Berber languages

The term Berber has been used in Europe since at least the 17th century to refer to North African Indigenous peoples and is still used today. It was borrowed from Latin barbari, which variously translates to "foreigner" or "uncivilized" or "savage" in English. The Latin word is also found in the Arabic designation for Imazighen, البربر (al-Barbar). Today, it is considered by different sources to be an ethnic slur.[9][10][11] The term "Berber" is still used variously in academic settings and in both Glottolog and the ISO; see Names of the Imazighen.

Etymologically, the Tamazight root M-Z-Ɣ ⵎ-ⵣ-ⵖ (Mazigh) (singular noun: Amazigh, plural noun: Imazighen, feminine: Tamazight) means "free man", "noble man", or "defender". Many European linguists of this Semitic language family prefer to consider the term Tamazight as a word to be used only in Tamazight text while using the European word "Berber/Berbero/Berbère" in European texts to follow the traditions of European writings about the peoples of North Africa. European languages distinguish between the words "Berber" and "barbarian", while Arabic has the same word al-Barbari for both meanings.

Some other Tamazight writers, especially in Morocco, prefer to refer to Tamazight with Amazigh when writing about it in French or English.

Traditionally, the term Tamazight (in various forms: Thamazighth, Tamasheq, Tamajaq, Tamahaq) was used by many Imazighen to refer to the languages they spoke, including the Middle Atlas, the Riffians, the Sened in Tunisia and the Tuareg. However, other terms were used by other groups; for instance, some Imazighen populations of Algeria called their language Taznatit (Zenati) or Shelha, while the Kabyles called theirs Taqbaylit, and the inhabitants of the Siwa Oasis called their language Siwi. In Tunisia, the local Amazigh language is usually referred to as Shelha, a term which has been observed in Morocco as well.[12]

One group, the Linguasphere Observatory, has attempted to introduce the neologism "Tamazic languages" to refer to the Tamazight languages.[13]

Tamazight is a branch of the Afroasiatic language family.[14] Since modern Tamazight languages are relatively homogeneous, the date of the Proto-Tamazight language from which the modern group is derived was probably comparatively recent, comparable to the age of the Germanic or Romance subfamilies of the Indo-European family. In contrast, the split of the group from the other Afroasiatic sub-phyla is much earlier, and is therefore sometimes associated with the local Mesolithic Capsian culture.[15] A number of extinct populations are believed to have spoken Afroasiatic languages of the Tamazight branch. According to Peter Behrens and Marianne Bechaus-Gerst, linguistic evidence suggests that the peoples of the C-Group culture in present-day southern Egypt and northern Sudan spoke Tamazight languages.[16][17] The Nilo-Saharan Nobiin language today contains a number of key loanwords related to pastoralism that are of Tamazight origin, including the terms for sheep and water/Nile. This in turn suggests that the C-Group population—which, along with the Kerma culture, inhabited the Nile valley immediately before the arrival of the first Nubian speakers—spoke Afro-Asiatic languages.[16]

Roger Blench has suggested that Proto-Tamazight speakers spread from the Nile River valley to North Africa 4,000–5,000 years ago due to the spread of pastoralism, and experienced intense language leveling about 2,000 years ago.[18] Hence, although Tamazight had split off from Afroasiatic several thousand years ago, Proto-Tamazight itself can only be reconstructed to a period as late as 200 A.D. Blench noted that Tamazight is considerably different from other Afroasiatic branches, but modern-day Tamazight languages display low internal diversity. The presence of Punic borrowings in Proto-Tamazight points to the diversification of modern Tamazight language varieties subsequent to the fall of Carthage in 146 B.C.; only Zenaga lacks Punic loanwords.[18] Additionally, Latin loanwords in Proto-Tamazight point to the breakup of Proto-Tamazight between 1 and 200 A.D. During this time period, Roman innovations including the ox-plough, camel, and orchard management were adopted by Tamazight communities along the limes, or borders of the Roman Empire, as evidenced by the frequency of Latin loanwords from this period in these semantic domains.[18] This resulted in a new trading culture involving the use of a lingua franca which became Proto-Tamazight.[18]

