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56-518: Northern Berber languages spoken by over a million people include Shilha , Central Morocco Tamazight , Riff , Shawiya and Kabyle . They fall into three groups: The eastern boundaries of the North Berber varieties are uncertain. Some linguists include the Nafusi and Ghadames languages, while others do not. Most regard Ghadamès as lying outside of Northern Berber, but Ethnologue does not. There

112-496: A century. A problem with the work is its use of an over-elaborate, phonetic transcription which, while designed to be precise, generally fails to provide a transparent representation of spoken forms. Stumme also published a collection of Shilha fairy tales (1895, re-edited in Stroomer 2002). The next author to grapple with Shilha is Saïd Cid Kaoui (Saʿīd al-Sidqāwī, 1859-1910), a native speaker of Kabyle from Algeria. Having published

168-478: A description of Judgment Day, in verse) and other texts. Modern Tashelhit literature has been developing since the end of the 20th century. The first attempt at a grammatical description of Shilha is the work of the German linguist Hans Stumme (1864–1936), who in 1899 published his Handbuch des Schilḥischen von Tazerwalt . Stumme's grammar remained the richest source of grammatical information on Shilha for half

224-532: A dictionary of Tuareg (1894), he then turned his attention to the Berber languages of Morocco. His Dictionnaire français-tachelh’it et tamazir’t (1907) contains extensive vocabularies in both Shilha and Central Atlas Tamazight, in addition to some 20 pages of useful phrases. The work seems to have been put together in some haste and must be consulted with caution. On the eve of the First World War there appeared

280-506: A lot of attempts to explain this name based on the language of Tachelhit. The most logical one of them is by the writer Mohammed Akdim, who emphasized in one of his contributions, that the name Shluh , in fact, is the original name given by the original inhabitants of Morocco, Masmouda in the High Atlas and the possessions of Marrakesh , Souss and the Anti-Atlas On themselves. In Shilha,

336-483: A male speaker is called a Šəlḥ , plural Šluḥ , and the language is Šəlḥa , a feminine derivation calqued on Taclḥiyt . The Moroccan Arabic names have been borrowed into English as a Shilh , the Shluh , and Shilha , and into French as un Chleuh , les Chleuhs , and chelha or, more commonly, le chleuh . The now-usual names Taclḥiyt and Iclḥiyn in their endonymic use seem to have gained

392-480: A purely graphical device employed to indicate that the preceding consonant is a syllable onset: [a.k(e)s.sab] , [a.ri.c(e)t.ta] . As Galand has observed, the notation of "schwa" in fact results from "habits which are alien to Shilha". And, as conclusively shown by Ridouane (2008), transitional vowels or "intrusive vocoids" cannot even be accorded the status of epenthetic vowels. It is therefore preferable not to write transitional vowels or "schwa", and to transcribe

448-596: A rate of Tachelhit speakers higher than the national average: Souss-Massa, Guelmim–Oued Noun, Marrakech–Safi and Drâa–Tafilalet and Dakhla–Oued Ed Dahab. They concentrate 79% of the speakers. However, only two of them have a majority of Tachelhito speakers: Souss–Massa with 66% of its population (1,765,417 speakers) and Guelmim–Oued Noun with 50% (218,650 speakers). This rate drops to 26% for Marrakech–Safi (1,185,846 speakers), 22% for Drâa–Tafilalet (359,936 speakers) and 18% in Dakhla–Oued Ed Dahab (25,198 speakers). Like

504-403: A small, practical booklet composed by Captain (later Colonel) Léopold Justinard (1878–1959), entitled Manuel de berbère marocain (dialecte chleuh) . It contains a short grammatical sketch, a collection of stories, poems and songs, and some interesting dialogues, all with translations. The work was written while the author was overseeing military operations in the region of Fès , shortly after

560-434: A transitional vowel is audible following the onset of a vowelless syllable CC or CCC, if either of the flanking consonants, or both, are voiced, for example tigmmi [tiɡĭmmi] "house", amḥḍar [amɐ̆ʜdˤɐr] "schoolboy". In the phonetic transcriptions of Stumme (1899) and Destaing (1920, 1940), many such transitional vowels are indicated. Later authors such as Aspinion (1953), use the symbol ⟨e⟩ to mark

616-462: A wide variety of genres (fairy tales, animal stories, taleb stories, poems, riddles, and tongue-twisters). A large number of oral texts and ethnographic texts on customs and traditions have been recorded and published since the end of the 19th century, mainly by European linguists. Shilha possesses an old literary tradition. Numerous texts written in Arabic script are preserved in manuscripts dating from

