Tuareg languages


Tuareg, also known as Tamasheq, Tamajaq or Tamahaq, is a language or family of very closely related Berber languages and dialects. It is spoken by the Tuareg Berbers in large parts of Mali, Niger, Algeria, Libya and Burkina Faso, with a few speakers, the Kinnin, in Chad.

Description

Tuareg dialects belong to the South Berber group and are commonly regarded as a single language. They are distinguished mainly by a few sound shifts. The Tuareg varieties are unusually conservative in some respects; they retain two short vowels where Northern-Berber languages have one or none, and have a much lower proportion of Arabic loanwords than most Berber languages.
The Tuareg languages are traditionally written in the indigenous Tifinagh alphabet. However, the Arabic script is commonly used in some areas, while the Latin script is official in Mali and Niger.
The Tuareg languages are generally acknowledged as being the most conservative forms of Berber speech.

Subclassification

Blench lists the following as separate languages, with dialects in parentheses:
Speakers of Tin Sert identify as Tuareg, but the language is Western Berber.

Orthography

The Tuareg languages may be written using the ancient Tifinagh script, the Latin script or the Arabic script. The Malian national literacy program DNAFLA has established a standard for the Latin alphabet, which is used with modifications in Prasse's Lexique and the government literacy program in Burkina, while in Niger a different system was used. There is also some variation in Tifinagh and in the Arabic script.
Early uses of the Tifinagh script have been found on rock art and in various sepulchres. Among these are the 1,500 year old monumental tomb of the Tuareg matriarch Tin Hinan, where vestiges of a Tifinagh inscription have been found on one of its walls.
Tifinagh usage is now restricted mainly to writing magical formulae, writing on palms when silence is required, and in letter-writing. The Arabic script is mostly in use by tribes more involved in Islamic learning, and little is known about its conventions.
DNAFLA
NigerTifinaghPerso-Arabic
aa
â
ăă
ǝǝ
bbب
c
ddد
ḍḍض
ee
ê
ffف
ggGaf|
ii
î
jjچ
ǰ
ɣɣغ
hhه
kkک
llل
ḷḷ
mmم
nnن
ŋŋ
oo
ô
qq ق
rrر
ssس
ṣṣص
š šش
ttت
ṭṭط
uu
û
wwو
xxخ
yy ي
zz ز
ẓẓظ
ž ǧج
ḥح
ع

The DNAFLA system is a somewhat morphophonemic orthography, not indicating initial vowel shortening, always writing the directional particle as < dd⟩, and not indicating all assimilations.
In Burkina Faso the emphatics are denoted by "hooked" letters, as in Fula, e.g..

Phonology

Vowels

The vowel system includes 5 long vowels, /a, e, i, o, u/, "emphatic" versions of /e, o/, and two short vowels, /ə, ă/. Karl Prasse argued that /e/ goes back to Proto-Berber, while /o/ is derived from /u/. Comparative evidence shows that /ə/ derives from a merger of Proto-Berber */ĭ/ and */ŭ/.
Sudlow classes the "semivowels" /w, j/ with the vowels, and notes the following possible diphthongs: /əw/, /ăw/, /aw/, /ew/, /iw/, /ow/, /uw/, /əj/, /ăj/, /aj/, /ej/, /ij/, /oj/, /uj/.
Before emphatics, vowels lower, turning /ə/ into , /e, i/ into "emphatic" , and /u, o/ into "emphatic" , with some dialectal variation.

Consonants

The consonant inventory largely resembles Arabic: differentiated voicing; uvulars, pharyngeals ; requiring the pharynx muscles to contract and influencing the pronunciation of the following vowel.
is rare, is rare in Tadraq, and are only used in Arabic words in the Tanəsləmt dialect.
The glottal stop is non-phonemic. It occurs at the beginning of vowel-initial words to fill the place of the initial consonant in the syllable structure, although if the words is preceded by a word ending in a consonant, it makes a liaison instead. Phrase-final /a/ is also followed by a phonetic glottal stop.
Gemination is contrastive. Normally becomes, becomes, and becomes. and are predominantly geminate. In addition, in Tadraq is usually geminate, but in Tudalt singleton may occur.
Voicing assimilation occurs, with the first consonant taking the voicing of the second.
Cluster reduction turns word/morpheme-final into and into .

