Judeo-Berber language
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Judeo-Berber also known as Judeo-Amazigh, Judeo-Tamazight, and Jewish Amazigh (Template:Langx tamazight n wudayen,Template:Which Template:Langx berberit yehudit) is any of several hybrid Berber dialects traditionally spoken as a second language in Berber Jewish communities of central and southern Morocco, and perhaps earlier in Algeria. Judeo-Berber is a contact language; the first language of speakers was Judeo-Arabic.<ref name=Chetrit2016>Chetrit (2016) "Jewish Berber", in Kahn & Rubin (eds.) Handbook of Jewish Languages, Brill</ref> Speakers immigrated to Israel in the 1950s and 1960s. While mutually comprehensible with the Tamazight spoken by most inhabitants of the area (Galand-Pernet et al. 1970:14), these varieties are distinguished by the use of Hebrew loanwords and the pronunciation of š as s , opposed to what is seen in Judeo-Moroccan Arabic.
HistoryEdit
Our first indication of Jews speaking any Berber language is only from the early 19th century and it's of rural Jews in Jebel Nefusa and Saharan Ghardaia. As of 1912 about 8,000 of Moroccan Jews spoke Judeo-Berber. the language was spoken in the country's Berber or partly Berber rural and mountainous areas. <ref name=":0">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> According to a 1936 survey, approximately 145,700 of Morocco's 161,000 Jews spoke a variety of Berber (though not specifically Judeo-Berber), 25,000 of whom were reportedly monolingual in a Berber language.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Due to the mass migration of Moroccan Jews after the 1948 Arab-Israeli war the speaker count declined as the language wasn't passed down to new speakers, leaving it with only about 200 speakers left in France and Israel as of 2023.<ref name=":0" />
Geographic distributionEdit
Communities in Morocco where Jews spoke Judeo-Berber included: Tinghir, Ouijjane, Asaka, Imini, Draa valley, Demnate and Ait Bou Oulli in the Tamazight-speaking Middle Atlas and High Atlas and Oufrane, Tiznit and Illigh in the Tashelhiyt-speaking Souss valley (Galand-Pernet et al. 1970:2). Jews were living among tribal Berbers, often in the same villages and practiced old tribal Berber protection relationships.
PhonologyEdit
| Labial | Bilabial | Dental-Alveolar | Alveolar | Post-Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Uvular | Pharyngeal | Laryngeal | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plosive | Unvoiced | p | t | k | q | ||||||
| Voiced | b | d | g | ||||||||
| Nasals | m | n | |||||||||
| Fricative | Unvoiced | s | ʃ | x | ħ | h | |||||
| Voiced | z | ʒ | ɣ | ʕ | |||||||
| Trill | r | ||||||||||
| Lateral | l | ||||||||||
| Approximant | Voiced | w | j | ||||||||
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Close | i | u | |
| Mid | ǝ | ||
| Open-mid | |||
| Open | a |
Judeo-Berber is characterized by the following phonetic phenomena:<ref name=Chetrit2016/>
- Centralized pronunciation of /i u/ as [ɨ ʉ]
- Neutralization of the distinction between /s ʃ/, especially among monolingual speakers
- Delabialization of labialized velars (/kʷ gʷ xʷ ɣʷ/), e.g. nəkkʷni/nukkni > nəkkni 'us, we'
- Insertion of epenthetic [ə] to break up consonant clusters
- Frequent diphthong insertion, as in Judeo-Arabic
- Some varieties have q > kʲ and dˤ > tˤ, as in the local Arabic dialects
- In the eastern Sous Valley region, /l/ > [n] in both Judeo-Berber and Arabic
LexiconEdit
The lexicon of Judeo-Berber is the same as that of regular Shilha except it has Hebrew and Judeo-Arabic loanwords. This lack of differentiation from Shilha means it is not a language but rather a dialect.<ref name=":1" /> Judeo-Berber lexicon also influenced Judeo-Arabic.<ref name=":0" />
UsageEdit
Apart from its daily use, Judeo-Berber was used for orally explaining religious texts, and only occasionally written, using Hebrew characters; a manuscript Pesah Haggadah written in Judeo-Berber has been reprinted (Galand-Pernet et al. 1970.) A few prayers, like the Benedictions over the Torah, were recited in Berber.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }} Template:Small</ref>
Sample TextEdit
Taken from Galand-Pernet et al. 1970:121 (itself from a manuscript from Tinghir):
See alsoEdit
ReferencesEdit
BibliographyEdit
- P. Galand-Pernet & Haim Zafrani. Une version berbère de la Haggadah de Pesaḥ: Texte de Tinrhir du Todrha (Maroc). Compress rendus du G.L.E.C.S. Supplement I. 1970. Template:In lang
- Joseph Chetrit. "Jewish Berber," Handbook of Jewish Languages, ed. Lily Kahn & Aaron D. Rubin. Leiden: Brill. 2016. Pages 118–129.
External linksEdit
Template:Jewish languages Template:Berber languages Template:Languages of Morocco Template:Maghrebi Jews topics