Berber & Tashlhiyt – Background

Berber (also referred to as Tamazight)¹ is a branch of the Afro-Asiatic language family, which also includes Ancient Egyptian, Chadic, Cushitic, Omotic, and Semitic languages (Ethnologue 2016).² For a general overview of the Berber language family see Basset (1952), Applegate (1970), and Galand (1988).

Berber languages are spoken by a substantial number of people in Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Mauritania, Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger. A large part of the Moroccan population is native speaker of one or more Berber varieties alongside a Moroccan variety of Arabic.

Three main Berber varieties are generally thought to be spoken in Morocco: Tarifiyt spoken in the north, Tamazight spoken in the Middle Atlas region and Tashlhiyt,³ the variety of the CoTaSS corpus, spoken in and south of the High-Atlas region (Figure below).⁴ While the geographic separation of Tarifiyt and the southern varieties is reflected in a clear-cut linguistic distinction, the distinction between Tamazight and Tashlhiyt is better captured by a continuum where the two varieties are to a large extent mutually intelligible.

The number of Tashlhiyt speakers remains somewhat unclear. Estimates range from 3 million (Chaker 1992) to 3,9 million speakers in 2004 (Ethnologue 2016), with Berber languages in Morocco currently being spoken by about 7,7 million people (Ethnologue 2016).

¹ The denotation ‘Berber’ term is used as a neutral term and has no negative connotation in an Anglo-Saxon context. While the term ‘Tamazight’ has become popular among modern Berber intellectuals, we refrain from using the term here because of its ambiguity: Tamazight can be used to refer either to Berber as denoting the language family in general or to the specific Berber variety spoken in central Morocco (as opposed to Tashlhiyt in the south).

² Lewis, M. P., Simons, G. F., & Fennig, C. D. (2016). Ethnologue: Languages of the World.

³ Alternatively, the language or specific subvarieties of it have been called Shilha/Chleuh and Soussiya (Susiya, Tasoussit). Tashlhiyt may also be spelled Tachilhit, Tashelhaït, Tashelhit or Tashilheet.

⁴ Lévi−Provençal, E. (1945). Initiation au Maroc. 3rd edition. Institut des Hautes-Études Marocaines, Rabat.

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