Ancient Libyco-Tamazight inscriptions in Zagora, Morocco

Various orthographies have been used to transcribe the Tamazight languages. In antiquity, the Libyco-Tamazight script (Tifinagh) was utilised to write the Numidian language, also called Old Libyan. Early uses of the script have been found on rock art and in various sepulchres. Among these are the 1,500-year-old monumental tomb of the Tuareg matriarch Tin Hinan, where vestiges of a Tifinagh inscription have been found on one of the walls.[19]

Following the spread of Islam, some Berber scholars also utilised the Arabic script. There are now three writing systems in use for Tamazight languages: Tifinagh, the Arabic script, and the Tamazight Latin alphabet.[20]

After independence, all the Maghreb countries to varying degrees pursued a policy of Arabisation, aimed partly at displacing French from its colonial position as the dominant language of education and literacy. Under this policy the use of the Amazigh/Tamazight languages was suppressed or even banned. This state of affairs has been contested by Tamazights in Morocco and Algeria—especially Kabylie—and was addressed in both countries by affording the language official status and introducing it in some schools.

The 2011 constitution of Morocco makes "Amazigh" an official language alongside Arabic. Morocco is a country with several competing languages, including French, Modern Standard Arabic, Moroccan Arabic and Amazigh. As the higher status of Modern Standard Arabic grew, so did the relation between the male population and the language, as well as the female population and the lower status language Amazigh. Women became the main carriers of the Amazigh language as the lower-status language in the country.[21] On 17 June 2011 King Mohammed VI announced in a speech of new constitutional reform that "Tamazight" became an official language of Morocco alongside Arabic and will be used in all the administrations in the future.[22] On 30 April 2012 Fatima Chahou, alias Tabaamrant, former singer and member of the Moroccan House of Representatives, became the first person to ask questions and discuss the minister's answer in Tamazight inside the Parliament of Morocco.

Algeria recognized Tamazight as a "national language" in 2002,[23] though not as an official one. However, on 7 February 2016 the Algerian parliament recognised Tamazight languages as having official status along with Arabic.[24][25]

Although regional councils in Libya's Nafusa Mountains affiliated with the National Transitional Council reportedly use the Tamazight language of Nafusi and have called for it to be granted co-official status with Arabic in a prospective new constitution,[26][27] it does not have official status in Libya as in Morocco and Algeria. As areas of Libya south and west of Tripoli such as the Nafusa Mountains were taken from the control of Gaddafi government forces in early summer 2011, Tamazight workshops and exhibitions sprang up to share and spread the Tamazight culture and language.[28]

In Mali and Niger, there are a few schools that teach partially in Tuareg languages.

Although the sound system of the different Tamazight languages displays basic similarities, the reconstruction of the Proto-Tamazight sound inventory is made difficult by sound changes that are hard to retrace and a severely bewildering diversity of allophones.

One characteristic of the Tamazight languages, as well as of other Afroasiatic languages, is the presence of pharyngealized consonants. The existence of phonemic gemination, accompanied by fortis articulation, is typically Afroasiatic, too. However, some caution is advised in making such parallels, with the influence of Arabic on Tamazight languages. As such, the phonemes /sˁ/, /ħ/ and /ʕ/, three typically Afroasiatic consonants, were borrowed from Arabic and can't be reconstructed for Proto-Tamazight.

Most consonant phonemes could also occur as geminates, and the place and manner of articulation of the geminate allophone partially diverged. For example, ‘’qq’’ was the geminated version of γ.

The following consonant phonemes are postulated for Proto-Tamazight by Maarten Kossmann (in Kossmann's transcription of what he called "Proto-Berber"):[29]

Most northern Tamazight languages have the four vowels a, i, u and ə, but the last one has partially sub-phonemic status, since it is predictable based on the syllable structure in certain languages. Vowel length and stress are generally not phonemic. Tuareg and Ghadames, however, have both the long vowels a, i, u, e, o and the short vowels ə and ă (also transcribed as ä/æ). For Proto-Tamazight, the short vowels /a/, /i/, /u/ and the long vowels /aa/, /ii/, /uu/, /ee/ are reconstructed, whereas /oo/ probably was not in the protolanguage.[31]

Concerning syllable structures, Tuareg permits almost only V, VC, CV, CVC, but many northern dialects may have more complex consonant clusters as well. The accent is so far under-researched, as the only detailed analysis is the one offered by Heath 2005 for Tuareg.[32][33]

The morphology of Tamazight is fusional, which is reflected especially in the frequent use of apophony. The base is the root, which consists of a sequence of mostly three, less frequently one, two or four consonants. It contains exclusively lexical information, whereas grammatical information is provided to a significant degree by their vocalisation.

