The Tuareg () languages constitute a group of closely related Berber languages and

dialects The term dialect (from Latin , , from the Ancient Greek word , 'discourse', from , 'through' and , 'I speak') can refer to either of two distinctly different types of linguistic phenomena: One usage refers to a variety of a language that is ...

. They are spoken by the

Tuareg The Tuareg people (; also spelled Twareg or Touareg; endonym: ''Imuhaɣ/Imušaɣ/Imašeɣăn/Imajeɣăn'') are a large Berber ethnic group that principally inhabit the Sahara in a vast area stretching from far southwestern Libya to southern Alg ...

Berbers in large parts of

Mali Mali (; ), officially the Republic of Mali,, , ff, 𞤈𞤫𞤲𞥆𞤣𞤢𞥄𞤲𞤣𞤭 𞤃𞤢𞥄𞤤𞤭, Renndaandi Maali, italics=no, ar, جمهورية مالي, Jumhūriyyāt Mālī is a landlocked country in West Africa. Ma ...

Niger ) , official_languages = , languages_type = National languagesAlgeria ) , image_map = Algeria (centered orthographic projection).svg , map_caption = , image_map2 = , capital = Algiers , coordinates = , largest_city = capital , religi ...

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, Su ...

and

Burkina Faso Burkina Faso (, ; , ff, 𞤄𞤵𞤪𞤳𞤭𞤲𞤢 𞤊𞤢𞤧𞤮, italic=no) is a landlocked country in West Africa with an area of , bordered by Mali to the northwest, Niger to the northeast, Benin to the southeast, Togo and Ghana to the ...

, with a few speakers, the ''Kinnin'', in

Chad Chad (; ar, تشاد , ; french: Tchad, ), officially the Republic of Chad, '; ) is a landlocked country at the crossroads of North and Central Africa. It is bordered by Libya to the north, Sudan to the east, the Central African Repub ...

Description

Tuareg dialects belong to the South Berber group and are sometimes regarded as a single language (as for instance by Karl-Gottfried Prasse). They are distinguished mainly by a few sound shifts (notably affecting the pronunciation of original ''z'' and ''h''). The Tuareg varieties are unusually

conservative Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy that seeks to promote and to preserve traditional institutions, practices, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civilization in ...

in some respects; they retain two short vowels where Northern-Berber languages have one or none, and have a much lower proportion of

Arabic Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C. E.Watson; Walte ...

loanword A loanword (also loan word or loan-word) is a word at least partly assimilated from one language (the donor language) into another language. This is in contrast to cognates, which are words in two or more languages that are similar because t ...

s than most Berber languages. The Tuareg languages are traditionally written in the indigenous

Tifinagh Tifinagh ( Tuareg Berber language: or , ) is a script used to write the Berber languages. Tifinagh is descended from the ancient Libyco-Berber alphabet. The traditional Tifinagh, sometimes called Tuareg Tifinagh, is still favored by the Tua ...

alphabet. However, the Arabic script is commonly used in some areas (and has been since medieval times), while the

Latin script The Latin script, also known as Roman script, is an alphabetic writing system based on the letters of the classical Latin alphabet, derived from a form of the Greek alphabet which was in use in the ancient Greece, Greek city of Cumae, in southe ...

is official in

and

Niger ) , official_languages = , languages_type = National languagesTamahaq – language of the

Kel Ahaggar Kel Ahaggar ( Berber: ⴾⵍ ⵂⴴⵔ) (trans: "People of Ahaggar") is a Tuareg confederation inhabiting the Hoggar Mountains (Ahaggar mountains) in Algeria. The confederation is believed to have been founded by the Tuareg matriarch Tin Hinan, ...

, and

Kel Ajjer Kel Ajjer (also Kel Azjar, Kel Azjer) is a Tuareg confederation inhabiting western Libya and eastern Algeria. Their main stronghold was Ghat, followed by Ubari. The Kel Ajjer speak Tamahaq, or Northern Tuareg. See also *Azjar **Kel Adagh **Kel Ahag ...

spoken in Algeria, western

and in the north of Niger by around 77,000 people. Also known as Tahaggart. *Southern **

Tamasheq Tamashek or Tamasheq is a variety of Tuareg, a Berber macro-language widely spoken by nomadic tribes across North Africa in Algeria, Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso. Tamasheq is one of the three main varieties of Tuareg, the others being Tamaj ...

– language of the Kel Adrar (also known as

Adrar des Ifoghas The Adrar des Ifoghas (also Adrar des Iforas; Tamasheq: ⴰⴷⵔⴰⵔ ⵏ ⵉⴼⵓⵖⴰⵙ in Tifinagh; Adrar n Ifoghas; ar, أدرار إيفوغاس Ifoghas' Mountains) is a massif located in the Kidal Region of Mali, reaching into Alger ...

), spoken in Mali by approximately 500,000 people. ** Air Tamajaq – language of the Kel Ayer (sometimes spelled Aïr), spoken in Niger by approximately 250,000 people. ** Tawellemet – language of the Iwellemmeden, spoken in Mali and Niger by approximately 800,000 people. The term Iwellemmeden (the name of the people) is sometimes used to denote the language. **Tamashaq language of Kal Asakan. Blench (ms, 2006) lists the following as separate languages, with dialects in parentheses: * Tawellemet (Abalagh/East, West) * Tayiṛt (Ingal, Gofat) * Tamesgrest (Azerori) * Tafaghist * Tahaggart/Ahaggar *

Ghat Ghat, a term used in the Indian subcontinent, depending on the context could refer either to a range of stepped hills with valleys (ghati in Hindi), such as the Eastern Ghats and Western Ghats; or the series of steps leading down to a body o ...

Speakers of Tin Sert (Tetserret) identify as Tuareg, but the language is Western Berber.

Orthography

The Tuareg languages may be written using the ancient

(Libyco-Berber) script, the

or the Arabic script. The Malian national literacy program DNAFLA has established a standard for the Latin alphabet, which is used with modifications in Prasse's ''Lexique'' and the government literacy program in Burkina, while in Niger a different system was used. There is also some variation in Tifinagh and in the Arabic script. Early uses of the Tifinagh script have been found on rock art and in various sepulchres. Among these are the 1,500 year old monumental tomb of the Tuareg matriarch Tin Hinan, where vestiges of a Tifinagh

inscription Epigraphy () is the study of inscriptions, or epigraphs, as writing; it is the science of identifying graphemes, clarifying their meanings, classifying their uses according to dates and cultural contexts, and drawing conclusions about the wr ...

have been found on one of its walls. Tifinagh usage is now restricted mainly to writing magical formulae, writing on palms when silence is required, and in letter-writing. The Arabic script is mostly in use by tribes more involved in Islamic learning, and little is known about its conventions. Tifinagh abjad

The DNAFLA system is a somewhat

morphophonemic Morphophonology (also morphophonemics or morphonology) is the branch of linguistics that studies the interaction between morphology (linguistics), morphological and phonology, phonological or phonetic processes. Its chief focus is the sound chan ...

orthography, not indicating initial vowel shortening, always writing the directional particle as < dd⟩, and not indicating all assimilations (e.g. for ămašăq. In Burkina Faso the emphatics are denoted by "hooked" letters, as in Fula, e.g. .

Phonology

Vowels

The vowel system includes five long vowels, and two short vowels, (on this page, is used to represent

IPA IPA commonly refers to: * India pale ale, a style of beer * International Phonetic Alphabet, a system of phonetic notation * Isopropyl alcohol, a chemical compound IPA may also refer to: Organizations International * Insolvency Practitioner ...

