Rifian language
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Rifian language test of Wikipedia at Wikimedia Incubator |
| Rifian | |
|---|---|
| Tamazight Tarifit | |
| Spoken in | Morocco, Melilla (Spain) |
| Region | Rif |
| Ethnicity | Rifians |
| Native speakers |
1.4 million (In Morocco only - 2004 census)[1] |
| Language family | |
| Writing system | Arabic, Tifinagh and Latin |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | rif |
Area of Rif
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Rifian or Rifian Berber (Rifian: Tarifit or Tamaziγt Tarifit), also called Rif, is a Northern variety of Berber spoken by about 4 million[citation needed] Rifian people mainly in the Moroccan Rif, in parts of eastern Morocco, and in other cities.
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[edit] Classification
Rifian is a Zenati Berber language.
[edit] Geographic distribution
Rifian is spoken mainly in the Moroccan Rif on the Mediterranean coast and in the Rif mountains, with a large minority in the Spanish Autonomous cities Melilla. There are also speakers of Rifian in Morocco outside the Rif region, among them are sizable communities in Oujda, Tangiers, Tetouan, Larache, Fes, and Casablanca. A substantial Rifian-speaking community exists in the Netherlands and Belgium as well as in other European countries including Germany, France, and mainland Spain. Its own speakers simply call it Tamazight, a term also often applied in a broader sense to Berber languages in general.
[edit] Dialects
There is a large amount of dialectal variation in Rifian Berber; this can easily be seen using the dialect Atlas (Lafkioui, 1997).
[edit] Sounds
Rifian's most noticeable differences from other Berber languages are that:
- /l/ becomes /r/ as in ul (heart) → ur
- /ll/ (i.e., geminated /l/) becomes /dj/ as in illi (daughter) → idji.
- /lt/ becomes /tch/ as in ultma (sister) → utchma.
- 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.
- /k/ usually becomes /ch/ , while in some local sub-accents it is merely softened.[clarification needed]
- 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 Rifian from neighbouring dialects such as Atlas-Tamazight and Shilha.
- tarifit is "tarifchth"
[edit] Writing system
Like other Berber languages, Rifian has been written with several different systems over the years. Most recently (since 2003), tifinagh has become official throughout Morocco, while the Arabic alphabet and Latin alphabet continue to be used unofficially online and in various publications. However, unlike the nearby Shilha (Tasusit), Rifian has little written literature before the twentieth century.
[edit] References
- ^ "Recensement général de la population et de l'habitat 2004". Haut commissariat au plan. http://www.hcp.ma/Recensement-general-de-la-population-et-de-l-habitat-2004_a633.html. Retrieved 30 November 2011.
- ^ Rifian language at Ethnologue (16th ed., 2009)
- 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.
[edit] External links
- Tarifiyt Berber Vocabulary List (from the World Loanword Database)
- Ethnologue report on Tarifit
- INALCO report on Tarifit (fr)
- Site 100% in Tarifit
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