Matmata Berber
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Matmata Berber is a Zenati Berber dialect spoken around the town of Matmâta in southern
Tunisia ) , image_map = Tunisia location (orthographic projection).svg , map_caption = Location of Tunisia in northern Africa , image_map2 = , capital = Tunis , largest_city = capital , ...
, and in the villages of Taoujjout, Tamezret and Zrawa. According to Ben Mamou's lexicon, its speakers call it ''Tmaziɣṯ'' or ''Eddwi nna'', meaning "our speech", while it is called ''Shelha'' or ''Jbali'' (جبالي) in local
Tunisian Arabic Tunisian Arabic, or simply Tunisian, is a set of dialects of Maghrebi Arabic spoken in Tunisia. It is known among its over 11 million speakers aeb, translit=Tounsi/Tounsiy, label=as, تونسي , "Tunisian" or "Everyday Language" to distingu ...
dialects. The total population speaking this variety was estimated at 3,726 in 1975. Documentation of Matmata Berber is limited. A collection of fairy tales in this variety was published by Stumme in 1900. Basset (1950) provides a few dialect maps of Tunisian Berber including this region, showing lexical variation, while Penchoen (1968) offers a general discussion of Tunisian Berber and the effects of schooling. Collins (1981) discusses its verbal morphology along with that of other Tunisian Berber varieties. The only general grammatical sketch and vocabulary available is the website put together by Larbi Ben Mamou, a native speaker of the language. '' Ethnologue'' treats it as part of the Nafusi language spoken in northwestern
Libya Libya (; ar, ليبيا, Lībiyā), officially the State of Libya ( ar, دولة ليبيا, Dawlat Lībiyā), is a country in the Maghreb region in North Africa. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to the north, Egypt to the east, Suda ...
, although the two belong to different subgroups of Berber according to Kossmann (1999).A separate language code in ''Ethnologue'' 13, uh was retired and reassigned to a Bhil language in India.


References

Berber languages Berbers in Tunisia Languages of Tunisia {{Berber-lang-stub