). Some of the vowels have more open "emphatic" allophones that occur immediately before emphatic consonants, subject to dialectal variation. These allophones include for and (although may be less open), for and (although may be less open), and for . Karl Prasse argued that /e/ goes back to Proto-Berber, while /o/ is derived from /u/. Comparative evidence shows that /ə/ derives from a merger of Proto-Berber */ĭ/ and */ŭ/. Sudlow classes the "semivowels" /w, j/ with the vowels, and notes the following possible diphthongs: /əw/ (> , /ăw/, /aw/, /ew/, /iw/, /ow/, /uw/, /əj/ (> , /ăj/, /aj/, /ej/, /ij/, /oj/, /uj/.

Consonants

The consonant inventory largely resembles Arabic: differentiated voicing; uvulars, pharyngeals (traditionally referred to as emphatics) ; requiring the pharynx muscles to contract and influencing the pronunciation of the following vowel (although only occur in Arabic loans and only in the name of

Allah Allah (; ar, الله, translit=Allāh, ) is the common Arabic word for God. In the English language, the word generally refers to God in Islam. The word is thought to be derived by contraction from '' al- ilāh'', which means "the god", ...

). is rare, is rare in Tadraq, and are only used in Arabic words in the Tanəsləmt dialect (most Tamasheq replace them with respectively). The glottal stop is non-phonemic. It occurs at the beginning of vowel-initial words to fill the place of the initial consonant in the syllable structure (see below), although if the words is preceded by a word ending in a consonant, it makes a liaison instead. Phrase-final /a/ is also followed by a phonetic glottal stop. Gemination is contrastive. Normally becomes , becomes , and becomes . and are predominantly geminate. In addition, in Tadraq is usually geminate, but in Tudalt singleton may occur. Voicing assimilation occurs, with the first consonant taking the voicing of the second (e.g. > ). Cluster reduction turns word/morpheme-final into and into (e.g. > 'Tamasheq').

Phonotactics

Syllable structure is CV(C)(C), including glottal stops (see above).

Suprasegmentals

Contrastive stress may occur in the stative aspect of verbs.

Dialectal differences

Different dialects have slightly different consonant inventories. Some of these differences can be diachronically accounted for. For example, Proto-Berber ''*h'' is mostly lost in Ayer Tuareg, while it is maintained in almost every position in Mali Tuareg. The Iwellemmeden and Ahaggar Tuareg dialects are midway between these positions. The Proto-Berber consonant ''*z'' comes out differently in different dialects, a development that is to some degree reflected in the dialect names. It is realized as ''h'' in Tamahaq (Tahaggart), as ''š'' in Tamasheq and as simple ''z'' in the Tamajaq dialects Tawallammat and Tayart. In the latter two, ''*z'' is realised as ''ž'' before palatal vowels, explaining the form ''Tamajaq''. In Tawallammat and especially Tayart, this kind of palatalization actually does not confine itself to ''z''. In these dialects, dentals in general are palatalized before and . For example, ''tidət'' is pronounced in Tayart. Other differences can easily be traced back to borrowing. For example, the Arabic pharyngeals ''ħ'' and ''ʻ'' have been borrowed along with Arabic loanwords by dialects specialized in Islamic (

Maraboutic A marabout ( ar, مُرابِط, murābiṭ, lit=one who is attached/garrisoned) is a Muslim religious leader and teacher who historically had the function of a chaplain serving as a part of an Islamic army, notably in North Africa and the Saha ...

) learning. Other dialects substitute ''ħ'' and ''ʻ'' respectively with ''x'' and ''ɣ''.

Grammar

The basic word order in Tuareg is verb–subject–object. Verbs can be grouped into 19 morphological classes; some of these classes can be defined semantically. Verbs carry information on the subject of the sentence in the form of pronominal marking. No simple adjectives exist in the Tuareg languages; adjectival concepts are expressed using a relative verb form traditionally called 'participle'. The Tuareg languages have very heavily influenced Northern

Songhay languages The Songhay, Songhai or Ayneha languages (, or ) are a group of closely related languages/dialects centred on the middle stretches of the Niger River in the West African countries of Mali, Niger, Benin, Burkina Faso and Nigeria. In particular, ...

such as Sawaq, whose speakers are culturally Tuareg but speak Songhay; this influence includes points of phonology and sometimes grammar as well as extensive loanwords.