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672-482: A wordlist. Edmond Destaing (1872–1940) greatly advanced knowledge of the Shilha lexicon with his Etude sur la tachelḥît du Soûs. Vocabulaire français-berbère (1920) and his Textes berbères en parler des Chleuhs du Sous (Maroc) (1940, with copious lexical notes). Destaing also planned a grammar which was to complete the trilogy, but this was never published. Lieutenant-interpreter (later Commander) Robert Aspinion

728-495: Is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Shilha language Shilha ( / ˈ ʃ ɪ l h ə / SHIL -hə ; from its name in Moroccan Arabic , Šəlḥa ), now more commonly known as Tashelhiyt , Tachelhit ( / ˈ t æ ʃ ə l h ɪ t / TASH -əl-hit ; from the endonym Taclḥiyt , IPA: [tæʃlħijt] ), is a Berber language spoken in southwestern Morocco . When referring to

784-408: Is also a distinction between labialized and plain dorsal obstruents . Consonant gemination or length is contrastive. The semivowels /w/ and /j/ have vocalic allophones [u] and [i] between consonants (C_C) and between consonant and pause (C_# and #_C). Similarly, the high vowels /u/ and /i/ can have consonantal allophones [w] and [j] in order to avoid a hiatus. In most dialects,

840-457: Is currently no evidence of word stress in Tashlhiyt. Shilha has three phonemic vowels, with length not a distinctive feature. The vowels show a fairly wide range of allophones. The vowel /a/ is most often realized as [a] or [æ], and /u/ is pronounced without any noticeable rounding except when adjacent to w . The presence of a pharyngealized consonant invites a more centralized realization of

896-563: Is morphologically a feminine noun, derived from masculine Aclḥiy "male speaker of Shilha". The origin of the names Aclḥiy and Taclḥiyt is still unknown. The first appearance of this name in a western printed source is found in Mármol 's Descripcion general de Affrica (1573, part I, book I, chapter XXXIII): ...y entre los Numidas, y Getulos dela parte occidental de Affrica se habla Berberisco cerrado, y alli llaman esta lengua, Xilha, y Tamazegt, q̃ son nõbres muy antiguos. "...and among

952-414: Is morphologically a feminine noun, derived from masculine Aclḥiy "male speaker of Shilha". Shilha names of other languages are formed in the same way, for example Aɛṛab "an Arab", Taɛṛabt "the Arabic language". The origin of the names Aclḥiy and Taclḥiyt has recently become a subject of debate (see Shilha people#Naming for various theories). The presence of the consonant ḥ in

1008-494: Is no authoritative answer as to whether the Northern Berber varieties constitute languages rather than dialects . Some academics believe that not only Northern Berber but all the Berber languages are dialects of a single language, whereas others come up with much higher counts. At any rate, mutual comprehensibility among the Northern Berber varieties is high, though not perfect. This Berber languages -related article

1064-469: Is only present in the eastern dialects of Arabic; it does not exist in Maghreb dialects, and this is the weakness of this thesis. Also, the majority of those who tried to search for the etymology of the word used foreign-language dictionaries, rather it was supposed to search for the relevant language first. This is mainly due to the fact that the proponents of this hypothesis were not Shilha speakers. There are

1120-749: Is rendered as les Chleuh in French. The Ishelhien are also known as Shluh and Schlöh . Among Arabic speakers, Chleuh serves as an appellation for Berbers generally, although Imazighen is the proper Berber self-name for Berbers as a whole. The Shilha people live mainly in Morocco 's southern Atlantic coast, the High Atlas Mountains , the Anti Atlas mountains, and the Sous Valley. They are of Berber origin, which also includes other ethnic subgroups such as

1176-542: Is the author of Apprenons le berbère: initiation aux dialectes chleuhs (1953), an informative though somewhat disorganized teaching grammar. Aspinion's simple but accurate transcriptions did away with earlier phonetic and French-based systems. The first attempted description in English is Outline of the Structure of Shilha (1958) by American linguist Joseph Applegate (1925–2003). Based on work with native speakers from Ifni,

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1232-621: The Afro-Asiatic family. Their language is sometimes referred to as Sous-Berber . As of 2014, there were around 4.7 million Shilha speakers, constituting 14.1% of the Moroccan population. Tashelhit differs considerably from some other Berber languages, such as those spoken by the Tuareg. Shilha speakers usually refer to their language as Taclḥit , (in Tifinagh script : ⵜⴰⵛⵍⵃⵉⵜ );. This name

