Hi, metta hallem/t,
Happy a belated Eid!
Ameddukel nnegh Lameen of jabal al-lughat was kind enough to share with us an interesting link.
"Here's something that might be of interest: a German in 1926 recorded an unusual counting system from a Chaoui guy in Batna: hadellu, tninu, teltu, darbu, siqa, niqa, haitch, witch, korkor, ruwwela. (See here .) I would normally assume it was made up, but it looks a lot like one I've heard in Tabelbala, used for counting in children's games. Is this familiar at all?"
Any ideas?
Until next time, qimet d'i lehna.
By Lameen souag
Source: Jabal al-Lughat
A few days ago I got lent a copy of a recent book in Arabic by Othmane Saadi: Dictionary of the Arabic Roots of Amazigh (Berber) Words معجم الجذور العربية للكلمات الأمازيغية (البربرية) (Tripoli: Academy of Arabic Language 2007.) My reaction, in brief, is that it's unscientific jingoistic claptrap. But I happen to have friends (not linguists, of course) who take it seriously; and I am told that the author, a proud member of the Chaoui Berber Nememcha (Nmamša) tribe, genuinely believes his own theory. I will therefore try to explain as simply as possible where the book goes wrong.
Read more...
Hi, metta hallem/t,
What does azizaw mean s Tshawit? It depends on the community. Green for some, blue for others.Why is that? What is the source of confusion in the colour system of Tashawit? Well, there might be an answer in Lameen 's piece Colour vision and language shift .
What do you think? What is the situation in Tumzabit, Taqbaylit, Tarifit...etc?
Until next time, qimet d'i lehna.
Hi, metta hallem/t,
A reader sent me an email inquiring about the Tashawit numeral system . I urge all of you to participate in discussing this subject. Thanks!
"...I am now working with Prof. Bernard Comrie on documentations of numeral systems of languages in the world, with special attentions on endangered numeral systems, as traditional numeral systems of small languages are susceptible to be replaced by dominant languages. I plan to upload the data on numeral systems from several hundreds African languages available to a website hosted in the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany and I will share all the data to promote the research of small languages and document endangered numeral systems.
However, I am still looking for data for Tashawit and some poorly documented Berberic languages.
Today, I am very glad to see your blog on Tashawit, so I am now sending this e-mail for your help.
If time permits, would you mind doing me a favor? I will be very much appreciated if you could generously share me the knowledge of numeral system for Tashawit..."
PS : Please take a look @ :
Lameen Souag, "The Typology of Number Borrowing in Berber"
By Lamenn Souag
Source : Jabal al-Lughat
The second part of the book I discussed in my previous post is more immediately relevant to linguists: it is a collection of more than 150 Tamazight proverbs from the Tipasa area (specifically the village of Bou-Smail). These are transcribed in Arabic characters and provided with an Arabic translation, along with an interpretation of the proverb's meaning and usage and translations of the meanings of (some) individual words.
Read ...more
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It is like reading Tashawit, almost word for word. Amazing!
Some examples:
Tipasa : wani a-t yeqqnen s ifassn-is, a-t yerzem s iγmasn-is
Tashawit : wi -t- ikersen s ufus , at yefdek s teψmas
Tipasa : yusa-d jer weksum ḏ yicer
Tashawit : ittedef jer n yicher d w-aksum
AMAWAL
- yazit : chiken. Tshawit : yazit or gazit/hgazit
- asekkurt : partridge. Same s Tshawit
- Axxam : house. Same
- Aγyul : donkey. Same
- Aɛdis : stomach. Same
- ixef : head. Same
- icer : fingernail. Same
- aksum : flesh. Same
- jer : between. Same
By Lameen Souag
This topic has become quite hot since I wrote the first version of this; in Morocco, Tifinagh has been adopted officially for the first time ever - not long after the first full translation of the Quran into Tamazight ever was published - while in Algeria Tamazight has been recognized as a "national language", and even the Libyan Ibadhi diaspora has been working on preserving their language and traditions; Tifinagh is inching closer to being included in Unicode, and historical linguists such as Prof. van den Boogert have been uncovering earlier medieval manuscript traditions than were thought possible. But it still suffers from intellectual fragmentation; this is an attempt at an overview...more
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