western Europe. In regard to the extreme age of the Basque language, the distinguished British scholar Michael Harrison once wrote:

In support of the theory that Basque, if not an autochthonous language, is at least one of the most primitive languages of Europe, in the sense of its being here before any of the existing others, is the fact that Basque . . . is still a language with no proven congeners (Harrison, 1974).

If Basque was indeed the language of Cro-Magnon Man, it must have once been spoken over a much larger area of Europe than it is now. Today it stands isolated into two tiny linguistic "islands," surrounded by languages totally alien in vocabulary, syntax, and grammatical structure (Saltarelli, 1988). According to Harrison, who has done his homework, Basque did indeed cover a far greater area than it does today. He points out that this fact was recorded by the Carthaginians and Romans (Harrison, 1]]974).

This is but a wikified version of the text found here. It is not only a possible copyvio, but it contains several POV phrases (e.g. "professional anthropologists", or "prof. X, who has done his homework") and most of its assumptions are extremely doubtful (e.g. linking Basque/Guanche/Berber to the Cro-Magnon, apparently only because they're both from 'long ago'). Additionally, wild speculations about the language of Cro-Magnon man do not belong in an article about the Berber languages. — mark ✎ 10:29, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)

european speakers

So Ethnologue gives no figures for other European countries than France? Well, maybe I could help you with some rough figures from Holland. There are slightly more than 300.000 people of Moroccan origin in the Netherlands, of which 40% are Arabian an 60% are Berbers. That means that aproximately 200.000 people in the Netherlands speak Berber (perheps a little fewer). Indeed virtually all of them speak Berber as their native tongue, but among the younger generation, Dutch is more often used and many of the youngsters are more fluent in Dutch than in Berber.

I am new to this page but am working from Prasse to try to put together a dictionary of the various Tuareg words he lists into English - I use the term 'Tuareg' advisedly as there are at least seven different central Saharan dialects which I know of and although 'Tamachek' is the word most often used in English the people themselves use other words to refer to their language. I am English and I am also looking for a 'Tamachek' speaker who lives in England from the area (Algerie/Niger) to assist.

I have seen the articles about the Basques. DNA testing has been done on the European population which has confirmed that the Basques are the only people now living in Europe who were the original Stone Age peoples. Their language is also unique, most Europeans speak an Indo-Aryan language base. I am part Romany, part French and part Welsh, and all these languages have origin words from North India/Central Asia. The Guanche also speak a language which has words similar to Basque.

The Berber peoples, whether mountain/coastal or desert peoples (and there is a language difference between the two which my north Moroccan/Algerian friends acknowledge)are a very ancient people. Recent comparisons have confirmed that ancient Egyptian language is a Berber-related tongue. The Berber do have cultural similarities to the proto-Iberians. There are also cultural links to the Phoenicians of coastal settlements and to other prehistoric cultures of the western Mediterranean. The people are one of the most ancient peoples in the world, probably older than the Arabs.

This whole matter of relationships, looking at language, culture (craft items, carvings etc) and the physical structure of the peoples themselves, is a huge and fascinating subject and so far very little work has been done to decide who the Berber people are and where Berber culture spread to in the past. Part of the reason for this is the logistics of working in the physical landscape.

I apologise for this being so long an article but I look forward to your comments.

Daphne Hilsdon

While Berber languages could indeed be so ancient, comparisons of the kind of "older than Arabs" serve no rational purpose. The assertion that "ancient Egyptian language is a Berber-related tongue" is also an over-simplification, because it assumes that one language had existed in a form identifiable with its current state before the other has evolved as a deviation from it. While this model indeed exists, it could not be the case with Berber and Egyptian languages. What is more acceptable that both languages have in their ancestors an older Afro-Asiatic language that was neither Berber nor Egyptian. This reminds me of simple anti-evolutionists refusal of "Man being a descendant of a monkey" which no one has ever proposed!

In all cases, while many people share the interest in promoting the diversity of the various world cultures, pro-Berber enthusiasts here in Wikipedia need to learn to be more rational in their assertions, and more tolerant in discussions, bearing in mind that Wikipedia is not a place to promote certain ideologies or to publish original research; not until it has been peer-reviewed an established as accepted theses in academia. I'm talking from my experience both here and in fledgling Arabic Wikipedia where either long and intense word-fights are being held, or plain national pride propaganda is being left unchecked to avoid the hassle! --Alif 14:48, 5 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Yes I will agree. It would have been more accurate to say "proto-Berber". There is a problem in studying languages in this area because the word "berber" is one imposed on both the language and the people but neither has itself an "umbrella" or overall term to use.

