Judeo-Berber also known as Judeo-Amazigh, Judeo-Tamazight, and Jewish Amazigh ( ''tamazight n wudayen'', berberit yehudit) is any of several hybrid

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 (1913–196 ...

dialects A dialect is a variety of language spoken by a particular group of people. This may include dominant and standardized varieties as well as vernacular, unwritten, or non-standardized varieties, such as those used in developing countries or iso ...

traditionally spoken as a

second language A second language (L2) is a language spoken in addition to one's first language (L1). A second language may be a neighbouring language, another language of the speaker's home country, or a foreign language. A speaker's dominant language, which ...

in Berber Jewish communities of central and southern

Morocco Morocco, officially the Kingdom of Morocco, is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It has coastlines on the Mediterranean Sea to the north and the Atlantic Ocean to the west, and has land borders with Algeria to Algeria–Morocc ...

, and perhaps earlier in Algeria. Judeo-Berber is a

contact language Language contact occurs when speakers of two or more languages or varieties interact with and influence each other. The study of language contact is called contact linguistics. Language contact can occur at language borders, between adstratum ...

; the first language of speakers was

Judeo-Arabic Judeo-Arabic (; ; ) sometimes referred as Sharh, are a group of different ethnolects within the branches of the Arabic language used by jewish communities. Although Jewish use of Arabic, which predates Islam, has been in some ways distinct ...

.Chetrit (2016) "Jewish Berber", in Kahn & Rubin (eds.) ''Handbook of Jewish Languages'', Brill Speakers immigrated to

Israel Israel, officially the State of Israel, is a country in West Asia. It Borders of Israel, shares borders with Lebanon to the north, Syria to the north-east, Jordan to the east, Egypt to the south-west, and the Mediterranean Sea to the west. Isr ...

in the 1950s and 1960s. While mutually comprehensible with the

Tamazight The Berber languages, also known as the Amazigh languages or Tamazight, are a branch of the Afroasiatic language family. They comprise a group of closely related but mostly mutually unintelligible languages spoken by Berber communities, who ar ...

spoken by most inhabitants of the area (Galand-Pernet et al. 1970:14), these varieties are distinguished by the use of

Hebrew Hebrew (; ''ʿÎbrit'') is a Northwest Semitic languages, Northwest Semitic language within the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family. A regional dialect of the Canaanite languages, it was natively spoken by the Israelites and ...

loanwords and the pronunciation of ''š'' as ''s'' , opposed to what is seen in Judeo-Moroccan Arabic.

History

Our first indication of Jews speaking any Berber language is only from the early 19th century and it's of rural Jews in Jebel Nefusa and Saharan Ghardaia. As of 1912 about 8,000 of Moroccan Jews spoke Judeo-Berber. the language was spoken in the country's

or partly Berber rural and mountainous areas. According to a 1936 survey, approximately 145,700 of Morocco's 161,000 Jews spoke a variety of Berber (though not specifically Judeo-Berber), 25,000 of whom were reportedly monolingual in a Berber language. Due to the mass migration of Moroccan Jews after the

1948 Arab-Israeli war Events January * January 1 ** The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) is inaugurated. ** The current Constitutions of Constitution of Italy, Italy and of Constitution of New Jersey, New Jersey (both later subject to amendment) ...

the speaker count declined as the language wasn't passed down to new speakers, leaving it with only about 200 speakers left in France and Israel as of 2023.

Geographic distribution

Communities in

where Jews spoke Judeo-Berber included: Tinghir, Ouijjane, Asaka, Imini, Draa valley, Demnate and Ait Bou Oulli in the Tamazight-speaking Middle Atlas and High Atlas and Oufrane, Tiznit and Illigh in the Tashelhiyt-speaking Souss valley (Galand-Pernet et al. 1970:2). Jews were living among tribal Berbers, often in the same villages and practiced old tribal Berber protection relationships.

Phonology

Judeo-Berber is characterized by the following phonetic phenomena: * Centralized pronunciation of /i u/ as � ʉ* Neutralization of the distinction between /s ʃ/, especially among monolingual speakers * Delabialization of labialized velars (/kʷ gʷ xʷ ɣʷ/), e.g. nəkkʷni/nukkni > nəkkni 'us, we' * Insertion of epenthetic �to break up consonant clusters * Frequent diphthong insertion, as in Judeo-Arabic * Some varieties have q > kʲ and dˤ > tˤ, as in the local Arabic dialects * In the eastern Sous Valley region, /l/ > in both Judeo-Berber and Arabic

Lexicon

The lexicon of Judeo-Berber is the same as that of regular Shilha except it has Hebrew and Judeo-Arabic loanwords. This lack of differentiation from Shilha means it is not a language but rather a dialect. Judeo-Berber lexicon also influenced Judeo-Arabic.

Usage

Apart from its daily use, Judeo-Berber was used for orally explaining religious texts, and only occasionally written, using Hebrew characters; a manuscript Pesah

Haggadah The Haggadah (, "telling"; plural: Haggadot) is a foundational Jewish text that sets forth the order of the Passover Seder. According to Jewish practice, reading the Haggadah at the Seder table fulfills the mitzvah incumbent on every Jew to reco ...

written in Judeo-Berber has been reprinted (Galand-Pernet et al. 1970.) A few prayers, like the Benedictions over the Torah, were recited in Berber.

Sample Text

Taken from Galand-Pernet et al. 1970:121 (itself from a manuscript from Tinghir):

References

Bibliography

* P. Galand-Pernet & Haim Zafrani. ''Une version berbère de la Haggadah de Pesaḥ: Texte de Tinrhir du Todrha (Maroc)''. Compress rendus du G.L.E.C.S. Supplement I. 1970. * Joseph Chetrit. "Jewish Berber," ''Handbook of Jewish Languages'', ed. Lily Kahn & Aaron D. Rubin. Leiden: Brill. 2016. Pages 118–129.

External links

Judeo-Berber, by Haim Zafrani

{{DEFAULTSORT:Judeo-Berber Language Berber Jews Berber languages Berbers in Morocco Jews and Judaism in Morocco Maghrebi Jews topics Languages of Morocco Sephardi Jewish culture in North Africa Language contact Severely endangered languages Endangered diaspora languages Endangered Afroasiatic languages Jewish languages