| Tuareg | |
|---|---|
| Geographic distribution | Sahara andSahel |
| Ethnicity | Tuareg |
| Linguistic classification | Afro-Asiatic
|
| Subdivisions |
|
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-2 /5 | tmh |
| ISO 639-3 | tmh |
| Glottolog | tuar1240 |
 | |
Tuareg (English:/ˈtwɑːrɛɡ/), also known asTamasheq (English:/ˈtæməʃɛk/),Tamajaq orTamahaq (Tifinagh:ⵜⴰⵎⴰⵌⴰⵆ), is a group of closely relatedBerbervarieties. They are spoken by theTuareg Berbers in large parts ofMali,Niger,Algeria,Libya, andBurkina Faso, with a few speakers, theKinnin, inChad.[1]
The Tuareg varieties, on account of their low internal diversity and highmutual intercomprehensibility, are commonly regarded as a single language by linguists (as for instance byKarl-Gottfried Prasse). They are distinguished mainly by a few sound shifts (notably affecting the pronunciation of originalz andh). The Tuareg varieties are unusuallyconservative in some respects; they retain two short vowels where Northern Berber languages have one or none, and have a much lower proportion ofArabicloanwords than most Berber languages.[citation needed]
The Tuareg languages are traditionally written in the indigenousTifinagh alphabet. However, theArabic script is commonly used in some areas (and has been since medieval times), while theLatin script is official inMali andNiger.[citation needed]
Blench (ms, 2006) lists the following as separate languages, with dialects in parentheses:[3]
Speakers ofTin Sert (Tetserret) identify as Tuareg, but the language isTetserret, aWestern Berber.
The Tuareg languages may be written using the ancientTifinagh (Libyco-Berber) script, theLatin script or theArabic script. The Malian national literacy programDNAFLA has established a standard for the Latin alphabet, which is used with modifications in Prasse'sLexique 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.[4]
Early uses of the Tifinagh script have been found onrock art and in varioussepulchres. Among these are the1,500 year old monumental tomb of the Tuareg matriarchTin Hinan, where vestiges of a Tifinaghinscription have been found on one of its walls.[5]
Tifinagh usage is now restricted mainly to writing magical formulae, writing on palms when silence is required, and in letter-writing.[6] The Arabic script is mostly in use by tribes more involved in Islamic learning, and little is known about its conventions.[7]
| DNAFLA (Mali)[12] | Niger[13] | Tifinagh | Arabic | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Image | Unicode | |||
| a | a | |||
| â | ||||
| ă | ă | |||
| ǝ | ǝ | |||
| b | b |  | ⵀ | ب |
| (ḅ) | ||||
| c | ||||
| d | d |  | ⴷ | د |
| ḍ | ḍ |  | ⴹ | ض |
| e | e | |||
| ê | ||||
| f | f |  | ⴼ | ف |
| g | g |  | ⴳ | گ ݣ |
| i | i | |||
| î | ||||
| j | j |  | ⴶ | چ |
| ǰ | ||||
| ɣ | ɣ |  | ⵗ | غ |
| h | h |  | ⵂ | ه |
| k | k |  | ⴾ | ک |
| l | l |  | ⵍ | ل |
| ḷ | ḷ | |||
| m | m |  | ⵎ | م |
| n | n |  | ⵏ | ن |
| ŋ | ŋ | |||
| o | o | |||
| ô | ||||
| q | q |   | ⵆ, ⵈ | ق |
| r | r |  | ⵔ | ر |
| s | s |  | ⵙ | س |
| ṣ | ṣ |  | ⵚ | ص |
| š (ʃ) | š |  | ⵛ | ش |
| t | t |  | ⵜ | ت |
| ṭ | ṭ |  | ⵟ | ط |
| u | u | |||
| û | ||||
| w | w |  | ⵓ | و |
| x | x |  | ⵅ | خ |
| y | y |   | ⵢ, ⵉ | ي |
| z | z |   | ⵌ, ⵣ | ز |
| ẓ | ẓ |  | ⵥ | ظ |
| ž (ʒ) | ǧ |  | ⵊ | ج |
| ḥ | | ⵆ | ح | |
| (ʕ) |  | ⵄ | ع | |
The DNAFLA system is a somewhatmorphophonemic orthography, not indicating initial vowel shortening, always writing the directional particle as < dd⟩, and not indicating allassimilations (e.g.⟨Tămašăɣt⟩ for [tămašăq]).[14]
In Burkina Faso the emphatics are denoted by "hooked" letters, as inFula, e.g.⟨ɗ ƭ⟩.[15]
The vowel system includes five long vowels,/a,e,i,o,u/ and two short vowels,/ə,ă/ (on this page,/ă/ is used to representIPA[æ]). Some of the vowels have more open "emphatic" allophones that occur immediately before emphatic consonants, subject to dialectal variation. These allophones include[ɛ] for/e/ and/i/ (although/i/ may be less open),[ɔ] for/o/ and/u/ (although/u/ may be less open), and[ă] for/ə/.[16] Karl Prasse argued that /e/ goes back toProto-Berber, while /o/ is derived from /u/.[17] 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/ (> [u]), /ăw/, /aw/, /ew/, /iw/, /ow/, /uw/, /əj/ (> [i]), /ăj/, /aj/, /ej/, /ij/, /oj/, /uj/.[18]
| Labial | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Uvular | Pharyngeal | Glottal | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| plain | emphatic | ||||||||
| Nasal | m | n | ŋ[a] | ||||||
| Plosive | voiceless | t | tˤ | k | q | (ʔ) | |||
| voiced | b | d | dˤ | ɟ[note 1] | ɡ | ||||
| Fricative | voiceless | f | s | (sˤ)[b] | ʃ | x[c] | (ħ)[d] | h | |
| voiced | z | zˤ | ʒ[e] | ɣ[c] | (ʕ)[d] | ||||
| Lateral | l | (lˤ)[b] | |||||||