Above all in the area of basic lexicon, the Tamazight languages are very similar. However, the household-related vocabulary in sedentary tribes is especially different from the one found in nomadic ones, whereas Tahaggart has only two or three designations for species of palm tree, other languages may have as many as 200 similar words.[51] In contrast, Tahaggart has a rich vocabulary for the description of camels.[52] Above all the northern Tamazight languages have replaced a great part of the inherited vocabulary with Arabic loans. On the one hand, the words and expressions connected to Islam were borrowed, e.g. Shilha bismillah "in the name of Allah" < Classical Arabic bi-smi-llāhi, Tuareg ta-mejjīda "mosque" (Arabic masjid); on the other, Tamazight adopted cultural concepts such as Kabyle ssuq "market" from Arabic as-sūq, tamdint "town" < Arabisch madīna. Even expressions such as the Arabic greeting as-salāmu ʿalaikum "Peace be upon you!" were adopted (Tuareg salāmu ɣlīkum).[53] The Tamazight languages often have original Tamazight designations besides the Arabic loans; for instance, both the inherited word ataram and the loan lɣərb (Arabic al-ġarb) coexist in Kabyle. In more recent times, European languages have also had some influence on Tamazight, so that words such as "internet" were adopted in it (Kabyle intərnət[54]).

The exact population of Tamazight speakers is hard to ascertain, since most North African countries do not record language data in their censuses. Ethnologue provides a useful academic starting point; however, its bibliographic references are very inadequate, and it rates its own accuracy at only B-C for the area. Early colonial censuses may provide better documented figures for some countries; however, these are also very much out of date.

Few census figures are available; all countries (Algeria and Morocco included) do not count Tamazight languages. The 1972 Niger census reported Tuareg, with other languages, at 127,000 speakers. Population shifts in location and number, effects of urbanization and education in other languages, etc., make estimates difficult. In 1952, André Basset (LLB.4) estimated the number of Tamazightophones at 5,500,000. Between 1968 and 1978 estimates ranged from eight to thirteen million (as reported by Galand, LELB 56, pp. 107, 123–25); Voegelin and Voegelin (1977, p. 297) call eight million a conservative estimate. In 2006, Salem Chaker estimated that the Tamazightophone populations of Kabylie and the three Moroccan groups numbered more than one million each; and that in Algeria, 9,650,000, or one out of five Algerians, speak a Tamazight language (Chaker 1984, pp. 8–9).[55]

Percentage of Tamazight speakers in Morocco at the 2004 census[56]

Map of Tamazight-speaking areas in Morocco

• Morocco: In 1960, the first census after Moroccan independence was held. It claimed that 32 percent of Moroccans spoke Tamazight, including bi-, tri- and quadrilingual people.[57] A 2007 estimate put the number of Amazigh speakers in Morocco at 7.5 million.[58] Ethnologue also put the Tamazight-speaking population at roughly 7.5 million, divided into three main dialects.[59]
  • Riffian: 1.3 million[59]
  • Shilha: 3.9 million[59]
  • Central Atlas Tamazight: 2.3 million[59]

A survey included in the official Moroccan census of 2004 and published by several Moroccan newspapers gave the following figures: 34 percent of people in rural regions were first language Tamazight speakers and 21 percent in urban zones were; the national average was 28.4 percent or 8.52 million.[57]

The division of Moroccan Tamazight languages into three groups, as used by Ethnologue, is common in linguistic publications, but is significantly complicated by the presence of local differences: Shilha is subdivided into Shilha of the Draa River valley, Tasusit (the language of the Souss) and several other mountain languages. Moreover, linguistic boundaries are blurred, such that certain languages cannot accurately be described as either Central Morocco Tamazight (spoken in the central and eastern Atlas area) or Shilha.

• Algeria: In 1906, the total population speaking Tamazight languages in Algeria (excluding the thinly populated Sahara region) was estimated at 1,305,730 out of 4,447,149, i.e. 29 percent.
  

