Gurara (Gourara) is a

Zenati 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) (19 ...

Berber language The Berber languages, also known as the Amazigh languages or Tamazight,, ber, label= Tuareg Tifinagh, ⵜⵎⵣⵗⵜ, ) are a branch of the Afroasiatic language family. They comprise a group of closely related languages spoken by Berber comm ...

spoken in the

Gourara Tuat, or Touat, is a natural region of desert in central Algeria that contains a string of small oases. In the past, the oases were important for caravans crossing the Sahara. Geography Tuat lies to the south of the Grand Erg Occidental, to t ...

(''Tigurarin'') region, an archipelago of oases surrounding the town of

Timimoun Timimoun ( ar, ﺗﻴﻤﻴﻤﻮن) is a town and commune, and capital of Timimoun District, in Adrar Province, south-central Algeria. According to the 2008 census it has a population of 33,060, up from 28,595 in 1998, with an annual growth ra ...

in southwestern

Algeria ) , image_map = Algeria (centered orthographic projection).svg , map_caption = , image_map2 = , capital = Algiers , coordinates = , largest_city = capital , religi ...

. '' Ethnologue'' gives it the generic name ''Taznatit'' ("Zenati"), along with Tuwat spoken to its south; however, Blench (2006) classifies Gurara as a dialect of Mzab–Wargla and Tuwat as a dialect of the

Riff languages ] In some classifications, the Riff (Rif) languages are a branch of the Zenati languages, Zenati Berber languages (Northern Berber), of the Rif area of Morocco, that includes Riffian, one of the major Berber languages. Blench (2006) considers ...

Characteristics

Gurara and Tuwat are the only Berber languages to change ''r'' in certain coda positions to a laryngeal ''ħ''; in other contexts it drops ''r'', turning a preceding

schwa In linguistics, specifically phonetics and phonology, schwa (, rarely or ; sometimes spelled shwa) is a vowel sound denoted by the International Phonetic Alphabet, IPA symbol , placed in the central position of the vowel chart. In English ...

into ''a'', and this latter phenomenon exists also in Zenata

Rif-Berber Tmazight or Tarifit Berber, also known as Riffian ( rif, Tmaziɣt , ) is a Zenati Berber language spoken in the Rif region in northern Morocco. It is spoken natively by some 1,271,000 Rifians primarily in the Rif provinces of Al Hoceima, Na ...

in the far northern Morocco. There is inconclusive evidence for Songhay influence on Gurara.

''Ahellil''

The local tradition of ''ahellil'' poetry and music in Gurara, described in Mouloud Mammeri's ''L'Ahellil du Gourara'',Mouloud Mammeri, ''L ‘Ahellil du Gourara'', M.S.H.:Paris 1984. has been listed as part of the

Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity UNESCO established its Lists of Intangible Cultural Heritage with the aim of ensuring better protection of important intangible cultural heritages worldwide and the awareness of their significance.Compare: This list is published by the Intergove ...

UNESCO The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) aimed at promoting world peace and security through international cooperation in education, arts, sciences and culture. I ...

References

Berber languages Languages of Algeria {{Berber-lang-stub