Phonotactics

Syllable structure is CV, including glottal stops.

Suprasegmentals

Contrastive stress may occur in the stative aspect of verbs.

Dialectal differences

Different dialects have slightly different consonant inventories. Some of these differences can be diachronically accounted for. For example, Proto-Berber *h is mostly lost in Ayer Tuareg, while it is maintained in almost every position in Mali Tuareg. The Iwellemmeden and Ahaggar Tuareg dialects are midway between these positions. The Proto-Berber consonant *z comes out differently in different dialects, a development that is to some degree reflected in the dialect names. It is realized as h in Tamahaq, as š in Tamasheq and as simple z in the Tamajaq dialects Tawallammat and Tayart. In the latter two, *z is realised as ž before palatal vowels, explaining the form Tamajaq. In Tawallammat and especially Tayart, this kind of palatalization actually does not confine itself to z. In these dialects, dentals in general are palatalized before and. For example, tidət is pronounced in Tayart.
Other differences can easily be traced back to borrowing. For example, the Arabic pharyngeals ħ and ʻ have been borrowed along with Arabic loanwords by dialects specialized in Islamic learning. Other dialects substitute ħ and ʻ respectively with x and ɣ.

Grammar

The basic word order in Tuareg is verb–subject–object. Verbs can be grouped into 19 morphological classes; some of these classes can be defined semantically. Verbs carry information on the subject of the sentence in the form of pronominal marking. No simple adjectives exist in the Tuareg languages; adjectival concepts are expressed using a relative verb form traditionally called 'participle'. The Tuareg languages have very heavily influenced Northern Songhay languages such as Sawaq, whose speakers are culturally Tuareg but speak Songhay; this influence includes points of phonology and sometimes grammar as well as extensive loanwords.

Syntax

Tamasheq prefers VSO order; however it contains topic–comment structure, allowing the emphasized concept to be placed first, be it the subject or object, the latter giving an effect somewhat like the English passive. Sudlow uses the following examples, all expressing the concept “Men don’t cook porridge” :
meddăn wăr sekediwăn ăsinkSVO
wăr sekediwăn meddăn ăsinkVSO
ăsinkwăr ti-sekediwăn meddăn‘Porridge, men don’t cook it.’
wădde meddăn isakădawăn ăsink‘It isn’t men who cook porridge.’
meddăn a wăren isekediw ăsink‘Men are not those who cook porridge.’

Again like Japanese, the “pronoun/particle ‘a’ is used with a following relative clause to bring a noun in a phrase to the beginning for emphasis,” a structure which can be used to emphasize even objects of prepositions. Sudlow’s example :
essensăɣ enăle‘I bought millet.’
enăle essensăɣ‘It was millet that I bought.’

The indirect object marker takes the form i/y in Tudalt and e/y in Tadraq.

Morphology

As a root-and-pattern, or templatic language, triliteral roots are the most common in Tamasheq. Niels and Regula Christiansen use the root k-t-b to demonstrate past completed aspect conjugation:


The verbal correspondence with the use of aspect; Tamasheq uses four, as delineated by Sudlow:
  1. Perfective: complete actions
  2. Stative: "lasting states as the ongoing results of a completed action."
  3. Imperfective: future or possible actions, "often used following a verb expressing emotion, decision or thought," it can be marked with "'ad'".
  4. Cursive: ongoing actions, often habitual ones.
VerbPerfective/simple perfectStative/intensive perfectImperfective/simple perfectCursive/intensive imperfect
z-g-rizgărizgăr
z-g-r'He went out''He has gone out'
b-d-dibdădibdăd
b-d-d'He stood up''He stood up '--
ekkeɣ hebuekkêɣ hebu
'I went to market''I am going to market'
l-m-dad elmedăɣ Tămasăqlammădăɣ Tămasăq
l-m-d'I will learn Tamasheq''I am learning Tamasheq'
a-dd-as asekka
'He will arrive tomorrow'
iwan tattănăt alemmoZ
'Cows eat straw'
ăru tasăɣalăɣ siha
'I used to work over there'

Commands are expressed in the imperative mood, which tends to be a form of the imperfective aspect, unless the action is to be repeated or continued, in which case the cursive aspect is preferred.

Bibliographies