A Berber defines himself through his language. A Berber is an Amazigh, and the Berber language is called Tamazight (female, in original version). But when a Berber calls another one, he says “oh, Tamazight”, one could translate “oh, you that speaks the same language as I do”. So is the language at the very core of the Berber identity.

And this language is a surviving one, a miraculously preserved one, a non-written language for centuries, repressed, considered as a bad language, the every-day language, the vulgar one, as opposed to the beautiful literary langue, the holy language of the Koran. It is also a language repressed for political reasons, because it became the flag of an identity claim, the claim of the Berbers.

But Berber is still spoken, in sprite of the diminution of Berber-speaking areas, in spite of the lack of a codified grammar, in spite of the absence of modern and comprehensive dictionaries, in spite of its diverging dialects, amidst only Kabyle was really inventoried by Charles de Foucauld, in spite of the obligation to speak other languages to work, to work, to have success, in spite of decrees forbidding its use, its transcription, in spite of the kind of prison where are the people who speak only Berber, often poverty-stricken ghettos, Berber is still spoken, sung, rhymed. It starts to be written, it can be found on the net, it starts to be taught at school, to be heard on TV.

To understand the miracle represented by this survival, and the vitality of the language, one has to compared with the nearly-death of regional languages in France (more than in England, where Irish and Gaelic where never so strongly fought by the central power).
In North-Africa, a Berber child learns his mother-tongue, like all children, in the cradle, and very often speaks only Berber at home. Then, between 4 and 6, it is breakdown, the first school, the koranic one, the school of the fkih, where he has to learn Koran’s verses by heart. Arabic language, and a classical Arabic, the very one which did not evolve since its codification, at the end of VIII° century. A language today so difficult that very few really speak it, a frozen language, which grammar is a long list of exceptions.
To follow our comparison, one should imagine a little child in Brittany (one of the very few provinces that kept its own language, a Celtic one, up to the end of the XIX° century), or in Marseilles, speaking Celtic or Provencal, and sent to school to learn to read, write and recite ancient Latin.
And even worse, because our little schoolboy could at least write his Provencal, his Britton, and build a dictionary between his language and Latin. But one does not write Berber.

Our schoolboy grows up, and go to school, where he is taught classical Arabic, the one spoken every day in Saudi Arabia, for example (or nearly …. There also one can find dialects). And our schoolboy goes out in the street, buys candies, goes to the doctor. For all that, he must speak Arabic. Attention ! Not the Arabic he learns at school, the Arabic every one speaks in the street, the daily and vulgar Arabic, nearly another language, which is named in Morocco “Darija”.

So, our Britton schoolboy, who learned to read in Latin, is now facing people speaking French all around. Then again, this Darija is not written. Because one does not do it, because it is “no Arabic”.
For example, the number « two » is said in classical Arabic « itnain » and in Darija “jouge”. But is always written the same way. Our schoolboy, seeing the price of oranges, for example, will read it “jouge dirham”, but, seeing the name of the mosque Hassan II, will read “Hassan itnaïn” (precisely, Hassan Al Thani) by respect. But the written number is exactly the same.
And to make it even more complex, he looks at the TV, sees Egyptians movies, which have a dialectal Arabic different from his Darija. Between classical and his own language, like Italian is between French and Latin.

Things are hard enough, when, at 9 or 10, he starts to learn French, and later on English, written languages, but in a different alphabet.
The difference between these two alphabets is really significant. Arabic alphabet is an “Abjad”, where only consonants and long vowels are written (knowing that the same long vowel can be articulated “a”, “i” or “ou”), and the letters have different forms depending on their places in the word, and how they combine. Like in Hebrew, vocalisation, or writing of supplementary signs to make the vowels (and hence the meaning of the words) clear is made only for holy texts, and never in daily life, newspapers, etc….

And during all this time, nobody teaches Berber to our schoolboy. He is under no pressure to go on using Berber, even sometimes the contrary. He must practise classical Arabic, French, English, and have good results. In Morocco, French is the second official language. School is in Arabic, High School and University often in French. He must also practice Darija. And our schoolboy manages all that, does not abandon anything, goes on speaking Berber….