1288-553: The Almohad dynasty (1147–1275), and the Marinid dynasty (1213–1524). In 1668, a sharifan family from the east assumed control and established the incumbent Alawite dynasty . The French and Spanish colonial empires partitioned Morocco in 1904, and the southern part of the territory was declared a French protectorate in 1912. Arabization remained an official state policy under both the colonial and succeeding post-independence governments. With

1344-457: The Arabic suffix -iyy ) forms denominal nouns and adjectives. There are also variant forms Aclḥay and Taclḥayt , with -ay instead of -iy under the influence of the preceding consonant ḥ . The plural of Aclḥiy is Iclḥiyn ; a single female speaker is a Taclḥiyt (noun homonymous with the name of the language), plural Ticlḥiyin . In Moroccan colloquial Arabic,

1400-571: The Tuareg , Rif , Kabyle , and Shawia . The Shilha people are a part of Morocco's Berber-speaking community, and the southernmost residing Berber population. In antiquity, Berbers traded with the Phoenicians and Carthaginians in commercial entrepots and colonies along the northwestern littoral. They established the ancient kingdom of Mauretania , which fell under Roman rule in 33 CE, before eventually being reunited under Berber sovereignty. During

1456-497: The United States and Israel . Shilha possesses a distinct and substantial literary tradition that can be traced back several centuries before the protectorate era . Many texts, written in Arabic script and dating from the late 16th century to the present, are preserved in manuscripts. A modern printed literature in Shilha has developed since the 1970s. Shilha speakers usually refer to their language as Taclḥiyt . This name

1512-399: The 16th century. The earliest datable text is a compendium of lectures on the "religious sciences" ( lɛulum n ddin ) composed in metrical verses by Brahim u Ɛbdllah Aẓnag , who died in 1597. The best known writer in this tradition is Mḥmmd u Ɛli Awzal , author of al-Ḥawḍ "The Cistern" (a handbook of Maliki law in verse), Baḥr al-Dumūʿ "The Ocean of Tears" (an adhortation, with

1568-627: The 7th century, the Islamic Umayyad Caliphate invaded the Berber and Byzantine strongholds in the Northwest Africa, seizing Carthage in 698 AD. Although the Umayyads nominally controlled Morocco over the following years, their rule was tenuous due to Berber resistance. Shortly in 739 AD, Umayyad Arabs were defeated by the Berbers at the battle of Nobles and Bagdoura. Morocco remained under

1624-458: The 8.8 million Amazighophones. It is also the Amazigh language that has the greatest geographical extension in the country. Its speakers are present in 1512 of the 1538 municipalities in the kingdom. This distribution is notably the result of a large diaspora of small traders who have settled throughout the country, but also of workers in search of employment opportunities. Five Moroccan regions have

1680-533: The Ighchan ethnic group of the Anti-Atlas, with comparative notes on Kabyle of Algeria and Tuareg of Niger. More recent, book-length studies include Jouad (1995, on metrics), Dell & Elmedlaoui (2002 and 2008, on syllables and metrics), El Mountassir (2009, a teaching grammar), Roettger (2017, on stress and intonation) and the many text editions by Stroomer (see also § Cited works and further reading ). There

1736-487: The Numidians and Getulians of the western part of Afri-ca, they speak Berber with marked local features, and there they call this language Xilha [ʃilħa] and Tamazegt [tamaziɣt], which are very old names." Now it is used as an endonym among Shilha speakers. Some people and sources say that it is exonymic in origin, as the nominal stem šlḥ goes back to the Arabic noun šilḥ "bandit" (plural šulūḥ ). But this meaning

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1792-604: The US state of Kentucky . The area comprises the western part of the High Atlas mountains and the regions to the south up to the Draa River , including the Anti-Atlas and the alluvial basin of the Sous River . The largest urban centres in the area are the coastal city of Agadir (population over 400,000) and the towns of Guelmim , Taroudant , Oulad Teima , Tiznit and Ouarzazate . In

1848-483: The examples below, w and y are transcribed phonemically in some citation forms, but always phonetically in context, for example ysti- "the daughters of", dars snat istis "he has two daughters". Any consonant in Tashlhiyt, in any position within a word, may be simple or geminate. There may be up to two geminates in a stem, and up to three in a word. The role of gemination varies: Gemination also may occur due to phonological assimilation. For example,

1904-409: The fact that semivowels and high vowels can occur in sequence, in lexically determined order, for example tazdwit "bee", tahruyt "ewe" (not * tazduyt , * tahrwit ). In addition, semivowels /w/ and /j/ , like other consonants, occur long, as in afawwu "wrap", tayyu "camel's hump". The assumption of four phonemes also results in a more efficient description of morphology. In

