About Opentopia
Opentopia Directory Encyclopedia Tools

Tuareg languages

Encyclopedia : T : TU : TUA : Tuareg languages

Tuareg or Tamasheq/Tamajaq/Tamahaq is a Berber language or family of closely related languages spoken by the Tuareg, in parts of Mali, Niger, Algeria, Libya and Burkina Faso (with a few speakers, the Kinnin, even in Chad[link].)

Description

They are quite mutually comprehensible, and are commonly regarded as a single language (as for instance by Karl Prasse); they are distinguished mainly by a few sound shifts (notably affecting the pronunciation of original z and h.) They are unusually conservative in some respects; they retain two short vowels where northern Berber languages have one or none, and have a much lower proportion of Arabic loanwords than most Berber languages. They are traditionally written in the indigenous Tifinagh alphabet; however, the Arabic alphabet is commonly used in some areas (and has been since medieval times), while the Latin alphabet is official in Mali and Niger.

Grammar

The basic word order in Tuareg is Verb Subject Object. Verbs can be grouped into 19 morphological classes; some of these classes can be defined semantically. Verbs carry information on the subject of the sentence in the form of pronominal marking. No simple adjectives exist in the Tuareg languages; adjectival concepts are expressed using a relative verb form traditionally called 'participle'. The Tuareg languages have very heavily influenced Northern Songhay languages such as Tasawaq, whose speakers are culturally Tuareg but speak Songhay varieties; this influence includes points of phonology and sometimes grammar as well as extensive loanwords.

Subclassification

Phonology

The vowel system includes 5 long vowels, a e i o u, and two short, ə and ă. Karl Prasse argues that e and o generally derive from i and u, while comparative evidence proves that ə derives from a merger of proto-Berber *ĭ and *ŭ.

In the consonant system, pharyngealized consonants are widespread, particularly among the dentals. Gemination affects the quality of certain consonants, turning fricatives into stops; in particular, geminated γ becomes qq.

Dialectal differences

Different dialects have slightly different consonant inventories. Some of these differences can be diachronically accounted for. For example, Proto-Berber *h is mostly lost in Ayer Tuareg, while it is maintained in almost every position in Mali Tuareg. The Iwellemmeden and Ahaggar Tuareg dialects are midway between these positions (Prasse 1969, Kossmann 1999). The Proto-Berber consonant *z comes out differently in different dialects, a development that is to some degree reflected in the dialect names. It is realized as h in Tamahaq (Tahaggart), as š in Tamasheq and as simple z in the Tamajaq dialects Tawallammat and Tayart. In the latter two, *z is realised as ž before palatal vowels, explaining the form Tamajaq. In Tawallammat and especially Tayart, this kind of palatalization actually does not confine itself to z. In these dialects, dentals in general are palatalized before i and y (palatal vowel and approximant, respectively). For example, tidət is pronounced tidʲət in Tayart. (Prasse e.a. 2003:xiv) Other differences can easily be traced back to borrowing. For example, the Arabic pharyngeals ħ and ʕ have been borrowed along with Arabic loanwords by dialects specialized in Islamic (Maraboutic) learning. Other dialects substitute ħ and ʕ respectively with x and ɣ.

References

Bibliographies

Dictionaries

Grammars

Texts

Linguistic topics

 

From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.

Search Titles
0123456789
ABCDEFGHIJ
KLMNOPQRST
UVWXYZ?

E-mail this article to:

Personal Message: