Judeo-Berber language

Judeo-Berber
Region	Israel
Native speakers	none L2 speakers: 750 (2010)
Language family	Afro-Asiatic Berber Northern Berber Shilha Judeo-Berber
Writing system	generally not written
Language codes
ISO 639-3	jbe
Glottolog	(insufficiently attested or not a distinct language) jude1262

Judeo-Berber (Berber: Tamazight Tudayt, Hebrew: ברברית יהודית‎‎) is any of several hybrid Berber varieties traditionally spoken as a second language in Jewish communities of central and southern Morocco, and perhaps earlier in Algeria. Judeo-Berber is (or was) a contact language; the first language of speakers was Judeo-Arabic. (There were also Jews who spoke Berber as their first language, but not a distinct Jewish variety.) Speakers emigrated to Israel in the 1950s and 1960s. While mutually comprehensible with the Tamazight spoken by most inhabitants of the area (Galand-Pernet et al. 1970:14), these varieties are distinguished by the use of Hebrew loanwords and the pronunciation of š as s (as in many Jewish Moroccan Arabic dialects).

Geographic distribution

Communities where Jews in Morocco spoke Judeo-Berber included : Tinerhir, Ouijjane, Asaka, Imini , Draa valley , Demnate and Ait Bou Oulli in the Tamazight-speaking Middle Atlas and High Atlas and Oufrane, Tiznit and Illigh in the Tasheliyt-speaking Souss valley (Galand-Pernet et al. 1970:2). Jews were living among tribal Berbers, often in the same villages and practiced old tribal Berber protection relationships.

Almost all speakers of Judeo-Berber left Morocco in the years following its independence, and their children have mainly grown up speaking other languages. In 1992, about 2,000 speakers remained, mainly in Israel; all are at least bilingual in Judeo-Arabic.

Usage

Apart from its daily use, Judeo-Berber was used for orally explaining religious texts, and only occasionally written, using Hebrew characters; a manuscript Pesah Haggadah written in Judeo-Berber has been reprinted (Galand-Pernet et al. 1970.) A few prayers, like the Benedictions over the Torah, were recited in Berber.

Example

Taken from Galand-Pernet et al. 1970:121 (itself from a manuscript from Tinghir):

יִכְדַמְן אַיְיִנַגָא יפּרעו גְמַצָר. יִשוֹפִגַג רבי נּג דְיְנָג שוֹפוֹש נִדְרע שוֹפוֹש יִכיווֹאַנ

ixəddamn ay n-ga i pərʿu g° maṣər. i-ss-ufġ aġ əṛbbi ənnəġ dinnaġ s ufus ən ddrʿ, s ufus ikuwan.

Rough word-for-word translation: servants what we-were for Pharaoh in Egypt. he-cause-leave us God our there with arm of might, with arm strong.

Servants of Pharaoh is what we were in Egypt. Our God brought us out thence with a mighty arm, with a strong arm.

See also

• Judeo-Arabic languages
• Judeo-Moroccan
• Berber Jews

Bibliography

• P. Galand-Pernet & Haim Zafrani. Une version berbère de la Haggadah de Pesaḥ: Texte de Tinrhir du Todrha (Maroc). Compres rendus du G.L.E.C.S. Supplement I. 1970. (French)
• Joseph Chetrit. "Jewish Berber," Handbook of Jewish Languages, ed. Lily Kahn & Aaron D. Rubin. Leiden: Brill. 2016. Pages 118-129.

External links

• Judeo-Berber, by Haim Zafrani (French)
• Except from Haggadah