Research has shown that the language roots of ancient Egyptian are closely related to the Berber tongues which are themselves of ancient origin, and knowledge of Amazigh or other Berber tongues has helped in deciphering ancient Egyptian. Early (19th century) philologists did not pick up on this because the languages of north Africa were ignored or not thought to be relevant.

I also wonder what relationship Maltese has to the Berber tongues. The use of the basic consonants ('t','m','kk', 'x' in Maltese)on which language comparison is largely based seem very similar though I haven't checked the languages against each other. Apart from the loan words which it has an abundance of, due to its history, there seems to be little relationship to nearby European languages. Has anyone loooked into this?

Maltese is a Semitic language. The Ethnologue (a highly reputable site) says in its summary description of Maltese

[...] It is descended from Maghrebi Arabic but has borrowed heavily from Italian; it is a separately developed form with different syntax and phonology.

Classification: Afro-Asiatic, Semitic, Central, South, Arabic

The Ethnologue classifies the Berber languages as a separate group within the Afro-Asiatic family.

You wrote, "Research has shown that the language roots of ancient Egyptian are closely related to the Berber tongues which are themselves of ancient origin, and knowledge of Amazigh or other Berber tongues has helped in deciphering ancient Egyptian." Can you cite a source for that?

Thnidu (talk) 04:31, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Meanwhile I will continue to concentrate on Tamazigh, Temazlayt, Tamachek. I am interested to find out how much what appear to be different words are different dialects or simply phonetically-written different accents. Given the large area over which this language is spoken then linguistic differences must occur. On the other hand, given the geographical environment, the Berber languages have remained remarkably similar over a very long period of time.

As I mentioned before I could do with help here.

Daphne Hilsdon

Good Article nomination has failed

The Good article nomination for Berber languages/Archive 1 has failed.

This article is very well written, but the lack of any inline references is the deciding factor in my failing of this article for GA. For those facts which do need verifibility please use the <ref></ref> tags instead of creating a gigantic list of references at the bottom of the page. For readers who do wish to check the sources, this will make doing so much easier. If you are unsure of how to use these tags consider looking at WP:FOOT for an indepth guide.

--SomeStranger^(t|c) 14:19, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, guys for the misunderstanding, this article meets the required criterias. The inline citation thing is needed for the FA but not mandatory when speaking about GA status. Congratulations. Lincher 21:41, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

That was a mistake on my part, sorry about that. Nevertheless, a few images would make this article better (if they can be found).--SomeStranger^(t|c) 10:33, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Map

Be warned that the current map is inaccurate in many important ways: Image talk:Berber-map.png. - Mustafaa 12:02, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

"P" in Berber languages

Are there any Berber languages which have the sound "P"? --84.61.42.64 08:27, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Yes. but it is just a variation of B, kabyle females from michlet speak with p instead of b -men speak with B- for example Repp^i instead of Rebb^i Toira 21:32, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Deleted dr M. Aashi

I deleted dr. M. Aashi, because he is no known authority in these matters and because his view has no adherents whatsoever. S710 19:57, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

Yemen Origin

It is stated in the article under the section called Origin that "Tamazight is a member of the Afro-Asiatic language family (formerly called Hamito-Semitic). Traditional genealogists of tribes claiming Arab origin often claimed that Berbers were Arabs that immigrated from Yemen. Some of them considered Tamazight to derive from Arabic. This view, however, is rejected by linguists, who regard Semitic and Berber as two separate branches of Afro-Asiatic."

These statements are a bit misleading. First some may think those traditional geneologists are of Arab origin while it is actually oral Berber (Amazigh) traditions passed down generation to generation and now well documented. This is not to say Berber are from a certain place. It is up for argument and research but the truth is that many Berber tribes that have always been independent and say Yemen is their origin. Those that state this is due to a direct effect of Arabs actually dont know the complexities of ancient Berber traditions as well as their independence.