1960-566: The fishing village of Imlili, south of Dakhla (60% of speakers) or the rural municipality of Moulay Ahmed Cherif, 60 km west of the city of Al Hoceima (54% speakers). These situations are reminiscent of the historical migrations that have followed one another over the long term and especially the massive rural exodus that began in the 20th century towards the economic metropolises. Although many speakers of Shilha, especially men, are bilingual in Moroccan Arabic, there are as yet no indications that

2016-547: The following phrase would be realized as [babllfirma]: bab owner n=l-firma of=farm bab n=l-firma owner of=farm Shilha people#Naming The Shilha people ( Berber languages : ⵉⵛⵍⵃⵉⵢⵏ , romanized:  išelḥiyen , Arabic : الشلوح , romanized :  aš-šlūḥ ), or Schleuh or Ishelhien , are a Berber subgroup primarily inhabiting the Anti-Atlas , High Atlas , Sous valley , and Soussi coastal regions of Morocco . The Shilha people traditionally call themselves ishelhien . This endonym

2072-736: The high concentration of Tachelhit-speaking speakers in Dakhla, Tachelhit is spoken significantly by many inhabitants, in Moroccan municipalities outside the area where the language historically originated. With 49% of its speakers living in cities, Tachelhit has become highly urbanized. Thus, 10% of Casablancais speak Tachelhit, i.e. more than 334,000 people. Casablanca is therefore the first Tachelhit city in Morocco, ahead of Agadir (222,000 speakers). Similarly, 9.2% of Rbatis speak Tachelhit, i.e. more than 52,000 people, or 4% of Tangiers and Oujdis. Finally, there are singular cases of very outlying municipalities such as

2128-457: The imposition of the French protectorate (1912). Justinard also wrote several works on the history of the Souss. Emile Laoust (1876–1952), prolific author of books and articles about Berber languages, in 1921 published his Cours de berbère marocain (2nd enlarged edition 1936), a teaching grammar with graded lessons and thematic vocabularies, some good ethnographic texts (without translations) and

2184-499: The language area, the name Tasusiyt (lit. "language of Souss") is now often used as a pars pro toto for the entire language. A speaker of Tasusiyt is an Asusiy , plural Isusiyn , feminine Tasusiyt , plural Tisusiyin . With 4.7 million speakers or 14% of Morocco's population, Tachelhit is the most widely spoken Amazigh language in the Kingdom, ahead of Tamazight and Tarifit. Its speakers represent more than half of

2240-484: The language, anthropologists and historians prefer the name Shilha , which is in the Oxford English Dictionary (OED). Linguists writing in English prefer Tashelhit (or a variant spelling). In French sources the language is called tachelhit , chelha or chleuh . Shilha is spoken in an area covering around 100,000 square kilometres, making the language area approximately the size of Iceland , or

2296-493: The name suggests an originally exonymic (Arabic) origin. The first appearance of the name in a western printed source is found in Mármol 's Descripcion general de Affrica (1573), which mentions the "indigenous Africans called Xilohes or Berbers" ( los antiguos Affricanos llamados Xilohes o Beréberes ). The initial A- in Aclḥiy is a Shilha nominal prefix (see § Inflected nouns ). The ending -iy (borrowed from

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2352-477: The neighboring Inoultan, Infedouak and Imeghran ethnic groups counted as CAT. Though Tashelhit has historically been an oral language, manuscripts of mostly religious texts have been written in Tashelhit using the Arabic script since at least the 16th century. Today, Tashelhit is most commonly written in the Arabic script, although Neo-Tifinagh is also used. Shilha has an extensive body of oral literature in

2408-611: The north and to the south, Shilha borders Arabic -speaking areas. In the northeast, roughly along the line Demnate - Zagora , there is a dialect continuum with Central Atlas Tamazight . Within the Shilha-speaking area, there are several Arabic-speaking enclaves, notably the town of Taroudant and its surroundings. Substantial Shilha-speaking migrant communities are found in most of the larger towns and cities of northern Morocco and outside Morocco in Belgium , France , Germany , Canada ,

2464-407: The place where a transitional vowel may be heard, irrespective of its quality, and they also write ⟨e⟩ where in reality no vowel, however short, is heard, for example ⟨akessab⟩ /akssab/ "owner of livestock", ⟨ar icetta⟩ /ar iʃtta/ "he's eating". The symbol ⟨e⟩ , often referred to as " schwa ", as used by Aspinion and others, thus becomes

