Matmata Berber is a Zenati

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 ...

dialect spoken around the town of Matmâta in southern

Tunisia Tunisia, officially the Republic of Tunisia, is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It is bordered by Algeria to the west and southwest, Libya to the southeast, and the Mediterranean Sea to the north and east. Tunisia also shares m ...

, and in the villages of Taoujjout, Tamezret and Zrawa. According to Ben Mamou's lexicon,Tamezret (Tunisie) et son dialecte berbère
/ref> its speakers call it ''Tmaziɣṯ'' or ''Eddwi nna'', meaning "our speech", while it is called ''Shelha'' or ''Jbali'' (جبالي) in local

Tunisian Arabic Tunisian Arabic, or simply Tunisian (), is a Varieties of Arabic, variety of Arabic spoken in Tunisia. It is known among its 13 million speakers as ''Tūnsi'', "Tunisian" or ''Maghrebi Arabic, Derja'' (; meaning "common or everyday dialect") t ...

dialects. The total population speaking this variety was estimated at 3,726 in 1975. Documentation of Matmata Berber is limited. A collection of fairy tales in this variety was published by Stumme in 1900. Basset (1950) provides a few dialect maps of Tunisian Berber including this region, showing lexical variation, while Penchoen (1968) offers a general discussion of Tunisian Berber and the effects of schooling. Collins (1981) discusses its verbal morphology along with that of other Tunisian Berber varieties. The only general grammatical sketch and vocabulary available is the website put together by Larbi Ben Mamou, a native speaker of the language. ''

Ethnologue ''Ethnologue: Languages of the World'' is an annual reference publication in print and online that provides statistics and other information on the living languages of the world. It is the world's most comprehensive catalogue of languages. It w ...

'' treats it as part of the Nafusi language spoken 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 ...

, although the two belong to different subgroups of Berber according to Kossmann (1999).A separate language code in ''Ethnologue'' 13, uh was retired and reassigned to a Bhil language in India.

References

Berber languages Berbers in Tunisia Languages of Tunisia {{Berber-lang-stub