The Atlas languages are a subgroup of the

Northern Berber languages The Northern Berber languages are a dialect continuum spoken across the Maghreb, constituting a subgroup of the Berber branch of the Afroasiatic family. Their continuity has been broken by the spread of Arabic, and to a lesser extent by the Z ...

of the Afro-Asiatic language family spoken in the

Atlas Mountains The Atlas Mountains are a mountain range in the Maghreb in North Africa. It separates the Sahara Desert from the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean; the name "Atlantic" is derived from the mountain range. It stretches around through ...

Morocco Morocco (),, ) officially the Kingdom of Morocco, is the westernmost country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It overlooks the Mediterranean Sea to the north and the Atlantic Ocean to the west, and has land borders with Algeria to A ...

. By

mutual intelligibility In linguistics, mutual intelligibility is a relationship between languages or dialects in which speakers of different but related varieties can readily understand each other without prior familiarity or special effort. It is sometimes used as ...

, they are a single language spoken by perhaps 14 million people; however, they are distinct sociolinguistically and are considered separate languages by the Royal institute of the Amazigh culture. They are: Maarten Kossmann,
Berber subclassification (preliminary version)
, Leiden (2011) *

Central Atlas Tamazight Central Atlas Tamazight or Atlasic (also known as Central Morocco Tamazight, variant of tashelhit, Middle Atlas Tamazight, Tamazight, Central Shilha and, rarely, Beraber or Braber; native name: ⵜⴰⵎⴰⵣⵉⵖⵜ ''Tamazight'' , ) is a Be ...

(Central Atlas Berber), spoken in the central Atlas Mountains * Shilha (''Tashelhiyt''; also rendered ''Tachelhit, Tasusit''; includes Judeo-Berber and perhaps the extinct

Lisan al-Gharbi Lisan al-Gharbi (Arabic for "Western dialect") is the name given to an extinct dialect of Berber that was spoken over much of the Atlantic plains of Morocco.B. FrankelHistory in Dispute: The Middle East since 1945. First series(St. James Press, ...

), spoken in southern Morocco * Sanhaja de Srair, spoken in the southern part of the Rif * Ghomara, spoken in the western part of the Rif *

, formerly spoken in western Morocco. Percent of Tashlhit speakers in Morocco by census 2004

Percent of Tmazight speakers in Morocco by census 2004

References

Berber languages {{Berber-lang-stub