Also it is misleading to "Tamazight is a member of the Afro-Asiatic language family (formerly called Hamito-Semitic). Traditional genealogists of tribes claiming Arab origin often claimed that Berbers were Arabs that immigrated from Yemen. Some of them considered Tamazight to derive from Arabic." It is well known Arabic has relatively recently entered some Berber vocabulary but I have never read or heard a scholor say Berber languages were derived from Arabic. Also it is misleading to say these genealogists concider or ever concidered Berbers were Arabs. This has never been brought up by any scholor.

The fact that many scholors & berber traditionalists claim Yemen as their origin does not mean Arab. Yemen does not always equal Arab. According to both Berber & scholars of the Arab world, Yemen was the origin of Arab tribes & other tribes that were not Arab (essencially similar tribes that had different languages). Ancient Yemen was ruled by the tribes that although were a middle eastern type people, did not speak Arabic. Only after thousands of years did the weaker Arab tribes overtake their cousin tribes that spoke the other ancient language.

If we take into concideration the time frame Berber traditionalists speak about it was during the time Yemen was predominantly ruled by non-Arabic speakers. According to Ancient Berber traditions those people of Yemen cut across the Red Sea to conqour what is now Ethiopia and from there set off north-westward to North Africa.

The key is not to prove Berber are from any other place other then North Africa but rather to make certain that the facts are not misleading. Berber geneologists & traditionalists can common tribal peoples modern and ancient claim to have Yemen heritage. Yemen does not equal Arab as Yemen spoke a different language. Many are confused between what is called the first Yemeni wave of immigration and the second. If the first happened when the berber traditionalist claim then it happened "before" Yemen was predominantly Arabic speaking. The second wave happened thousands of years later after the Arabic speaking Yemeni tribes overtook the other linguistic groups to become the majority then after accepting Islam went to north Africa to spread Islam. Only then can we assume those Yemeni tribes were Arab. These are all the methods scholars explain, which is completely clear and not misleading. One of the strangest oddities is the fact that DNA tests have brought Yemen and Berber as being the most close genetically. But don't be confused by the words caucasian in dna tests because rather then giving middle-easterners their own race all are listed under caucasian, this point has confused many Berber into thinking that caucasian automatically means aryan. It has never been said that Tamazight is from Arabic. by Mazighe

Linking Imazighen to Yemen is as awkward as trying to diffuse a galon of gasoline into a pint of water. It just can't happen nor is it soluble in water! Nevertheless, if mazigh fossils were to be excavated in Yemen, that would not surprise anthropologists at all. Crossing miles through the desert has been ans is still a usual thing among the Touaregs. About the term Berber: It comes from the greek word 'berbera' used to designate 'strangers' refering to those living on the other side of the sea. Then, the map of the globe just started taking basic shape and our planet beleived to be just flat. In the same perspective, the term "Atlas" refers to the territory of the "berbers" identifing today the Atlas Moutains, the Atlantic ocean and a "vanished" Atlantide continent.--TIDETZ 03:50, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

Question

The article states:

"Nouns in Berber languages vary in gender (masculine vs feminine), in number (singular vs plural) and in state (free state vs construct state). In the case of the masculine, nouns generally begin with one of the three vowels of Berber, a, u or i:

afus "hand"

argaz "man"

udm "face"

ul "heart"

ixf "head"

ils "tongue"

While the masculine is unmarked, the feminine is marked with the discontinuous morpheme t…t. Feminine plural takes a prefix t… :

afus → tafust

udm → tudmt

ixf → tixft

ifassn → tifassin"

Please excuse my stupidity, but how can there be a feminine of "hand", "face" or "head"?? And please give some examples of feminine plurals. --Sir Myles na Gopaleen (the da) 15:45, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

REPLY: I am not a native speaker of the language but my father is and I have some knowledge of it. As far as I've understood it masculine nouns are turned feminine as a way of creating diminutives. Thus the t-affixes should be viewed as the equivalent of diminutive suffixes such as -let in English or -lein and -chen in German (to use European language examples) and tafust would then mean little hand. Someone please correct me if I have gotten this wrong! Nothingbutmeat 13:25, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

REPLY: I am a linguist (language scientist) at the Linguistic Data Consortium of the University of Pennsylvania, currently working on Moroccan Berber. What Nothingbutmeat says about the feminine affixes also indicating a diminutive is supported by Ameur, M. et al., Initiation à la langue amazighe (2004. Centre l’Aménagement Linguistique. Publications de l’IRCAM. Série : Manuels. N° 1. Institut Royal de la Culture Amazighe), p. 46: "Les noms féminins désignent les êtres animés de sexe féminin mais aussi le diminutif ou le nom d'unité d'un collectif (végétaux, animaux)." I have added this information to the article. Thnidu (talk) 21:42, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Delisted GA

