Judeo-Berber
Judeo-Shilha
Region	Israel
Native speakers	none [1] L2 speakers : 3,000 (2018) [2]
Language family	Afro-Asiatic Berber Northern Atlas Shilha Judeo-Berber
Writing system	Hebrew alphabet (generally not written)
Language codes
ISO 639-3	jbe
Glottolog	(insufficiently attested or not a distinct language) jude1262
Map of Judeo Berber speaking communities in the first half of the 20th century

Judeo-Berber or Judeo-Amazigh ( Berber languages : ???????? ? ?????? tamazight n wudayen , Hebrew : ?????? ?????? ‎ berberit yehudit) is any of several hybrid Berber varieties traditionally spoken as a second language in Berber 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 . ^[1] (There were also Jews who spoke Berber as their first language, but not a distinct Jewish variety.) ^[1] 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 ? as s (as in many Jewish Moroccan Arabic dialects).

Speaker population [ edit ]

According to a 1936 survey, approximately 145,700 of Morocco's 161,000 Jews spoke a variety of Berber, 25,000 of whom were reportedly monolingual in the language. ^[3]

Geographic distribution [ edit ]

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.

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 .

Phonology [ edit ]

Judeo-Berber is characterized by the following phonetic phenomena: ^[1]

• Centralized pronunciation of /i u/ as [? ?]
• Neutralization of the distinction between /s ?/, especially among monolingual speakers
• Delabialization of labialized velars (/k? g? x? ??/), e.g. n?kk?ni/nukkni > n?kkni 'us, we'
• Insertion of epenthetic [?] to break up consonant clusters
• Frequent diphthong insertion, as in Judeo-Arabic
• Some varieties have q > k? and d? > t?, as in the local Arabic dialects
• In the eastern Sous Valley region, /l/ > [n] in both Judeo-Berber and Arabic

Usage [ edit ]

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. ^[4]

Example [ edit ]

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

See also [ edit ]

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

References [ edit ]

Bibliography [ edit ]

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

External links [ edit ]

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