Gurara language
| Gurara | |
|---|---|
| Taznatit | |
| تزناتيت | |
| Native to | Algeria |
| Region | Gourara (wilaya of Adrar) |
Native speakers | (40,000, including Tuwat cited 1995)[1] |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | grr |
grr-gou | |
Gurara (Gourara) is the Zenati Berber language of the Gourara (Tigurarin) region, an archipelago of oases surrounding Timimoun in southwestern Algeria. Ethnologue gives it the generic name Taznatit '(Zenati'), along with Tuwat to its south; however, Blench (2006) classifies Gurara as a dialect of Mzab–Wargla, and Tuwat as a dialect of the Riff cluster.
Gurara[and Touat?] is the only Berber language to change r in certain coda positions to a laryngeal ħ;[2] in other contexts it drops r, turning a preceding schwa into a.[3]
There is inconclusive evidence for Songhay influence on Gurara.[4]
The local tradition of ahellil poetry and music in Gurara, described in Mouloud Mammeri's L'Ahellil du Gourara,[5] has been listed as part of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity by UNESCO.
References
- ^ Gurara at Ethnologue (16th ed., 2009)
- ^ René Basset, "Notes de lexicographie berbère", Journal Asiatique, ser. 8, vol. X, 1887: p. 390.
- ^ Maarten Kossmann, "Cinq notes de linguistique historique berbère", Etudes et Documents Berbères, 17, 1999 : pp. 131–152
- ^ Maarten Kossmann, "Is there a Songhay substratum in Gourara Berber?", in ed. Maarten Kossmann, Rainer Vossen, Dymitr Ibriszimow, Nouvelles études berbères: Le verbe et autres articles, Rüdiger Köppe: Köln 2004, pp. 51–66.
- ^ Mouloud Mammeri, L ‘Ahellil du Gourara, M.S.H.:Paris 1984.
External links
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