Ait Seghrouchen Berber


Ait Seghrouchen Berber, or Seghroucheni, is a Zenati Berber language of the Eastern Middle Atlas Berber cluster. It is spoken by the Ait Seghrouchen tribe inhabiting east-central Morocco.

Classification

Ait Seghrouchen Berber is commonly classed as Central Atlas Tamazight. It is reported to be mutually intelligible with the neighbouring Berber dialect of Ait Ayache. Genetically, however, it belongs to the Zenati subgroup of Northern Berber, rather than to the Atlas subgroup to which the rest of Central Atlas Tamazight belongs, and are therefore excluded by some sources from Central Atlas Tamazight.
Ait Seghrouchen is part of the Eastern Middle Atlas Berber cluster of Zenati dialects, which is spoken in the eastern Middle Atlas.

Phonology

Consonants

Ayt Seghrouchen is notable for having the lateral fricative as an allophone of the sequence. /k, g/ are pronounced as stops, unlike the closely related Ayt Ayache dialect in which they are fricatives.
In the table below, when consonants appear in pairs, the one on the left is voiceless.
Phonetic notes:
  1. mainly in Arabic borrowings
  2. realization of the sequence /lt/ for some speakers, e.g. ultma 'sister', altu 'not yet'
  3. For a small number of speakers, is sometimes lenited to
  4. is aspirated

    Vowels

Ait Seghrouchen Berber has a typical phonemic three-vowel system, similarly to Classical Arabic:
FrontCentralBack
Closeiu
Opena

These phonemes have numerous allophones, conditioned by the following environments:
PhonemeRealizationEnvironmentExampleGloss
#_X'to exist'
#_Xː / Xː_'he went'
_G / G_'to burst out'
X_#'he made me happy'
#_X / X_X'I painted'
_G / G_'he turned'
X_#'to begin'
_ / _'he goes'
#_X / X_X'to send'
X_#'here'
_C̣ / C̣_'to be present'

Phonetic Schwa
There is a predictable non-phonemic vowel inserted into consonant clusters, realized as before front consonants and before back consonants
EnvironmentRealizationExamplePronunciationGloss
#C#əC'to be, to do'
#LC#əLC or LəC'to spend the night'
#CC#CəC'to laugh'
#CːC#əCːəC'to hide'
#CCC#CCəC / C1C2 are not 'to work'
#CCC#CCəC / C1C2 are not 'to get mad'
#CCC#əCCəC or #CəCəC# / is 'to demolish'
#CCC#CəCəC / C2C3 = 'to guarantee'

Stress

is non-contrastive and predictable — it falls on the last vowel in a word.