This article has been removed from the GA list due to lack of inline citations. If you disagree with this feel free to take it to WP:GA/R. Tarret 17:12, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Berber Scouting

Can someone render "Be Prepared", the Scout Motto, into the Berber scripts? Thanks! Chris 04:36, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

REPLY: That would be possible but pointless. Similarly, you can spell it out, sort of, in Cyrillic script -- Би припэрд -- and a Russian could read it back, sounding sort of like "be preperrt" to us; but he wouldn't understand it. You might ask if someone would translate the motto into one or more of the Berber languages (I can't). IMHO that would make more sense. -- Thnidu (talk) 04:39, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Bad external link

The URL http://www.syphax.nl/dossiers/trouw.html for the citation in "Mohamed Chafik claims 80% of Moroccans are Berbers.[3]" is bad. The domain still exists and is active and is evidently of Berber (Amazigh) interest -- the symbol says "Syphax" in Roman letters and Tifinagh, and a recent article seems to be a petition to allow Amazigh given names in Morocco -- but the specific page and its directory are both 404. Thnidu (talk) 21:41, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Missing Reference

I see a mention of Aikhenvald and Militarev (1991), but no corresponding entry in the bibliography. (Taivo (talk) 06:51, 26 February 2008 (UTC))

Extra e's

Earlier in January, someone added the letter e between every two adjoining consonants in the language examples, resulting in the now-puzzling section:

       The second involves the loss of the initial vowel, in the case of some feminine nouns:
       tamγart → temγart "old women"
       tamdint → temdint "town"
       tarbat → terbat "girl"

The same person, 193.45.226.195, changed gh -> γ, so they might know what they're talking about, though several of their edits on other articles were deemed vandalism. Does anyone know enough of the language to know if those e's should be there? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.179.7.83 (talk) 23:05, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

i only just ran into this; it's because French linguists stick in schwas in all the books on Berber, which are written with the plain e. I'll fix it to clarify the meaning... em zilch (talk) 23:06, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

relation between berber language and nubian language

I have heard from some nubians from northern sudan who were residing in libya that the berber language as spoken in libya is similar to the nubian language and can be easily understood by them, but i have not found this information in any reference... is this because the linguistics experts who studied berber language are different from the ones who have studied nubian language, and therefore the similarity between the two languages has not been brought to light, or are the languages not related? I hope an expert in the two languages can give an opinion on that. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 41.209.77.57 (talk) 12:58, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Even a cursory inspection of the grammars of any Nilotic language and any Berber language reveals much more difference than similarity. The sound systems differ radically, the verbal morphology differs radically, the lexicon is nothing alike. It is not at all uncommon to hear people make uneducated comments like the above. I have read the same thing written in the literature from the 19th century about Hebrew and half a dozen unrelated Native American languages. Plus, you must consider three factors: First, the nubians living in Libya undoubtedly knew Arabic; second, any Berbers living in Libya also know and speak a lot of Arabic; third, the Berber languages that were once spoken in Libya are nearly extinct, so the chances of Nubians living in Libya hearing Berber are virtually nil. They probably heard someone speaking Arabic with an accent and thought it was "Berber". The Nilotic languages and Berber are completely unrelated. (Taivo (talk) 15:28, 2 June 2008 (UTC))

Speaker figures

hello

the figures given for Berber speakers in Morocco - 11 million, 7 million and 5 million - are far too high. They add up to 23 million, more than 75%, that's very much more than what the text claims is the Ethnologue's figure of 65% - that would be not more than 19.5 million. And then I checked the Ethnologue: figures there are 3 - 3 -1.5 million for the three dialects, that doesn't add up to more than 7.5 million or 25%. That's for sure too low - the official Moroccan figures are higher. I'll fix that. --Ilyacadiz (talk) 03:47, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

Tamazight

In Tamazight the same as Berber, or just Northern Berber? kwami (talk) 23:19, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

hello Kwamikagami, good question. I'm quite sure that there is no established usage - not yet - and it will not be very easy to fix a clear answer.

