Judeo-Berber language

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Judeo-Berber is the language and dialects formed in Berber Jewish communities of central and southern Morocco where Berber dialects were common. Judeo-Berber was the primary, if not the only, language used by many in Berber Jewish communities, though others used primarily Judeo-Arabic.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> The language arose as a result of Arabic-speaking Jews getting in touch with Berber languages.<ref name="Chetrit2016">Chetrit (2016) "Jewish Berber", in Kahn & Rubin (eds.) Handbook of Jewish Languages, Brill</ref> It is also called Judeo-Amazigh, Judeo-Tamazight, and Jewish Amazigh.

Its speakers immigrated 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/, contrary to Judeo-Moroccan Arabic.

History

The first indication of Jews speaking any Berber language only appears in the early 19th century and it's of rural Jews in Jebel Nefusa and Saharan Ghardaia.

As of 1912, about 8,000 of Moroccan Jews spoke Judeo-Berber. The language was spoken in the country's Berber or partly Berber rural and mountainous areas.<ref name=":0">Template:Cite web</ref> According to a 1936 survey, approximately 145,700 of Morocco's 161,000 Jews spoke a variety of Berber (though not specifically Judeo-Berber), 25,000 of whom were reportedly monolingual in a Berber language.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Due to the mass migration of Moroccan Jews after the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, the number of speakers declined as the language was not passed down to new speakers, leaving it with only about 200 speakers left in France and Israel as of 2023.<ref name=":0" />

Geographic distribution

Communities in Morocco where Jews spoke Judeo-Berber included: Tinghir, 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 Tashelhiyt-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.

Phonology

Consonants<ref name=":1">Template:Cite book</ref>

		Labial	Bilabial	Dental-Alveolar	Alveolar	Post-Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Uvular	Pharyngeal	Laryngeal
Plosive	Unvoiced		p	t				k	q
	Voiced		b	d				g
Nasals			m	n
Fricative	Unvoiced				s	ʃ		x		ħ	h
	Voiced				z	ʒ		ɣ		ʕ
Trill				r
Lateral					l
Approximant	Voiced	w					j

Vowels<ref name=":1" />

	Front	Central	Back
Close	i		u
Mid		ǝ
Open-mid
Open	a

Judeo-Berber is characterized by the following phonetic phenomena:<ref name=Chetrit2016/>

• Centralized pronunciation of /i u/ as [ɨ ʉ]
• Neutralization of the distinction between /s ʃ/, especially among monolingual speakers
• Delabialization of labialized velars (/kʷ gʷ xʷ ɣʷ/), e.g. nəkkʷni/nukkni > nəkkni 'us, we'
• Insertion of epenthetic [ə] to break up consonant clusters
• Frequent diphthong insertion, as in Judeo-Arabic
• Some varieties have q > kʲ and dˤ > tˤ, as in the local Arabic dialects
• In the eastern Sous Valley region, /l/ > [n] in both Judeo-Berber and Arabic

Lexicon

The lexicon of Judeo-Berber is the same as that of regular Shilha, except it has Hebrew and Judeo-Arabic loanwords. This lack of differentiation from Shilha means it is not a language but rather a dialect.<ref name=":1" /> Judeo-Berber lexicon also influenced Judeo-Arabic.<ref name=":0" />

Usage

Apart from its daily use, Judeo-Berber was used for orally explaining religious texts, and only occasionally written, using Hebrew characters; a Pesah Haggadah manuscript 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.<ref>Template:Cite web Template:Small</ref>

Sample Text

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

See also

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

Bibliography

• P. Galand-Pernet & Haim Zafrani. Une version berbère de la Haggadah de Pesaḥ: Texte de Tinrhir du Todrha (Maroc). Compress rendus du G.L.E.C.S. Supplement I. 1970. Template:In lang
• 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 Template:In lang
• Except from Haggadah