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This article is about a person, place, or concept whose name is originally rendered in the Berber script; however, the article does not have that version of its name in the lead paragraph. Anyone who is knowledgeable enough with the original language is invited to assist in adding the Berber script.

edit · history · watch · refresh  To-do list for Tuareg languages:

Create detailed linguistic map Geographics & demographics (see also: Tuareg) Nomenclature Mention most important differences between the languages Expand article to cover shared features of Tuareg languages: Phonology Word structure Syntax Research on Tuareg, past and present Comparative: sound changes, retentions, and innovations with respect to other Berber languages Last update: Mark Dingemanse (talk) 06:43, 27 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Contents 1 Name: "Tuareg"? 2 Ghadames 3 Phonology 4 Private usage area characters 5 So many æs!

[edit] Name: "Tuareg"?

Question. In my experience, this languages are best known as 'Tuareg' (at least in the literature). Can anyone confirm this? If so, shouldn't Wikipedia follow this consensus and shouldn't the article be called Tuareg languages (with a redirect from here)? I know, of course, that the Tuareg themselves do not call their language Tuareg - but that would be beside the point (I speak Dutch although I call my language Nederlands myself). Besides, Tamasheq is a local (Mali) variant of the name of the language, adding to possible confusion. - Mark Dingemanse (talk) 15:28, 23 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Nice work Mark! That bibliography is excellent. I anticipate another excellent article à la Gbe - I'll have to get to work and see if I can't help on this one...

As for the name - good point. It might be better to reserve "Tamasheq", "Tamajeq", and "Tamahaq" for the individual dialects, in the absence of any standard version of the language - and if Karl Prasse uses "Tuareg", then we need scarcely worry about following suit! However, the usage "Tamasheq languages" is not unknown in English; I believe the Ethnologue uses it, and I think their classification is based on Aikhenvald and Militarev. - Mustafaa 20:50, 23 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I see you just did it. Thumbs up! Also thanks for Hanoteau and Motylinski - nice to have them in digital form! The todo list got lost along the way, I recreated it. Currently looking for as many maps of the (language) area as possible; if you know a good one, let me know. - Mark Dingemanse (talk) 13:20, 25 Oct 2004 (UTC)

At the back of Les langues de la monde: Langues chamito-sémitiques, ed. D. Cohen, CNRS, there's a map of Berber-speaking areas which appears to be unusually precise. It might serve as a good source. - Mustafaa 13:59, 25 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Thanks. I couldn't use that one (I exceeded my book quota) but I used the following sources for the first rough map of the Tuareg area: Sudlow 2001, Bernus 1996 (Touaregs: un peuple du désert), Lhote 1984. I think this map could be used in the opening paragraph of this article, as well as in the Tuareg article. Of course we need a more detailed map also; I'm working on that one. Any comments? - Mark Dingemanse (talk) 12:27, 26 Oct 2004 (UTC)

The Langues du monde map is nearly identical; it shows less Tuareg in the southwest (none in Burkina Faso, bizarrely) and more in the northeast (up to the very edge of Ghadames, the triple point of Libya, Tunisia, and Algeria). So this looks great. - Mustafaa 22:30, 26 Oct 2004 (UTC)

OK, thanks. Actually Sudlow 2001 also shows more Tuareg in the northeast; but I consider Bernus (who shows less) more of an all-round 'Touaregologue': he has extensively travelled the area and has written very good stuff on Tuareg (mostly cultural/anthropological). I have taken a sort of average of the three sources. - Mark Dingemanse (talk) 22:45, 26 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I'll park the map here till we have more text; at present, a map only interferes with the layout. Mark Dingemanse (talk) 15:58, 27 Oct 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Ghadames

After looking up some more sources, including Basset (1952), Bougchiche (1997) and Zavadovskij (1967), I think it is more correct to extend the Tuareg to Ghadames (just like Langues du monde does - which for the Tuareg part is actually based on Basset 1952). So it changed it. - Mark Dingemanse (talk) 14:10, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Cool (although the city of Ghadames itself, of course, has a rather different Berber language.) - Mustafaa 14:23, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Yep - this is one of the areas where my non-English background comes out. In Dutch, the default meaning of 'to' implicates 'but not including'. I should've said something like up to the very edge of Ghadames :P - Mark Dingemanse (talk)

Even in English, it's ambiguous - I was just being pedantic ;) - Mustafaa 15:48, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I wondered why you didn't mention at least the particular Berber dialect and the number of speakers >:) - Mark Dingemanse (talk)

Not many! A few thousand? Ghadamsi's of interest, though, for having preserved distinct reflexes for proto-Berber *h1 and *h2, which Prasse regrettably treats as identical. - Mustafaa 16:20, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)

This remark got me thinking. Kossman (1999) reconstructs proto-Berber *Ĥ and argues that Ghadamsi β is a reflex of it. Judging from Kossman (1999:134-5), I would say there are too few words with h in Ghadamsi to safely reconstruct a *h2. In any case, what I don't understand about it is how a (proto) language could have two identical but different consonants. I'm not very much into historical linguistics, so maybe you could explain what is meant here. ¶ Mark Dingemanse (talk) 10:12, 8 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Certainly they couldn't have been identical; if they're "reconstructed" as h1 and h2, that just means they haven't figured out what the difference was. Me, I think one was h and one was β - the latter would work nicely in linking *ulh "heart" to Semitic libb, Egyptian jib, for instance - but I haven't really looked closely enough at the reflexes. - Mustafaa 10:30, 8 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Thanks for the clarification. I understand the issue better now. And on rereading Kossmann (1999:131-132) I see he says the same thing about h / β. ¶ Mark Dingemanse (talk) 11:42, 8 Nov 2004 (UTC)

The Proto-Berber article really needs consonantal info... Mo-Al (talk) 00:53, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

As of 2007-05-30, Jeff Heath's Tamashek dictionary is missing (the page gives information, but the links on that page are reported missing by UMichigan's webserver, and there's no aditional information about how to find it...) The information about the paper edition is:

"Dictionnaire touareg du Mali" par Jeffrey Heath

Karthala Collection Langues 2006, 843 p. ISBN : 2845867859

This could be included in the main article by an editor... -- excalibor

[edit] Phonology

What are ă, ĭ, and ŭ supposed to represent? Can someone replace them with IPA or something? 216.70.225.98 19:17, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

In other era was spoken on Western Saharaand Mauretania with more intensitive. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.155.45.166 (talk) 19:40, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Private usage area characters

There are two PUA characters used in the article. PUA characters are specific to some font(s) and are not standard. If a font including these characters with the right glyphs is not installed an empty/missing character is displayed. What are  U+F0E0 and  U+F067 supposed to represent? --moyogo (talk) 15:51, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

From looking at the context I suspect the first might be something like '→' or '>' and the second might be 'γ' , or less likely 'ʕ'. Mo-Al (talk) 22:38, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Upon reading Christiansen 2002 it appears that the second character is definitely ɣ or γ.

[edit] So many æs!

The syntax section contains many < æ >s. If Tamasheq really only has two phonemic short vowels, why not represent it as < a >? While I'm still somewhat unclear on the topic, I'm under the impression that this is the common practice for other Berber languages...Mo-Al (talk) 03:38, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

Also, it seems that < a > is used in the morphology section, so consistency would be nice. Mo-Al (talk) 03:39, 28 May 2009 (UTC)