| Western Berber | |
|---|---|
| Geographic distribution | Northwest Africa |
| Linguistic classification | Afro-Asiatic
|
| Subdivisions | |
| Language codes | |
| Glottolog | west2724 |
TheWestern Berber languages are a branch of theBerber languages. They comprise two languages:
Zenaga is spoken in southwesternMauritania while Tetserret is spoken in centralNiger. They appear to have influenced theAlgerianSonghai languageKorandje.
The label "Western Berber" was first used in a classificatory sense byAikhenvald andMilitarev (1984)[1] in reference to Zenaga alone;Tetserret data was not available to them.
Sound changes characteristic of this subgroup include the reflex ofproto-Berber *ww as *bb (elsewhere gg/ggʷ) and *w (elsewhere retained) as *b after consonants; of *x (elsewhere retained) as *k; of *ṭṭ as ḍḍ (elsewhere ṭṭ); and of *ẓ as a voiceless fricative ṣ (Tetserrét) or θ̣ (Zenaga).[2][3]
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