The consonant inventory largely resembles Arabic: differentiated voicing; uvulars, pharyngeals (traditionally referred to as emphatics)/tˤ/,/lˤ/,/sˤ/,/dˤ/,/zˤ/; requiring the pharynx muscles to contract and influencing the pronunciation of the following vowel, and novoiceless bilabial plosive.[21]
Theglottal 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 (see below), although if the words is preceded by a word ending in a consonant, it makes aliaison instead. Phrase-final /a/ is also followed by a phoneticglottal stop.[22]
Gemination is contrastive.[23] Normally/ɣɣ/ becomes[qː],/ww/ becomes[ɡː], and/dˤdˤ/ becomes[tˤː].[23]/q/ and/tˤ/ are predominantly geminate. In addition, in Tadɣaq/ɡ/ is usually geminate, but in Tudalt singleton/ɡ/ may occur.[23]
Voicing assimilation occurs, with the first consonant taking the voicing of the second (e.g./edˤkăr/ >[etˤkăr]).[24]
Cluster reduction turns word/morpheme-final/-ɣt,-ɣk/ into[-qː] and/-kt,-ɟt,-ɡt/ into[-kː] (e.g./tămaʃăɣt/ >[tămaʃăq] 'Tamasheq'[note 2]).[25]
Syllable structure is CV(C)(C), includingglottal stops (see above).[22]
Contrastive stress may occur in the stative aspect of verbs.[16]
Different dialects have slightly different consonant inventories. Some of these differences can bediachronically 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.[26][27] 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 ash in Tamahaq (Tahaggart), asš in Tamasheq and as simplez in the Tamajaq dialects Tawallammat and Tayart. In the latter two,*z is realised asž before palatal vowels, explaining the formTamajaq. In Tawallammat and especially Tayart, this kind of palatalization actually does not confine itself toz. In these dialects, dentals in general are palatalized before/i/ and/j/. For example,tidət is pronounced[tidʲət] in Tayart.[28]
Other differences can easily be traced back to borrowing. For example, the Arabic pharyngealsħ andʻ have been borrowed along with Arabic loanwords by dialects specialized in Islamic (Maraboutic) learning. Other dialects substituteħ andʻ respectively withx andɣ.
The basic word order in Tuareg isverb–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 NorthernSonghay languages such asSawaq, whose speakers are culturally Tuareg but speak Songhay; this influence includes points of phonology and sometimes grammar as well as extensive loanwords.
Tamasheq prefers VSO order; however it containstopic–comment structure (like in American Sign Language, Modern Hebrew, Japanese and Russian), allowing the emphasized concept to be placed first, be it the subject or object, the latter giving an effect somewhat like the English passive.[29] Sudlow uses the following examples, all expressing the concept "Men don't cook porridge" (e denotes Sudlow's schwa):
| meddăn wăr sekediwăn ăsink | SVO |
| wăr sekediwăn meddăn ăsink | VSO |
| ăsinkwăr ti-sekediwăn meddăn | 'Porridge, men don't cook it.' |
| wădde meddăn a 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.[30] Sudlow's example (s denotes voiceless palato-alveolar fricative):
| essensăɣ enăle | 'I bought millet.' |
| enăle a essensăɣ | 'It was millet that I bought.' |
The indirect object marker takes the form i/y in Tudalt and e/y in Tadɣaq.[31]
As a root-and-pattern, ortemplatic language,triliteral roots (three-consonant bases) are the most common in Tamasheq. Niels and Regula Christiansen use the root k-t-b (to write) to demonstrate past completed aspect conjugation:
| singular | plural | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| 1st person | ...-ăɣ | n-... | |
| 2nd person | t-...-ăd | t-...-ăm | |
| 3rd person | M | y-... | t-...-măt |
| F | t-... | ...-ăn | |
| Participle form, i.e. "who ..." | M | y-...-ăn | ...-năt |
| F | t-...-ăt | ...-nen | |
| Person | Singular | Plural | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1st | |||
| 2nd | (m) | ||
| (f) | |||
| 3rd | (m) | ||
| (f) | |||
The verbal correspondence with the use of aspect; Tamasheq uses four, as delineated by Sudlow:
| Verb | Perfective/simple perfect | Stative/intensive perfect | Imperfective/simple perfect | Cursive/intensive imperfect |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| z-g-r | izgăr | izgăr | ||
| 'He went out' | 'He has gone out' | |||
| b-d-d | ibdăd | ibdăd | ||
| 'He stood up' | 'He stood up (and so he is standing up)' | |||
| ekkeɣ hebu | ekkêɣ hebu | |||
| 'I went to market' | 'I am going to market' | |||
| l-m-d | ad elmedăɣ Tămasăq | lammădăɣ Tămasăq | ||
| 'I will learn Tamasheq' | 'I am learning Tamasheq' | |||
| a-dd-as asekka | ||||
| 'He will arrive (here) tomorrow' | ||||
| iwan tattănăt alemmoZ | ||||
| 'Cows eat straw' | ||||
| ăru tasăɣalăɣ siha | ||||
| 'I used to work over there' |
Commands are expressed in theimperative 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.[34]