Syntax

Tamasheq prefers VSO order; however it contains topic–comment structure (like in American Sign Language, Modern Hebrew, Japanese and Russian), allowing the emphasized concept to be placed first, be it the subject or object, the latter giving an effect somewhat like the English passive. Sudlow uses the following examples, all expressing the concept “Men don’t cook porridge” (e denotes Sudlow's schwa): Again like Japanese, the “pronoun/particle ‘a’ is used with a following relative clause to bring a noun in a phrase to the beginning for emphasis,” a structure which can be used to emphasize even objects of prepositions. Sudlow’s example (s denotes voiceless palato-alveolar fricative): The indirect object marker takes the form i/y in Tudalt and e/y in Tadraq.

Morphology

As a root-and-pattern, or templatic language, triliteral roots (three-consonant bases) are the most common in Tamasheq. Niels and Regula Christiansen use the root k-t-b (to write) to demonstrate past completed aspect conjugation:

The verbal correspondence with the use of aspect; Tamasheq uses four, as delineated by Sudlow: # Perfective: complete actions # Stative: "lasting states as the ongoing results of a completed action." # Imperfective: future or possible actions, "often used following a verb expressing emotion, decision or thought," it can be marked with "'ad'" (shortened to "'a-'" with prepositions). # Cursive: ongoing actions, often habitual ones. Commands are expressed in the

imperative mood The imperative mood is a grammatical mood that forms a command or request. The imperative mood is used to demand or require that an action be performed. It is usually found only in the present tense, second person. To form the imperative mood, ...

, which tends to be a form of the imperfective aspect, unless the action is to be repeated or continued, in which case the cursive aspect is preferred.

*Bougchiche, Lamara. (1997) ''Langues et litteratures berberes des origines a nos jours. Bibliographie internationale et systematique.'' Paris: Ibis Press. *Chaker, Salem, ed. (1988) ''Etudes touaregues. Bilan des recherches en sciences sociales.'' Travaux et Documents de i.R.E.M.A.M. no. 5. Aix-en-Provence: IREMAM / LAPMO. *Leupen, A.H.A. (1978) ''Bibliographie des populations touaregues: Sahara et Soudan centraux.'' Leiden: Afrika Studiecentrum.

Dictionaries

De Foucauld - Dictionnaire touareg–français, vol 1 p

* Charles de Foucauld (1951–1952) ''Dictionnaire touareg–francais''. 4 vol. Paris: Imprimerie Nationale de France. osthumous facsimile publication (author dec. 1916); dialect of Hoggar, southern Algeria* Jeffrey Heath (2006) ''Dictionnaire tamachek–anglais–français''. Paris: Karthala. overs dialects of northern Mali* Motylinski, A. (1908)
Grammaire, dialogues et dictionnaire touaregs
Alger: P. Fontana. *

Karl-G Prasse Karl-Gottfried Prasse (14 August 1929 in Hamburg – 12 April 2018 in Værløse) was a Danish linguist with a focus in the Berber language. He was mainly concerned with the Tuareg-Berber language spoken in Niger, Mali and southern Algeria. For t ...

, Ghoubeid Alojaly and Ghabdouane Mohamed, (2003) ''Dictionnaire touareg–francais (Niger)''. 2nd edition revised; 2 vol. Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press, University of Copenhagen.

st edition 1998; covers two dialects of the northern Republic of Niger ST, St, or St. may refer to: Arts and entertainment * Stanza, in poetry * Suicidal Tendencies, an American heavy metal/hardcore punk band * Star Trek, a science-fiction media franchise * Summa Theologica, a compendium of Catholic philosophy ...