In France, one century was enough for the centralising Republican School to make disappear other languages, and the number of people actually able to really speak Britton or Basque is ridiculously low.

But Berber survived, in even worse conditions. Even if the situation in Morocco never reached the paroxysms in Algeria, Berberism and rebelliousness are often linked. It was – it is still – forbidden to give a Berber name, for example. Changes slowly happen in Morocco, and Berber gains more and more room. Taught at school to all children (of Berber or Arabic speaking families), spoken on TV, where everyday news in Berber are broadcasted, and even taught on 2M channel, promoted by an official body, the Royal Institute for the Amazigh Culture, Berber is coming back as a language.
A language that enters modernity, has now a keyboard, a UTF-code, fonts… you can see in our links to know more about it.

So what is this Berber ? A Semitic language, like Arabic and Hebrew, which exact origin is lost, like the origin of the Berber people in North Africa, arrived in proto-historic times. A language of he same family as Guanche (a dead language formerly spoken in Canarias), which territory spread from north of Morocco to some Egyptian oasis eastwards, and a few pockets in Burkina Faso southwards.

Morocco is the most Berber country, one estimates that 40 to 60% of its inhabitants speak Berber, split between several dialects, Tarifit in the north, Braber or Tamazight in High and Middle Atlas, in the centre of the country, Chleuh, or Tashelhit, in High and Anti-Atlas, and Zanata near the Algerian border. 25% to 35% of Algerians speak Berber (mainly Kabyle [4 million speakers] and Chawi [2 million speakers]). In Tunisia, Berber is spoken mainly in the south. In Lybia, around 20% of the population speaks Nefoussa, Tuareg or Tamasheq, spoken through all the Saharan south, Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso and Mauritania.

These are really dialects, and geographical proximity facilitates mutual understanding. An Amazigh and a Chleuh will have no problem to understand each other, when it shall be more difficult between a Kabyle and a Tuareg. Bit the core of the language remains identical, behind vocabulary and pronunciation differences. A language that differs from Arabic, even if some mechanisms (like modification of the words with prefix and suffix to form declinations, plurals and conjugations, only the middle consonants remaining the same), even if many words passed from one language to the other. Many sentences are a mixture of Berber and Arabic words… and French words for all that is modern, linked to techniques, cars, cooking instruments… After a few weeks, the eat gets used, and makes the difference, even when one does not understand the words, the music and sounds are really different in the two languages.

Berber is nowadays written, again. But how ? In Arabic fonts, in French fonts, in Berber fonts, the tifinaghs, already used 2.500 years ago before they became obsolete ? And which version of the tifinaghs ? The traditional one, still used by the Tuaregs, a real Abjad (alphabet without vowel), or, for example, the official transcription in Morocco, called neo-tifinagh, which includes vowels ?
Beyond linguistic quarrels, often mixed with political claims, which can be found on some Berber forums (where one tries to demonstrate whether the “intern logic” of the language is nearer to Arabic (i.e. the oppressor) or to Latin languages (i.e. colonizer), the matter is now nearly solved, in a pragmatic manner. As Arabic can be used only to write classical Arabic, it cannot be used to write Berber. When the use of tifinaghs was forbidden, Berber used Latin alphabet, and the impossibility to codify easily all the sounds of the language soon became obvious. Different versions of the neo-tifinaghs can codify these specificities, and avoid the ambiguousness of a solely consonantal transcription (and also t make it easier for Europeans to learn the language!).

When you travel in Morocco, you speak Berber without being aware of it. Place names, village names are most often Berber. One must know, for example, than the feminine form of a noun is always formed by adding a T at the beginning and the end of the root. Taznaght, Taddart, Taroudant, Tiznit…. Berber names spread over the map of Morocco, very often linked to nature, the fig, the tree, the source ….
Some French names, like « Azur » come from Berber.

Mrehba bikoum Mizgarne… You are welcome in Mezgarne