Ghomara language

Ghomara
Ghomara
Native to	Morocco
Region	Chefchaouen Province
Ethnicity	Ghomara
Native speakers	10,000 (2008)[1]
Language family	Afro-Asiatic Berber Northern Atlas[2][3] Ghomara; ; ; ;
Language codes
ISO 639-3	gho
Glottolog	ghom1257
ELP	Ghomara
	Ghomara Berber

The Ghomara language is a Northern Berber language spoken in Morocco. It is the mother tongue of the Ghomara Berbers, who total around 10,000 people. Ghomara Berber is spoken on the western edge of the Rif, among the Beni Bu Zra and Beni Mansur tribes of the Ghomara confederacy. Despite being listed as endangered, it is still being passed on to children in these areas.[4]

Ghomara Berber is relatively similar to Senhadja de Srair Berber spoken around Ketama. However, it is difficult to understand for a speaker of Rifian.

Some typical features that distinguish the Ghomara variety of Berber from Rifian Berber are the use of the preposition dar instead of the Rifian ghar, the feminine plural ending -an instead of -in, and the absence of spirantisation in word-initial position.

Current status

Although elderly Ghomara teach children how to speak Ghomara Berber at home, the language is still considered threatened, with only 10,000 known speakers. A major reason can be attributed to the small geographical location where this language is used, as well as the more common usage of Moroccan Arabic throughout Morocco.

Phonology

Vowels

Like Arabic, Ghomara and the other Berber dialects have three vowels: a-, i-, u-.[5]

Consonants

Ghomara has 44 consonants, and most consonants in Ghomara have geminated forms.[6]

		Bilabial	Dental		Alveolar		Post- alveolar	Velar		Uvular		Pharyngeal	Glottal
		Bilabial	plain	phar.	plain	phar.	Post- alveolar	plain	lab.	plain	lab.	Pharyngeal	Glottal
Nasal		m			n
Plosive/ Affricate	voiceless	p			t	tˤ	t͡ʃ	k	kʷ	q			(ʔ)
Plosive/ Affricate	voiced	b			d	dˤ	d͡ʒ	g	gʷ
Fricative	voiceless	ɸ	θ		s	sˤ	ʃ	x	xʷ	χ	χʷ	ħ
Fricative	voiced	β	ð	(ðˤ)	z	zˤ	ʒ	ɣ	ɣʷ	ʁ	ʁʷ	ʕ
Approximant					l	(lˤ)	j		w				ʔ̞
Flap					r	rˤ

Grammar

Nouns

For nouns in Ghomara Berber, there are several common trends. The prefix a-, i-, or u- commonly identifies the masculine singular nouns in the language (i.e., arg'az “man”). For feminine singular nouns, there is both a prefix and a suffix such as ta-...-t (i.e., tarbat “girl”). This is the most common way to identify feminine singular nouns. Masculine plural nouns are characterized by i-...-en or i-...-an (i.e., irg'azen “men”). For feminine plural nouns, ti-...-an (i.e., tirbatan “girls”) is the most common circumfix.[5]

Pronouns

Ghomara Berber uses personal, singular, and plural pronouns.

The first person singular pronoun nekkin is equivalent to "I" in English. The second person singular male pronoun kedžin and female pronoun kemmin is equivalent to "you" in English. Similarly, in Ghomara Berber, the third person singular male pronoun netta and female pronoun nettaθa is equivalent to him or her in English respectively.

The first person plural pronoun nuçna is equivalent to "we" in English and the second person plural pronoun kunna is equivalent to "you all" in English. Lastly, niçma is the third person plural pronoun equivalent to "they" in English, and is not distinguished by gender.

Verbs

In Ghomara Berber verbs contain certain affixes that characterize singularity, plurality, and point of view (POV). The following is an example of the verb conjugations for the English word "to write" or ara in Ghomara Berber:

		singular	plural
1st POV		ara-x	n-ara
2nd POV		t-ara-t	t-ara-m
3rd POV	Masculine	y-ara	ara-n*
3rd POV	Feminine	t-ara	ara-n*

Adjectives

Adjectives have either suffix -ø, which characterizes masculine singular nouns or -θ, which characterizes both feminine singular and all plural nouns. For example:

Masculine singular: tayfur mellulø “the, a white table”
Feminine singular: tamɣart mezziθ “the, a little woman”
Masculine plural: irgazen muqqreθ “(the) big men”
Feminine plural: timettutan muqqreθ “(the) big women”

Vocabulary

An example of common English words in Ghomara Berber:[5]

targat: “dream”
ahlan: “welcome, hello”
hemmam: “bathroom”
tamuda: “pig"
lmakla: “food”
tanebdut: “summer”
kama: “bed” (borrowed from Spanish)

Numbers

Ghomara Berber uses a numerical system similar to many other languages. Cardinal numbers yan (“one”, masculine) and yat (“one”, feminine) are the only Berber numerals in Ghomara, while all the other cardinal numbers are borrowed from Moroccan Arabic (zuž (“two”), tlata (“three”), ɛišrin (“twenty”), tlatin (“thirty”), etc.).

References

Jamal El Hannouche, Arabic influence in Ghomara Berber, 2010
Maarten Kossmann, Berber subclassification (preliminary version), Leiden (2011)
Sebastian Nordhoff et al., "Ghomara", in: Glottolog 2.2, Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology (2013)
"Did you know Ghomara is threatened?". Endangered Languages. Retrieved 2017-07-19.
El Hannouche, Jamal (2008). Ghomara Berber: A Brief Grammatical Survey (Master thesis).
Mourigh 2015