- published: 31 Oct 2013
- views: 5858
Central Atlas Tamazight (also known as Central Morocco Tamazight, Middle Atlas Tamazight, Tamazight, Central Shilha, and, rarely, Braber; native name: ⵜⴰⵎⴰⵣⵉⵖⵜ Tamazight [tæmæˈzɪɣt], [θæmæˈzɪɣθ]) is a Berber language of the Afro-Asiatic language family, spoken by 3 to 5 million people in Central Morocco, as well as by smaller emigrant communities in France and elsewhere. As of June 2011 is an official language of Morocco alongside Arabic, in government, the legal system; it is primarily spoken in the private sphere, in recent decades within the school system.
Central Atlas Tamazight is one of the four most-spoken Berber languages, in addition to Kabyle, Shilha, and Riff, and in Morocco it rivals Shilha as the most-spoken Berber language. All four languages may be referred to as 'Tamazight', but Central Atlas Tamazight speakers are the only ones who use the term exclusively. As is typical of Afro-Asiatic languages, Tamazight has a series of "emphatic consonants" (realized as pharyngealized), uvulars, pharyngeals, and lacks the phoneme /p/. Tamazight has a phonemic three-vowel system, but also has numerous words without vowels.
You look like Yassa Arafat,
You look like Indira Ghandi;
You look like Andre Gromeko -
You look like Roberts; Sandy.
Chorus:
I'll 'ave ya.
You look like Ronald Regan,
You look like Adolf Hitler;
You look like George Shultz -
You look like Magilla Gorrilla.
You look like Abel Tasman,
You look like Barney Rubble;
You look like Mussolini -
If ya pickin' me, there'll be trouble