# Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger (Third Edition)/North Africa and the Middle East

​North Africa and the Middle East
Salem Mezhoud and Yamina El Kirat El Allame
The grouping of the languages of North Africa and the Middle East in a common zone may at first seem paradoxical, except insofar as Arabic has been used as the means of intercultural communication among the otherwise disparate populations of this vast area. It is more of a geopolitical or religio-political region than a homogeneous linguistic one. If only for practical reasons, and for a better understanding of the linguistic situation, a more relevant methodology for analysing endangerment in this area might be to group the languages of North Africa with those of the Sahel subregion of West Africa. Not only are the endangered languages more closely related as the African component of the Afro-Asiatic family (as opposed to the Semitic family) but many of the languages spoken in the Sahel belong to the Tamazight (Berber) group.
Data collection
■ ■North Africa
No North African state has ever organized sociolinguistic studies or included the geographical distribution of languages in a population census, and attempts to gather language statistics are often discouraged. Nor did the colonial administrations ever concern themselves with linguistic details even at the height of the policy of ‘divide and rule’. The only available statistics were estimates by linguists who, with rare exceptions, were neither equipped with solid census tools nor backed by official authority and bureaucratic assistance. These rough estimates continue to serve as the basis for all claims about language distribution in North Africa.
Historically, the Berber language was spoken in an uninterrupted chain from Egypt to the Canary Islands. As a result of geographical ​and political-administrative divisions, it has progressively given birth to numerous dialects with varying degrees of mutual intelligibility. The word Berber is an exonym, applied by others. The endonym is Tamazight, which until recently was only used by and applied to a few communities, most notably in the Middle Atlas in Morocco. It is also used in different forms (Tamaheq, Tamajeq, Tarnasheq) in the Algerian Sahara and in Niger and Mali. Since the 1960s, the name Tamazight has been increasingly used to supplant Berber both among linguists and among the populations of North Africa, The masculine form Amazigh is used mostly as an adjective (for example, the Amazigh people speak Tamazight).
Tamazight, like most of the languages in the region, is commonly considered a member of the Afro-Asiatic family. Before the coining of the term ‘Afro-Asiatic’ by Joseph Greenberg (see Greenberg, 1963), the misleading term ‘Hamito-Semitic’ and the erroneous designation ‘Hamites’ were sometimes applied to the Berber language and people. While the Semitic languages are a linguistically well-established group, the other components of the Afro-Asiatic family do not form a subfamily and the links between them are more tenuous.
The most common estimates of current speakers of Tamazight put the number at about 40 per cent of the total population in Morocco, 17 per cent in Algeria, 1 per cent in Tunisia, 5 per cent in the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya and a fraction in Mauritania. Rather than being based on any new attempts to collect valid information, however, the various claims are merely new interpretations of old material. Even where data are obtained from professionals, they suffer from the absence of real investigations.
A quick review of the colonial literature (Mezhoud, 1996) for Algeria showed figures adding up to about 60 per cent of Berber-speakers at the end of the nineteenth century. It became clear that the sometimes newly arrived metropolitan bureaucrats, with very limited local knowledge, tended to distinguish between ‘Berbers’ and ‘Kabyles’, the latter being the better known of all the Berber groups. This contributed to a serious underestimate of the number of Tamazight-speakers. The subsequent discovery of the large numbers of Berbers in Morocco, when the kingdom became a French protectorate, merely added to the confusion.
The handful of rigorous scholars such as Andre Basset (see Basset, 1952) who would later try to obtain a true picture of the linguistic situation could neither escape this legacy nor obtain the means to cover such a vast territory. Today, though there is no real consensus, it is widely believed that Tamazight-speakers constitute between 60 per cent and 80 per cent of the Moroccan population and may well constitute between 45 per cent and 55 per cent of the Algerian population. Hard though it is to prove in the absence of a real census, this claim has no less validity than the more familiar figure of between 17 per cent and 20 per cent. One important factor in support of the higher numbers is the fact that large urban centres with substantial proportions of Tamazight-speakers such as Algiers, Casablanca and Constantine are usually not taken into account because their populations are bilingual (contrary to largely monolingual Agadir, Tizi Quzou and Bejaia).
While making substantial use of existing published material from previous and more recent generations, this Atlas has also relied on a number of unpublished sources, local contacts, research by the authors and a growing number of internet-based sources. The profusion of Tamazight societies and associations, both in North Africa and among immigrant communities in Europe and North America, has also provided opportunities to collect and corroborate information. It must be stressed, nevertheless, that although a great deal of effort has gone towards increasing the degree of accuracy of the data, the figures provided are only estimates.