  Kabyle and Shawiya languages in the central-eastern part of Algeria
  (Doutté & Gautier, Enquête sur la dispersion de la langue berbère en Algérie, faite par l'ordre de M. le Gouverneur Général, Alger 1913.) The 1911 census, however, found 1,084,702 speakers out of 4,740,526, i.e. 23 percent; Doutté & Gautier suggest that this was the result of a serious undercounting of Shawiya in areas of widespread bilingualism. A trend was noted for Tamazight groups surrounded by Arabic (as in the city of Blida) to adopt Arabic, while Arabic speakers surrounded by Tamazight (as in Sikh ou Meddour near the city of Tizi Ouzou) tended to adopt Tamazight. In 1952, André Basset estimated that about a third of Algeria's population spoke Tamazight. According to historian Charles-Robert Ageron in 1886, Algeria had around 1.2 million Tamazight speakers and 1.1 million Arab speakers. The Algerian census of 1966 found 2,297,997 out of 12,096,347 Algerians, or 19 percent, to speak "Tamazight". In 1980, Salem Chaker estimated that "in Algeria, 3,650,000, or one out of five Algerians, speak a Tamazight language" (Chaker 1984, pp. 8–9). According to Ethnologue,[60] more recent estimates include 14 percent (corresponding to the total figures it gives for each Tamazight language added together, 4 million) and (by deduction from its Algerian Arabic figures) 29 percent (Hunter 1996). Most of these are accounted for by three languages (percentages based on historical population data from appropriate dates):[61]

Shenwa language in the central-western part of Algeria

• Kabyle: 2,540,000 or 9 percent (Ethnologue, 1995); 6,000,000 or 20 percent (Ethnologue, 1998). Mainly in Algiers, Béjaïa, Tizi Ouzou, Bouïra, Sétif and Boumerdès.
• Shawiya: ~2 million or 8.5 percent of the population as of 2005.[62] Mainly in Batna, Khenchela, Sétif, Souk Ahras, Oum El Bouaghi and Tébessa.
• Shenwa: 56,300 speakers according to an estimate, in the Dahra Range region, more precisely Mount Chenoua, just west of Algiers in the provinces of Tipaza, Chlef and Aïn Defla. Two main languages: Beni Menacer, west and south of the Mount Chenoua area and in the Mount Chenoua area, with 55,250 speakers.[63]

A fourth group, despite a very small population, accounts for most of the land area where Tamazight is spoken:

• Tuareg: 25,000 in Algeria (Ethnologue, 1987), mainly in the Hoggar Mountains of the Sahara. Most Tuareg live in Mali and Niger (see below).

Other Tamazight languages spoken in Algeria include: the Tamazight of Blida, the languages of the Beni Snouss and Beni Boussaid villages in the province of Tlemcen, the Matmata Tamazight spoken in the Ouarsenis region, the Mozabite language spoken in the region of the province of Mzab and the language of the Ouargla oasis.

• Tunisia: Basset (1952) estimated about 1 percent, as did Penchoen (1968). According to Ethnologue, there are only 26,000 speakers (1998) of a Tamazight language it calls "Djerbi", but which Tunisians call "Shelha", in Tunisia, all in the south around Djerba and Matmata. The more northerly enclave of Sened no longer speaks Tamazight. This would make 0.3 percent of the population. Chenini is also one of the rare remaining Tamazight-speaking villages in Tunisia.[64]
• Libya: According to Ethnologue (by deduction from its combined Libyan Arabic and Egyptian Arabic figures) the non-Arabic-speaking population, most of which would be Tamazight, is estimated at 4 percent (1991, 1996). However, the individual language figures it gives add up to 162,000, i.e. about 3 percent. This is mostly accounted for by the languages:
  • Nafusi in the Nafusa Mountains and Zuwara Tamazight in the city of Zuwarah in the Tripolitania region: 184,000.[65]
  • Tahaggart (Tamahaq) language of the Tuareg branch of the town of Ghat: 17,000 (Johnstone 1993).
• Egypt: The oasis of Siwa near the Libyan border speaks a Tamazight language; according to Ethnologue, there are 5,000 speakers there (1995). Its population in 1907 was 3,884 (according to the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica).
• Mauritania: According to Ethnologue, only 200 to 300 speakers of Zenaga remain (1998). It also mentions Tamasheq, but does not provide a population figure for it. Most non-Arabic speakers in Mauritania speak Niger–Congo languages.
• Mali: Ethnologue counts 440,000 Tuareg (1991) speaking:

Tamasheq: 250,000

Tamajaq: 190,000

• Niger: Ethnologue counts 720,000 Tuareg (1998) speaking:

Tawallamat Tamajaq: 450,000

Tayart Tamajeq: 250,000

Tamahaq: 20,000

• Burkina Faso: Ethnologue counts 20,000 to 30,000 Tuareg (SIL International 1991), speaking Kel Tamasheq. However Ethnologue is very inaccurate here, appearing to miss the largest group of Tamasheq in Burkina in the province of Oudalan. The Tamasheq-speaking population of Burkina is nearer to 100,000 (2005), with around 70,000 Tamasheq speakers in the province of Oudalan, the rest mainly in Seno, Soum, Yagha, Yatenga and Kadiogo provinces. About 10 percent of Burkina Tamasheq speak a version of the Tawallamat language.
• Nigeria: Ethnologue notes the presence of a "few" Tuareg, speaking Tawallamat Tamajaq.
• France: Ethnologue lists 860,000 speakers for Riffian and 537,000 speakers for Kabyle and 400,000 for Shilha[66] and 150,000 for Central Morocco Tamazight . For the rest of Europe, it has no figures.
• Spain: Tamazight is spoken amongst Melilla's 80,000 inhabitants, but there has been no census as to the percentage of its speakers. A minority of Ceuta's inhabitants speak Tamazight.[67]
• Israel: Around two thousand mostly elderly Moroccan-born Israelis of Tamazight Jewish descent use Judeo-Tamazight languages (as opposed to Moroccan Jews who trace descent from Spanish-speaking Sephardi Jews expelled from Spain, or Arabic-speaking Moroccan Jews).

Thus, the total number of speakers of Tamazight languages in the Maghreb proper appears to lie anywhere between 16 and 25 million, depending on which estimate is accepted; if we take Basset's estimate, it could be as high as 30 million. The vast majority are concentrated in Morocco and Algeria. The Tuareg of the Sahel adds another million or so to the total.

Modern Tamazight branches:

Western Berber:   Zenaga language Northern Berber:   Atlas languages   Zenati languages   Kabyle language

Tuareg:   Tuareg languages Eastern Berber:   Siwa language

A listing of the other Tamazight languages is complicated by their closeness; there is little distinction between language and dialect. The primary difficulty of subclassification, however, lies in the eastern Tamazight languages, where there is little agreement. Otherwise there is consensus on the outlines of the family:

• Eastern Tamazight (scope debated)
• Northern Tamazight
  • Zenati (incl. Riffian and Shawiya)
  • Kabyle
  • Atlas (incl. Shilha and Central Atlas Tamazight)
• Tuareg
• Western Tamazight
  • Zenaga
  • Tetserret

The various classifications differ primarily in what they consider to be Eastern Tamazight, and in how many varieties they recognise as distinct languages.

There is so little data available on Guanche that any classification is necessarily uncertain; however, it is almost universally acknowledged as Afro-Asiatic on the basis of the surviving glosses, and widely suspected to be Tamazight. Much the same can be said of the language, sometimes called "Numidian", used in the Libyan or Libyco-Tamazight inscriptions around the turn of the Common Era, whose alphabet is the ancestor of Tifinagh.

A diagram depicting one understanding of the classification of Tamazight languages

The Tamazight languages have influenced Maghrebi Arabic languages, such as Moroccan, Algerian, Libyan and Tunisian Arabic. Their influence is also seen in some languages in West Africa. F. W. H. Migeod pointed to strong resemblances between Tamazight and Hausa in such words and phrases as these: Tamazight: obanis; Hausa obansa (his father); Tamazight: a bat; Hausa ya bata (he was lost); Tamazight: eghare; Hausa ya kirra (he called). In addition he notes that the genitive in both languages is formed with n = "of".[69]

A number of extinct populations are believed to have spoken Afro-Asiatic languages of the Tamazight branch. According to Peter Behrens (1981) and Marianne Bechaus-Gerst (2000), linguistic evidence suggests that the peoples of the C-Group culture in present-day southern Egypt and northern Sudan spoke Tamazight languages.[16][17] The Nilo-Saharan Nobiin language today contains a number of key pastoralism related loanwords that are of Tamazight origin, including the terms for sheep and water/Nile. This in turn suggests that the C-Group population—which, along with the Kerma culture, inhabited the Nile valley immediately before the arrival of the first Nubian speakers—spoke Afro-Asiatic languages.[16]