The point here is that, except for Tamasheq, the Tuareg language, almost ALL commonly spoken Berber languages belong to Northern Berber, at least according to the WP entry. Excluding 200-300 people in Mauritania, a few thousands in Libya and the inhabitants of Siwa, chances are high, very high, that any Berber-speaker you might refer to would be a Northern Berber speaker, or else a Tuareg speaker. Now, is Tuareg language commonly considered Tamazight? I would say it was not - the impression was given that it was the only Berber language which is really different from the rest. I myself used to distinguish Tamazight from Tamasheq. But with the growing national consciousness of Berber culture groups, this line might get blurred. Berbers use the word Amazigh for Berber ethnicity, and Tuareg are always included there. As Tamazight is the female form for Amazigh, and describes the language, there is no reason why it should not refer to Tamasheq language also. (And I've been told by a Tashelhit speaker from Casablanca that he could understand a Tuareg speaker from Niger better than any Tarifit speaker from Northern Morocco, so the differences might not be so huge after all).

Traditional Berbers rarely use the word Tamazight for any other dialect than the Central Morocco Tamazight spoken only in the Middle Atlas. The other Nortern Berber languages are commonly referred to with their local names: Tachelhit, Tarifit, Taqbaylit, Tachauit... (from the ethnic groups Chelha, Rifi, Kabyle, Chaouia...). So it will be figured out over the next years, I think, wether Tamazight will commonly include Tamasheq in modern usage or a lingüistic line will be drawn to distinguish those languages --Ilyacadiz (talk) 20:52, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

All right, that seems reasonable and is in line with the very little that I know. I'll reword so as to not imply such certitude. kwami (talk) 22:57, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

Grammar section is in which Berber language?

While I'd guess that the grammatical features noted in the article's grammar section are probably close to universal in the Berber languages, I'd assume that the lexical material must reflect a particular language. Which is being used? Mo-Al (talk) 03:57, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

Good question. As far as my knowledge reaches, the vocabulary is consistent with Moroccan Tashelhit or else Central Moroccan Tamazight - both dialects are nearly indistinguishable, in such a small sample of words with a simplified transcription, which does not record minor pronunciation differences. I'l go further: In 2004, Morocco introduced Tamazight as a regular subject in schools and for this purpose standardized the language. School books does not any longer distinguish between the often mentioned three Moroccan dialects and include all their features as acceptable variants within the standardized form. So we can now speak of "Moroccan Tamazight" as a language, which does include even Tarifit, although this is pronounced quite different from the rest.

I do not speak any Kabyle and therefore can't know if the vocabulary would be consistent with Kabyle, too; it is, however, possible, as differences between most of the Berber dialects/languages are not too big. --Ilyacadiz (talk) 12:13, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

Well my book on Central Moroccan Tamazight says the construct state can be used for both transitive and intransitive subjects, but only when they come after the verb, which would contradict the ergativity claim. Mo-Al (talk) 14:42, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

I wouldn't be too sure that that's a difference between two dialects... it could be very well a difference between two definitions of the use. I've checked the meaning of ergative case and I'm quite sure it's wrongly used here. I might be mistaken, but I'd be surprised if a Kabyle said Urgaz inegh uccen instead of Argaz inegh uccen (the man kills the jackal), which should be said if it was really an ergative case.

By the way, the word uccen is wrongly translated as "wolf" in the text - there are no wolves in North West Africa, where Berber is spoken. The word means "jackal". This confusion is very common, as the same animal is called Dib in Maghrebi Arabic (from Arabic Di'b = Wolf, whereas jackal would be Ibn Awa). --Ilyacadiz (talk) 22:40, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

Standard Arabic "dhi'b-, dhiib-" actually refers to both the wolf and the jackal; the confusion is in dictionaries that don't clarify this and that local modern usages tend to specify one or the other [as in the case of Darija dib above]. Ogress _smash! 23:32, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

Well regardless, it would probably be a good idea to chose a dialect/language for the grammar samples to be chosen from, and have it stated explicitly on the page. Otherwise nothing the article states is falsifiable. Mo-Al (talk) 04:18, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

I agree. But who could do it except for the one who wrote it? Or should we rewrite it? Thanks for the clarification, Ogress!--Ilyacadiz (talk) 13:24, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps we should just guess which one it's closest to. Then we can begin to correct the errors by consulting sources for that language. We could just say Kabyle, since it has the most speakers (though I also can't judge the vocabulary). Mo-Al (talk)