Ait Seghrouchen Berber

Ait Seghrouchen Berber
Tmaziġt, Tamaziġt
Native to	Morocco
Region	Central Morocco – Middle Atlas
Language family	Afro-Asiatic Berber Northern Berber Zenati Eastern Middle Atlas Ait Seghrouchen Berber
Writing system	Tifinagh, Latin
Language codes
ISO 639-3	None (mis)
Linguist list	tzm-cen (Seghrušen of Mzab-Wargla)
Glottolog	None

Ait Seghrouchen Berber, or Seghroucheni (Seghrusheni), is a Berber language. It is spoken by the Ait Seghrouchen tribe inhabiting east-central Morocco.

Classification

Ait Seghrouchen Berber commonly classed as Central Atlas Tamazight, and it is reported to be mutually intelligible with the neighbouring Central Atlas Tamazight 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 a larger cluster of Zenati dialects spoken in the eastern Middle Atlas.

Phonology

Consonants

Ayt Seghrouchen is notable for having the lateral fricative [ɬ] as an allophone of the sequence /lt/. /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.

Ayt Seghrouchen consonants (Ayt Ayache)

		Labial	Dental/ Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Uvular	Pharyn- geal1	Glottal3
Nasal		m	nˤ
Plosive	voiceless		tˤ4		k
	voiced	b3	dˤ		ɡ
Fricative			zˤ	ʒ		ʁ	ʕ
	voiceless	f	sˤ	ʃ		χ	ħ	h
	lateral		(ɬ)2
Approximant			lˤ	j	w
Flap/Trill			rˤ

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, /b/ is sometimes lenited to [β]
4. /t/ is aspirated [tʰ]

Vowels

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

Tamazight vowel phonemes

	Front	Central	Back
Close	i		u
Open		a

These phonemes have numerous allophones, conditioned by the following environments:

(# denotes word boundary, X denotes C_{[−flat −/χ/ −/ʁ/]}, C̣ denotes C_[+flat], G denotes C, /χ/, and /ʁ/)

Tamazight vowel allophony

Phoneme	Realization	Environment	Example	Gloss
/i/	[i]	#_X	/ili/	'to exist'
	[ɨ]	#_Xː / Xː_	/idːa/	'he went'
	[ɪ] [e]	_G / G_	/dˤːiqs/	'to burst out'
	[ɪj]	X_#	/isːfrˤħi/	'he made me happy'
/u/	[u]	#_X / X(ː)_X	/umsʁ/	'I painted'
	[ʊ] [o]	_G / G_	/idˤurˤ/	'he turned'
	[ʊw]	X(ː)_#	/bdu/	'to begin'
	[ʉ]	kː_ / ɡː_	/lːajɡːur/	'he goes'
/a/	[æ]	#_X(ː) / X(ː)_X	/azn/	'to send'
	[ɐ]	X(ː)_#	/da/	'here'
	[ɑ]	_C̣ / C̣_	/ħadˤr/	'to be present'

Phonetic Schwa

There is a predictable non-phonemic vowel inserted into consonant clusters, realized as [ɪ̈] before front consonants (e.g. /b t d .../) and [ə] before back consonants (e.g. /k χ .../). These are some of the rules governing the occurrence of [ə]:

(# denotes word boundary, L denotes /l r m n/, H denotes /h ħ ʕ w j/)

Tamazight schwa epenthesis

Environment	Realization	Example	Pronunciation	Gloss
#C(ː)#	əC(ː)	/ɡ/	[əɡ]	'to be, to do'
#LC#	əLC or LəC	/ns/	[əns] ~ [nəs]	'to spend the night'
#CC#	CəC	/tˤsˤ/	[tˤəsˤ]	'to laugh'
#CːC#	əCːəC	/fːr/	[əfːər]	'to hide'
#CCC#	CCəC / C1C2 are not {L H}	/χdm/	[χdəm]	'to work'
		/zʕf/	[zʕəf]	'to get mad'
#CCC#	əCCəC or #CəCəC# / {C1 C3} is {L H}	/hdm/	[əhdəm] ~ [hədəm]	'to demolish'
#CCC#	CəCəC / C2C3 = {L H}	/dˤmn/	[dˤəmən]	'to guarantee'

Stress

Word stress is non-contrastive and predictable — it falls on the last vowel in a word (including schwa).

Bibliography

• Destaing's "Essai de classification des dialectes berbères du Maroc" (Etudes et Documents Berbère, 19-20, 2001-2002 (1915)
• Kossmann's "Les verbes à i final en zénète" and Essai sur la phonologie du proto-berbère
• http://www.centrederechercheberbere.fr/tamazit.html