​■ ■The Middle East
Much of the data relating to the Middle East is now provided by organizations in the diaspora and a handful of international scholars and activists. Because of the volatile situation in many countries of the region, much of the published material is out of date, sometimes as soon as it leaves the printing press. Diaspora organizations have been able to supply more up-to-date information and provide contacts with representatives of communities with first-hand or recent knowledge of language endangerment. While the existing data are often fairly accurate, the rapidly changing situation means that they have constantly to be re-evaluated.
Background to the linguistic situation in North Africa
With the arrival of Islam, Arabic gained a foothold in North Africa, albeit within limited confines. Arabic became the language of scholarship and religion in much the same way that Latin did in Europe. With the withdrawal of the Muslims from Spain in 1492, North Africa experienced arelative cultural decline. Classical Arabic fell into disuse, while colloquial Arabic began to spread throughout the region to the detriment of Tamazight. With the growth of urban centres during the colonial era, this movement continued.
Although the overwhelming majority of the population of North Africa is of Tamazight origin, all the countries of the region, on achieving independence, chose to define themselves officially as Arab states. A sizeable proportion of the population, particularly in Algeria, Morocco and the Libyan Aralb Jamahiriya, felt doubly disenfranchised by this policy. First, the only ‘national’ or official language permitted – classical or standard Arabic – was introduced from the Middle East, although it had hardly been in use in North Africa since the sixteenth century and bears little resemblance to the varieties of Arabic spoken there. Second, Tamazight-speakers were discouraged frorn using their own language and government policies were adopted that accelerated its decline. In Mauritania, Pulaar, Soninke and Wolof experienced a similar fate.
Tamazight was not taught at school or university and had limited or no access to the media. When local radio stations carried programmes in the Amazigh languages, their broadcasts were gradually decreased and sometimes the power and reach of the transmitters were reduced. Organizers of local concerts were obliged to include Arabic-language acts in their programmes and conferences touching on Tamazight culture were prohibited. It was the cancellation of one such conference in Algeria on ancient Tamazight poetry by the scholar and novelist Mouloud Mammeri that triggered the uprising of April 1980 that became known as the Amazigh (or Berber} Spring.
The Amazigh Spring launched a movement for the revitalization of Tamazight culture that spread first to Morocco and then to virtually every country in the region, including Niger and Mali. As a result, reforms have been introduced in recent years, contributing to a lasting solution to the problem of the endangerment of Tamazight.
■ ■Endangerment and revitalization of Tamazight
There is a recognized linguistic unity between all the languages of the Amazigh sphere (Chaker, 1995). The dominance and/or prestige of other languages (French, Arabic) have for a long time isolated many communities from each other and resulted in the development of specific ​phonological features and, in some cases, slight syntactic differences. Most of the varieties are mutually intelligible.
Most of the endangered languages of North Africa discussed here are sometimes referred to collectively as the Amazigh or Berber group. They constitute pockets of surviving but quickly disappearing linguistic communities surrounded by speakers of North African Arabic, who are themselves Arabized former Tamazight-speakers. These speech communities vary in importance, from the relatively large ones (several million speakers) such as Tacelhit, Tarifit, Taqbaylit (Kabyle) and Tacawit to the medium-sized groups (Tanfusit, Tamzabit) and the smaller pockets (Tayurart, Zenaga).
