The Northern Berber languages are a

dialect continuum A dialect continuum or dialect chain is a series of language varieties spoken across some geographical area such that neighboring varieties are mutually intelligible, but the differences accumulate over distance so that widely separated varie ...

spoken across the

Maghreb The Maghreb (; ar, الْمَغْرِب, al-Maghrib, lit=the west), also known as the Arab Maghreb ( ar, المغرب العربي) and Northwest Africa, is the western part of North Africa and the Arab world. The region includes Algeria, ...

, constituting a subgroup of the Berber branch of the

Afroasiatic The Afroasiatic languages (or Afro-Asiatic), also known as Hamito-Semitic, or Semito-Hamitic, and sometimes also as Afrasian, Erythraean or Lisramic, are a language family of about 300 languages that are spoken predominantly in the geographic su ...

family. Their continuity has been broken by the spread of

Arabic Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C. E.Watson; Walter ...

, and to a lesser extent by the Zenati group of Northern Berber. The Zenati idioms share certain innovations not found in the surrounding languages; notably a softening of ''k'' to ''sh'' and an absence of ''a-'' in certain words, such as "hand" (''afus'' vs. ''fus''.) Northern Berber languages spoken by over a million people include Shilha, Central Morocco Tamazight,

Riff A riff is a repeated chord progression or refrain in music (also known as an ostinato figure in classical music); it is a pattern, or melody, often played by the rhythm section instruments or solo instrument, that forms the basis or acc ...

, Shawiya and Kabyle. They fall into three groups: *Moroccan

Atlas languages The Atlas languages are a subgroup of the Northern Berber languages of the Afro-Asiatic language family spoken in the Atlas Mountains of Morocco. By mutual intelligibility, they are a single language spoken by perhaps 14 million people; however, ...

(incl. Shilha, Central Morocco Tamazight) *

Zenati languages The Zenati languages are a branch of the Northern Berber language family of North Africa. They were named after the medieval Zenata Berber tribal confederation. They were first proposed in the works of French linguist Edmond Destaing (1915) (1920 ...

(incl. Riff, Shawiya) * Kabyle The eastern boundaries of the North Berber varieties are uncertain. Some linguists include the Nafusi and

Ghadames Ghadames or Ghadamis ( Berber: ''ʕadémis''; ar, غدامس, Libyan vernacular: ''ɣdāməs'', Latin: ''Cidamus, Cydamus'', it, Gadames) is an oasis Berber town in the Nalut District of the Tripolitania region in northwestern Libya. The ...

languages, while others do not. Most regard Ghadamès as lying outside of Northern Berber, but the '' Ethnologue'' does not. There is no authoritative answer as to whether the Northern Berber varieties constitute

language Language is a structured system of communication. The structure of a language is its grammar and the free components are its vocabulary. Languages are the primary means by which humans communicate, and may be conveyed through a variety of ...

s rather than

dialect The term dialect (from Latin , , from the Ancient Greek word , 'discourse', from , 'through' and , 'I speak') can refer to either of two distinctly different types of linguistic phenomena: One usage refers to a variety of a language that is a ...

s. Some academics believe that not only Northern Berber but all the Berber languages are dialects of a single language, whereas others come up with much higher counts. At any rate, mutual comprehensibility among the Northern Berber varieties is high, though not perfect.

References

Northern Berber languages Berber languages Berbers in Algeria Berbers in Morocco Berbers in Tunisia Languages of Morocco Languages of Algeria Languages of Tunisia Languages of Libya {{Berber-lang-stub