Grammars

*Christiansen, Niels, and Regula. "Some verb morphology features of Tadaksahak ." SIL Electronic Working Papers. 2002. SIL International. 2 December 2007

. * Hanoteau, A. (1896)
Essai de grammaire de la langue tamachek' : renfermant les principes du langage parlé par les Imouchar' ou Touareg
'. Alger: A. Jourdan. *Galand, Lionel. (1974) 'Introduction grammaticale'. In: Petites Soeurs de Jesus, ''Contes touaregs de l'Air'' (Paris: SELAF), pp. 15–41. * Heath, Jeffrey. 2005. ''Grammar of Tamashek (Tuareg of Mali)''. (Mouton Grammar Series.) the Hague: Mouton de Gruyter. * *Prasse, Karl G. (1973) ''Manuel de grammaire touaregue (tahaggart)''. 4 vol. Copenhagen.

Texts

* Ag Erless, Mohamed (1999) ''"Il n'y a qu'un soleil sur terre". Contes, proverbes et devinettes des Touaregs Kel-Adagh.'' Aix-en-Provence: IREMAM. * Aghali-Zakara, Mohamed & Jeannine Drouin (1979) ''Traditions touarègues nigériennes.'' Paris: L'Harmattan. * Albaka, Moussa & Dominique Casajus (1992) ''Poésies et chant touaregs de l'Ayr. Tandis qu'ils dorment tous, je dis mon chant d'amour''. Paris: L'Harmattan. * Alojaly, Ghoubeïd (1975) ''Ǎttarikh ən-Kəl-Dənnəg – Histoire des Kel-Denneg.'' Copenhagen: Akademisk Forlag. * Casajus, Dominique (1985) ''Peau d'Âne et autres contes touaregs''. Paris: L'Harmattan. * Chaker, Salem & Hélène Claudot & Marceau Gast, eds. (1984) ''Textes touaregs en prose de Charles de Foucauld et. A. de Calassanto-Motylinski.'' Aix-en-Provence: Édisud.

* Foucauld, Charles de (1925) ''Poésies touarègues. Dialecte de l'Ahaggar.'' Paris: Leroux.

* Heath, Jeffrey (2005) ''Tamashek Texts from Timbuktu and Kidal''. Berber Linguistics Series. Cologne: Koeppe Verlag * Louali-Raynal, Naïma & Nadine Decourt & Ramada Elghamis (1997) ''Littérature orale touarègue. Contes et proverbes.'' Paris: L'Harmattan. * Mohamed, Ghabdouane & Karl-G. Prasse (1989) ''Poèmes touarègues de l'Ayr.'' 2 vol. Copenhagen: Akademisk Forlag. * Mohamed, Ghabdouane & Karl-G. Prasse (2003) ''əlqissǎt ən-təməddurt-in – Le récit de ma vie.'' Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press. *Nicolaisen, Johannes, and Ida Nicolaisen. The Pastoral Tuareg: Ecology, Culture, and Society. Vol. 1,2. New York: Thames and Hudson, Inc, 1997. 2 vols. * Nicolas, Francis (1944) ''Folklore Twareg. Poésies et Chansons de l'Azawarh.'' BIFAN VI, 1–4, p. 1-463.

Linguistic topics

* Cohen, David (1993) 'Racines'. In: Drouin & Roth, eds. ''À la croisée des études libyco-berbères. Mélanges offerts à Paulette Galand-Pernet et Lionel Galand'' (Paris: Geuthner), 161–175. * Kossmann, Maarten (1999) ''Essai sur la phonologie du proto-berbère''. Köln: Rüdiger Köppe. * Prasse, Karl G. (1969) ''A propos de l'origine de ''h'' touareg (tahaggart)''. Copenhagen.

References

Bibliography

* * *

External links

Souag, L.: Writing Berber Languages
{{DEFAULTSORT:Tuareg Languages Berber languages Languages of Algeria