Nafusi (also spelt Nefusi; or ''Tanfust'') is a
Berber language
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 in the
Nafusa Mountains (), a large area in northwestern
Libya
Libya, officially the State of Libya, is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It borders the Mediterranean Sea to the north, Egypt to Egypt–Libya border, the east, Sudan to Libya–Sudan border, the southeast, Chad to Chad–L ...
. Its primary speakers are the
Ibadi Muslim communities around
Jadu,
Nalut () and
Yafran.
[
The dialect of Yefren in the east differs somewhat from that of Nalut and Jadu in the west. Old Nafusi phrases appear in Ibadite manuscripts as early as the 12th century.
The dialect of Jadu is described in some detail in Beguinot (1931). Motylinski (1898) describes the dialect of Jadu and Nalut as spoken by a student from Yefren.
Nafusi shares several innovations with the Zenati languages, but unlike these Berber varieties, it maintains prefix vowels before open syllables. For example, ''ufəs'' "hand" < *''afus'', rather than Zenati ''fus''. It appears especially closely related to Sokni and Siwi to its east.
]
Phonology
Vowels
* Vowels may also be shortened /ĭ, ɛ̆, ă, ɔ̆, ŭ/ or lengthened as /iː, ɛː, aː, ɔː, uː/.
* /a/ can also be heard as �, ɒand /u/ as �in different environments.
Consonants
References
Works Cited
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External links
Nafusi Swadesh List
Eastern Berber languages
Berbers in Libya
Languages of Libya
Tripolitania
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