- Tarifit language
:"Rifi redirects here, for the location of the same name in
Greece , seeRifi, Greece "language
name=Tarifit
states=Morocco
region=Rif
speakers= 3,7 million (incl. abroad Morocco)
familycolor=Afro-Asiatic
fam2=Berber
fam3=Northern
fam4=Zenati
fam5=Rif
iso2=ber|iso3=rifTarifit is a Northern Berber language of the Zenati subgroup, spoken mainly in the Moroccan
Rif by about 2,5 million people.Classification
Tarifit is a Berber language, belonging to the Zenati subgroup of Northern Berber, and possibly the Rif subgroup of Zenati.
Geographic distribution
Tarifit is spoken mainly in the Moroccan
Rif by 2,5 million people, with a few speakers across the border inAlgeria andMelilla inSpain . There are also speakers of Tarifit in Morocco outside the Rif, among communities inOujda ,Tangiers ,Tetouan ,Larache , Fes, andCasablanca . A substantial Tarifit-speaking community exists in theNetherlands as well as in otherEurope an countries likeBelgium ,Germany ,France , and mainland Spain. Its own speakers simply call it "thamazighth", orTamazight , a term also often applied in a broader sense toBerber languages in general.Dialects
There is a large amount of dialectal variation in Rif Berber; this can easily be seen using the dialect Atlas (Lafkioui 1997).
ounds
Tarifit's most noticeable differences from other
Berber languages are that:*/l/ becomes /r/ as in "ul" (heart) -> "ur"
* postvocalic /r/ preceding a consonantal coda is dropped, as in "taddart" (house/home) -> "taddat". Thus in "tamara" the /r/ is conserved because it precedes a vowel.
* /ll/ (i.e., geminated /l/) becomes /dj/ as in "ylli" (daughter) -> "ydji".
* /lt/ becomes /tch/ as in "ultma" (sister) -> "utchma".
* /k/ usually becomes /ch/ , while in some local sub-accents it is merely softened.
* Additionally, the initial masculine "a-" prefix is dropped in certain words, e.g., "afus" (hand) becomes "fus", and "afighar" (snake) becomes "fighar". This change, characteristic of Zenati Berber varieties, further distances Tarifit from neighbouring dialects such as Atlas-Tamazight and Tashelhiyt.Writing system
Like other Berber languages,
Tarifit has been written with several different systems over the years. Most recently (since 2003),Tifinagh has become official throughout Morocco, while theArabic alphabet andLatin alphabet continue to be used unofficially online and in various publications. However, unlike the nearbyTachelhit (Tasusit), Tarifit has little written literature before the twentieth century.ee also
*
List of Mzab-Wargla languages
*List of Zenati languages
*List of Northern Berber languages
*Ghomara language
*Rif languages
*Senhaja De Srair language
*East Zenati languages References
*Biarnay, Samuel. 1911. "Etude sur le dialecte des Bet't'ioua du Vieil-Arzeu". Alger: Carbonel.
*Biarnay, Samuel. 1917. "Etude sur les dialectes berbères du Rif". Paris: Leroux.
*Cadi, Kaddour. 1987. "Système verbal rifain. Forme et sens." Paris: Peeters.
*Colin, Georges Séraphin. 1929. "Le parler berbère des Gmara." "Hespéris" 9: 43-58.
*Kossmann, Maarten. 2000. "Esquisse grammaticale du rifain oriental". Paris: Peeters.
*Lafkioui, Mena. 2007. "Atlas linguistique des variétés berbères du Rif". Köln: Rüdiger Köppe.
*McClelland, Clive. "The Interrelations of Syntax, Narrative Structure, and Prosody in a Berber Language" (Studies in Linguistics and Semiotics, V. 8). Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 2000. (ISBN 0-7734-7740-3)*Renisio, A. 1932. "Etude sur les dialectes berbères des Beni Iznassen, du Rif et des Senhaja de Sraïr". Paris: Leroux.External links
* [http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=rif Ethnologue report on Tarifit]
* [http://www.inalco.fr/crb/crb_2/fiches_dialectes/rifain.htm INALCO report on Tarifit] (fr)
* [http://www.nadorama.com/ Site 100% in Tarifit]
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