2520-605: The rule of Berber kingdoms such as Barghawata and Midrar ... etc. In 789 AD, with the approval of the locals, a former Umayyad courtier established the Idrisid dynasty that ruled in Fez. It lasted until 970 AD, as various petty states vied for control over the ensuing centuries. After 1053, Morocco was ruled by a succession of Muslim dynasties founded by Berber tribes. Among these were the Almoravid dynasty (1053–1147) who spread Islam in Morocco,

2576-409: The semivowels are thus in complementary distribution with the high vowels, with the semivowels occurring as onset or coda, and the high vowels as nucleus in a syllable. This surface distribution of the semivowels and the high vowels has tended to obscure their status as four distinct phonemes, with some linguists denying phonemic status to /w/ and /j/. Positing four distinct phonemes is necessitated by

2632-608: The southwest, from the Achtouken in the west to the Iznagen in the east, and from Aqqa in the desert to Tassaout in the plain of Marrakesh." There exists no sharply defined boundary between Shilha dialects and the dialects of Central Atlas Tamazight (CAT). The dividing line is generally put somewhere along the line Marrakesh-Zagora, with the speech of the Ighoujdamen, Iglioua and Aït Ouaouzguite ethnic groups belonging to Shilha, and that of

2688-448: The southwestern mountains of Morocco cooperated with each other in terms of providing reciprocal grazing rights as seasons changed, as well as during periods of war. These alliances were re-affirmed by annual festive gatherings, where one Shilha community would invite nearby and distant Shilha communities. The Ishelhien speak Tashelhit , a Berber language. It belongs to the Berber branch of

2744-531: The spread of the Berber Spring in Algeria to Berber territory during the 1980s, the Berbers sought to reaffirm their Berber roots. The Ishelhien mainly live in Morocco's Atlas Mountains and Sous Valley. Traditionally, they are farmers who also keep herds. Some are semi-nomadic, growing crops during the season when water is available, and moving with their herds during the dry season. The Ishelhien communities in

2800-521: The survival of Shilha as a living language will be seriously threatened in the immediate future. Because of the rapid growth of the Moroccan population over the past decades (from 12 million in 1961 to over 33 million in 2014), it is safe to say that Shilha is now spoken by more people than ever before in history. Dialect differentiation within Shilha, such as it is, has not been the subject of any targeted research, but several scholars have noted that all varieties of Shilha are mutually intelligible. The first

2856-420: The upper hand relatively recently, as they are attested only in those manuscript texts which date from the 19th and 20th centuries. In older texts, the language is still referred to as Tamaziɣt or Tamazixt "Tamazight". For example, the author Awzal (early 18th c.) speaks of nnaḍm n Tmazixt ann ifulkin "a composition in that beautiful Tamazight". Because Souss is the most heavily populated part of

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2912-421: The verb Ishlh means "to settle down, reside and live", which indicates that the name Shluh means "settled and settled residents or settled residents". He also added that there is no meaning and no use in resorting to searching for the significance of the word shalh and shluh in other languages, which is not crippling. As for going to its interpretation and explanation in the Arabic language, this

2968-465: The vowel, as in kraḍ [krɐdˤ] "three", kkuẓ [kkɤzˤ] "four", sḍis [sdˤɪs] "six" (compare yan [jæn] "one", sin [sin] "two", smmus [smmʊs] "five"). Additional phonemic vowels occur sporadically in recent loanwords, for example /o/ as in rristora "restaurant" (from French). In addition to the three phonemic vowels, there are non-phonemic transitional vowels, often collectively referred to as " schwa ". Typically,

3024-654: The vowels in a strictly phonemic manner, as in Galand (1988) and all recent text editions. The chart below represents Tashlhiyt consonants in IPA, with orthographical representations added between angled brackets when different: Additional phonemic consonants occur sporadically in recent loanwords, for example /bʷ/ as in bb°a "(my) father" (from Moroccan Arabic), and /p/ as in laplaj "beach" (from French). Like other Berber languages and Arabic, Tashlhiyt has both pharyngealized ("emphatic") and plain dental consonants. There

3080-399: The work is written in a dense, inaccessible style, without a single clearly presented paradigm. Transcriptions, apart from being unconventional, are unreliable throughout. The only available accessible grammatical sketch written in a modern linguistic frame is " Le Berbère " (1988) by Lionel Galand (1920–2017), a French linguist and berberologist. The sketch is mainly based on the speech of

3136-516: Was Stumme, who observed that all speakers can understand each other, "because the individual dialects of their language are not very different." This was later confirmed by Ahmed Boukous, a Moroccan linguist and himself a native speaker of Shilha, who stated: "Shilha is endowed with a profound unity which permits the Shluh to communicate without problem, from the Ihahan in the northwest to the Aït Baamran in

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