Additionally, historical linguistics indicate that the Guanche language, which was spoken on the Canary Islands by the ancient Guanches, likely belonged to the Tamazight branch of the Afro-Asiatic family.[70]

• List of Tamazight-language television channels
• Amazigh Cultural Association in America

• Medieval Tamazight Orthography, Boogert, Leiden University PDF
• Brett, Michael; & Fentress, Elizabeth (1997). The Tamazights (The Peoples of Africa). ISBN 0-631-16852-4. ISBN 0-631-20767-8 (Pbk).
• Abdel-Masish, Ernest T. 1971. A Reference Grammar of Tamazight (Middle Atlas Tamazight). Ann Arbor: Center for Near Eastern and North African Studies, The University of Michigan
• Basset, André. 1952. La langue berbère. Handbook of African Languages 1, ser. ed. Daryll Forde. London: Oxford University Press
• Chaker, Salem. 1995. Linguistique berbère: Études de syntaxe et de diachronie. M. S.—Ussun amaziɣ 8, ser. ed. Salem Chaker. Paris and Leuven: Uitgeverij Peeters
• Dallet, Jean-Marie. 1982. Dictionnaire kabyle–français, parler des At Mangellet, Algérie. Études etholinguistiques Maghreb–Sahara 1, ser. eds. Salem Chaker, and Marceau Gast. Paris: Société d’études linguistiques et anthropologiques de France
• de Foucauld, Charles Eugène. 1951. Dictionnaire touareg–français, dialecte de l’Ahaggar. 4 vols. [Paris]: Imprimerie nationale de France
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• ———. 1987. Agerraw n iwalen: teggargrent–taṛumit, Dictionnaire ouargli–français, langue parlée à Oaurgla et Ngoussa, oasis du Sahara septentrinal, Algérie. Études etholinguistiques Maghreb–Sahara 5, ser. eds. Salem Chaker, and Marceau Gast. Paris: Société d’études linguistiques et anthropologiques de France
• Kossmann, Maarten G. 1999. Essai sur la phonologie du proto-berbère. Grammatische Analysen afrikanischer Sprachen 12, ser. eds. Wilhelm J. G. Möhlig, and Bernd Heine. Köln: Rüdiger Köppe Verlag
• Kossmann, Maarten G., and Hendrikus Joseph Stroomer. 1997. "Tamazight Phonology". In Phonologies of Asia and Africa (Including the Caucasus), edited by Alan S. Kaye. 2 vols. Vol. 1. Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns. 461–475
• Naït-Zerrad, Kamal. 1998. Dictionarrie des racines berbères (formes attestées). Paris and Leuven: Centre de Recherche Berbère and Uitgeverij Peeters
• Karl-Gottfried Prasse, Ghubăyd ăgg-Ălăwžəli, and Ghăbdəwan əg-Muxămmăd. 1998. Asăggălalaf: Tămaẓəq–Tăfrăsist – Lexique touareg–français. 2nd ed. Carsten Niebuhr Institute Publications 24, ser. eds. Paul John Frandsen, Daniel T. Potts, and Aage Westenholz. København: Museum Tusculanum Press
• Quitout, Michel. 1997. Grammaire berbère (rifain, tamazight, chleuh, kabyle). Paris and Montréal: Éditions l’Harmattan
• Rössler, Otto. 1958. "Die Sprache Numidiens". In Sybaris: Festschrift Hans Krahe zum 60. Geburtstag am 7. February 1958, dargebracht von Freunden, Schülern und Kollegen. Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz
• Sadiqi, Fatima. 1997. Grammaire du berbère. Paris and Montréal: Éditions l’Harmattan. ISBN 2-7384-5919-6

Look up Berber in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Shilha language edition of Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Kabyle language edition of Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Central Atlas Tamazight test of Wikipedia at Wikimedia Incubator

Riffian language test of Wikipedia at Wikimedia Incubator

Standard Moroccan Tamazight language test of Wikipedia at Wikimedia Incubator

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• Etymology of "Amazigh"
• Early Christian history of Tamazights
• Tifinagh
• Ancient Scripts
• Imyura Kabyle site about literature
• Amawal: The online open source Tamazight dictionary