Zuwara Berber or Twillult language (also: ''Zuara'', ''Zwara'', (

Berber Berber or Berbers may refer to: Ethnic group * Berbers, an ethnic group native to Northern Africa * Berber languages, a family of Afro-Asiatic languages Places * Berber, Sudan, a town on the Nile People with the surname * Ady Berber (1913–19 ...

name: Twillult, ⵝⵡⵉⵍⵍⵓⵍⵝ) is a

dialect, one of the Berber Zenati languages. It is spoken in Zuwara city, located on the coast of western

Tripolitania Tripolitania ( ar, طرابلس '; ber, Ṭrables, script=Latn; from Vulgar Latin: , from la, Regio Tripolitana, from grc-gre, Τριπολιτάνια), historically known as the Tripoli region, is a historic region and former province o ...

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 ...

. Several works of

Terence Mitchell Terence Croft Mitchell (17 June 1929 – 21 April 2019) was a British archaeologist, scholar and curator. He was Keeper of Western Asiatic Antiquities at the British Museum from 1985 to 1989. He specialised in West Semitic languages, Near Eas ...

, most notably ''Zuaran Berber (Libya): Grammar and texts'', provide an overview of the language's grammar along with a set of texts, based mainly on the speech of his consultant Ramadan Azzabi. Some articles on this subject were also published by

Luigi Serra Luigi Serra (June 8, 1846 – July 11, 1888) was an Italian painter, known for his watercolors. Biography In 1858 Serra began studies at the Collegio Artistico Venturoli, working first under Gaetano Serrazanetti and then under Luigi Busi. In 18 ...

. The speakers refer to their specific variety of the language as ''twillult'' /t.ˈwil.lult/ ‘the language of Willul’, and the word "Mazigh" /ˈma.ziʁ/ may refer both to the wider Amazigh language or to any Amazigh person.Gussenhoven, C. (2018). Zwara (Zuwārah) Berber. ''Journal of the International Phonetic Association'', ''48''(3), 371-387. URL : http://gep.ruhosting.nl/carlos/zwara_zuwarah_berber.pdf Although rare for a Berber idiom, the masculine form is used to refer to the language. ''

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'' considers this language a dialect of Nafusi, although the two belong to different branches of Berber according to Kossmann (1999).Maarten Kossmann, ''Essai sur la phonologie du proto-berbère'', Rüdiger Köppe:Köln, pp. 28, 32

Number of Speakers

By some estimates, 297,000 people speak Zuwara Berber or a similar dialect. Approximately 247,000 of these speakers reside in

Writing System

This language uses the Naskh variant of the Arabic script.

Phonology

Zuwara Berber has many consonants compared to vowels. However, words can end in both consonants and vowels. For instance, the Latinized words "ˈa.man" and "ˈa.nu" mean "water" and "water well" in English, respectively.

Consonants

Zuwara Berber has a total of 31 consonants.

Vowels

Zuwara Berber has a total of four vowels: /i/, /u/, /ə/, and /a/.

Prosody

Stress

In roughly 85% of words, the stress goes on the penultimate syllable, especially for native Zuwara Berber words. For instance, the Latinized word "a.ˈzi.zaw" means "green" in English and has three syllables. Thus, the stress is on the second syllable, "ˈzi".

References

Berber languages Berbers in Libya Languages of Libya Tripolitania {{Berber-lang-stub