Judeo-Berber
Region	Israel
Native speakers	(none[1] L2 speakers: 2,000 cited 1992)[2]
Language family	Afro-Asiatic Berber Northern Berber Shilha Judeo-Berber
Writing system	Hebrew alphabet (generally not written)
Language codes
	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 emigrated 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

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

Communities where Jews in Morocco spoke Judeo-Berber included : Tinerhir, 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 Tasheliyt-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

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

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

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

?. ? ? ? ? ?

ix?ddamn ay n-ga i p?r?u g° mar. i-ss-uf? a? bbi ?nn dinna? s ufus ?n ddr?, s ufus ikuwan.

Rough word-for-word translation: servants what we-were for Pharaoh in Egypt. he-cause-leave us God our there with arm of might, with arm strong.

Servants of Pharaoh is what we were in Egypt. Our God brought us out thence with a mighty arm, with a strong arm.

See also

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

References

Bibliography

• P. Galand-Pernet & Haim Zafrani. Une version berbère de la Haggadah de Pesa?: Texte de Tinrhir du Todrha (Maroc). Compres 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

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