seminar paper

מקצוע
מילות מפתח
שנת הגשה 2004
מספר מקורות 15

תקציר העבודה

1 .0 Introduction Today there are many societies in the world in which the indigenous people have to suffer all sorts of repression and their languages are disappearing. For many societies language is a marker of their identity and they do not want to lose it. As a result, different steps of reviving their language are taken. Among those indigenous peoples who have been dispossessed and marginalized are Berbers. Their Berber language, the indigenous language of North Africa, exemplifies the situation of disappearing language. Different factors led to its regression and, as a result, “the number of Berber native speakers has decreased and the domains in which Berber is used have also become restricted. However, Berberphones who link their language with their cultural identity and perceive it as a distinctive feature from Arabs have changed “their attitudes toward Berber and have launched different campaigns” to revive their language (Ennaji 1992: 23). Ibn Khaldun, the greatest Muslim historian (born in Tunis in 1332 and died in Cairo in 1406), wrote: Berbers belong to a powerful, formidable, brave and numerous people; a true people like so many others in the world. But having fallen into decadence, and exercise of power and the habit of domination had permitted to develop, their numbers decreased, their patriotic fervor diminished, and their corporate identity became weakened, to the point where the various peoples who made up the Berber race have now become the subject peoples of other rulers and bow like slaves under the burden of taxation (Entelis
1 989: 67). Even today, Berbers who are scattered throughout the different regions of North Africa, retain a common heritage of language, of thought and of primitive art intact in the midst of the Arab populations, which separate them one from another; “they retain the same fundamental basis of social and political organization, as well as their own intellectual inclinations and emotional make-up” (Montagne 1963:
5). The entire history of the Maghreb, which is called today North Africa, has been dominated for more than a thousand years by the same process: the slow destruction of indigenous institutions and the progressive assimilation of the indigenous African population by                                                 Contents   
1 .0 Introduction…………………………………………………………………3-4
  
2 .0 Berbers Origin………………………………………………………………4-5
2 .1
Berber Population……………………………………………………………5-6
2 .2
Linguistic Features of the Berber Language:……………………
2 .2.1 Berber Scripts…………………………………………………………6-9
            2.2.2
Berber Borrowings ……………………………………………………9-10             2.2.3
Berber Dialects………………………………………………………..10-12
  3.0 Linguistic Situation in Morocco:……………………………………………..
            3.0.1 Berber in Morocco ……………………………………………………9
            3.0.2 Moroccan Arabic………………………………………….. ………….9
            3.0.3 French………………………………………………………………….9-10             3.0.4 Standard Arabic. ………………………………………………………10-
3 .0.5 Multilingualism………………………………………………………..
3.1
Linguistic situation in Algeria:……………………………………………….
3.1.1 Attitudes to Berber in Algeria………………………………………….
4.0 Regression of Berber and its reasons…………………………………………..
4 .1
Reviving of Berber Language and Culture…………………………………..
4.1.1 The Tamazigh Revival in Morocco………………………………………..
4.1.2 The Tamazigh Revival in Algeria 5.0 Conclusion………………………………………………………………….
References………………………………………………………………