Sokna (also ''Sawknah'', ''Sukna''; native name: Tasuknit) is a presumably extinct
Eastern Berber language which was spoken in the town of
Sokna
Sokna is a small village located between Hønefoss and Krøderen in the municipality of Ringerike, in the county of Buskerud, Norway. Its population is 543.
Location
Sokna is located in the valley of Soknedalen, between the Sogna and Ver ...
(''Isuknan'') and the village of
Fuqaha in northeastern
Fezzan
Fezzan ( , ; ber, ⴼⵣⵣⴰⵏ, Fezzan; ar, فزان, Fizzān; la, Phazania) is the southwestern region of modern Libya. It is largely desert, but broken by mountains, uplands, and dry river valleys (wadis) in the north, where oases enable ...
in
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 ...
. According to Václav Blažek (1999), Sokna was also spoken in the oasis of
Tmassa
Tmassa is a small town in the Sahara Desert of central 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 ...
.
The most extensive and recent materials on it are Sarnelli (1924) for Sokna and Paradisi (1963)
[Paradisi, Umberto. 1963. "Il linguaggio berbero di El-Fogaha (Fezzan)". ''Istituto Orientale di Napoli XIII''. 93-126.] for El-Fogaha. Both articles report that the language was spoken only by a handful of old people at the time, so it is generally presumed to be extinct.
Aikhenvald & Militarev (1984) and Blench (2006) consider Sokna and Fezzan to be separate languages. Blench lists Tmessa and Al-Foqaha as dialects of Fezzan.
References
Berber languages
Berbers in Libya
Languages of Libya
{{Berber-lang-stub