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:''Rifi redirects here, for the location of the same name in Greece, see Rifi, Greece''
'Tarifit' is a Northern Berber language of the Zenati subgroup, spoken mainly in the Moroccan Rif by about 2.7 million people.

Contents

Classification

Geographic distribution

Sounds

Writing system

See also

References

External links

Classification

Tarifit is a Berber language, belonging to the Zenati subgroup of Northern Berber, and possibly the Rif subgroup of Zenati.

Geographic distribution

Tarifit is spoken mainly in the Moroccan Rif by about 2.7 million people, with a few speakers across the border in Algeria and Melilla in Spain. There are also speakers of Tarifit in Morocco outside the Rif, among communities in Oujda, Tangiers, Tetouan, Larache, Fes, and Casablanca. A substantial Tarifit-speaking community exists in the Netherlands as well as in other European countries like Belgium, France, and mainland Spain. Its own speakers simply call it ''thamazighth'', or Tamazight, a term also often applied in a broader sense to Berber languages in general.

Sounds

Tarifit's most noticeable differences from other Berber languages are that:

★ /l/ becomes /r/ as in ''ul'' (heart) -> ''ur''

★ 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.

★ /ll/ (i.e., geminated /l/) becomes /dj/ as in ''ylli'' (daughter) -> ''ydji''.

★ /lt/ becomes /tch/ as in ''ultma'' (sister) -> ''utchma''.

★ /k/ usually becomes /ch/ , while in some local sub-accents it is merely softened.

★ 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 Tarifit from neighbouring dialects such as Atlas-Tamazight and Tashelhiyt.

Writing system

Like other Berber languages, it 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 Tachelhit (Tasusit), Tarifit has little written literature before the twentieth century.

See also

★ List of Mzab-Wargla languages

★ List of Zenati languages

★ List of Northern Berber languages

★ Ghomara language

★ Rif languages

★ Senhaja De Srair language

★ East Zenati languages

References

★ 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)

External links

★ Ethnologue report on Tarifit

★ INALCO report on Tarifit (fr)

★ Site 100% in Tarifit