In Algeria and Morocco growing mobilization, especially among larger language groups, has raised awareness about language endangerment and preservation. This can be appreciated at both the political and the grassroots level. At the political level, initiatives have been undertaken in both countries. Among these initiatives is the granting of ‘national language’ status to Tamazight in Algeria, a decision now enshrined in the Algerian Constitution. It is hoped that this will be followed up with concrete, legal or practical measures (such as the wider use of Tamazight in the administration, the media and education). In Morocco, Tamazight is now officially taught in schools, though not used, still, as a language of scientific study or research (El Kirat El Allame, 2008). The creation of university and research centres, the best known of which is the Institut Royal de la Culture Amazigh (IRCAM, Royal Institute of Amazigh Culture) in Rabat, Morocco, and small centres at the universities of Tizi Ouzou and Bejaia (Bgayet} in Kabylia, Algeria, is a first step towards the development (not yet achieved) of higher education and research at national level in the two countries
Despite the limited resources, it is thought that some of the larger Tamazight groups, in particular Taqbaylit (Kabyle), are no longer endangered or vulnerable. The Kabyle soeech community, for example, has reached such a high level of awareness and mobilization that revitalization is taking place The situation is different in the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, Tunisia and Mauritania, where Nefoussa, Zouara, Sokna, Aoujila) Ghadamés and Zenaga are endangered, sometimes severely endangered, Even in Chenoua (Tacenwit) in Algeria, where a relatively high level of awareness exists and revitalization activities take place, endangerment is a reality. This is also the case with Tamzabit and Taznatit (Gourara, Touat). The languages of the Tuareg – Tamahaq/Tahaggart in southern Algeria, Tamajeq and Tamaceq in Niger and Mali, and, above all, the remaining pocket of Tahaggart in the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya – are vulnerable, mainly as a result of drought, conflict and displacement. In Mauritania, Zenaga, Nemadi and the language of Imeraguen are definitely endangered and may become critically endangered if the current social and cultural stigma attached to them is maintained and the languages continue to be excluded from the public sphere.
This edition of the Atlas introduces some languages that are never mentioned in the literature on language distribution in North Africa: Domari, which may still be spoken in Tunisia and Algeria, though the data are incomplete and over thirty years old; and Korandje, a hybrid of Tamazight and Soninke in southern Algeria, which has recently been the object of some interest among linguists. We also include Tetserret, a hitherto little-known variety of Tamazight, which even though spoken at the heart of Tamajeq territory in Niger is closer to northern dialects and perhaps to Zenaga.
​■ ■Language endangerment in Sudan
Sudan has been the scene of what is often considered the world’s longest civil war. It has also hosted one the world’s largest humanitarian operations, Operation Lifeline Sudan (OLS). While the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) has brought stability and the beginning of reconstruction in the South, Darfur is in turmoil. With 1.5 tnillion deaths in the South, 4 million internally displaced persons (IDPs) and 500,000 refugees, the entire Southern Sudanese population has been deeply affected by the conflict.
This situation increases language endangerment in a number of ways. Displacement has occurred in a variety of patterns (long-distance, repeated displacement) that may magnify the rate of endangerment. As IDPs are dispersed throughout the country, they typically acquire the language of the host communities and at the same time reduce the use of their own language. IDP camps usually bring together people from many different communities, and new forms of communication are developed that may involve multilingualism but also creolization. In the case of repeated displacement, IDPs do not always seek shelter among the same hosts and may therefore acquire yet more languages. While multilingualism and creolization do not necessarily affect adults, children may not adequately acquire their mother tongue. This is especially likely in cases of protracted displacement. In northern cities such as Khartoum, there may be a tendency for children to use Arabic more than their mother tongue.
For a whole decade, between 1989 and 1999, part of the Nuba mountains in South Kordofan was isolated from the rest of the world by a Sudanese Government blockade. The humanitarian situation was very poor, but paradoxically, this isolation may have reduced the degree of endangerment of the Nuba languages. Two factors have contributed to this, both in the South and in the Nuba mountains. First, the conflict has severely interrupted children’s schooling. This has, of course, had negative effects on their education, but since the schooling would have been in Arabic, the state-supported language, the interruption has also slowed down the threat of Arabic overwhelming local cultures and languages. Second, when the education system was restarted by the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement in 1996, all schooling was in English, a language that posed no threat to Nuba languages. The vitality of these languages was apparent during a visit to the Nuba mountains (Heiban, Nagorban, Dilling) in 1999, at the height of the blockade (UNCERO, 1999}. The situation in the area under government control may be different, especially with the prevalence of Arabic and the large variety of languages spoken in the IDP settlements and the so-called peace camps or peace villages.
It has not been possible to assess the real degree of endangerment of Sudanese languages, owing both to the sheer numbers involved (134 according to the Ethnologue) and the protracted conflict. Furthermore, the returnees after the 2005 CPA make the situation more complex and the data harder to collect. A fraction of these languages (just over thirty) have been reported in this chapter with varying degrees of endangerment. Once the stabilization of Southern Sudan (including the Nuba mountains} is confirmed and reconstruction well under way, the new authorities of Southern Sudan may include linguistic data in their censuses and a better picture of the linguistic situation and the level of endangerment may then be possible.
​Heightened endangerment in the Middle East
The numerous conflicts in the Middle East have taken a serious toll on the minority languages of the region. The religious-linguistic minorities in three countries in particular – the Islamic Republic of Iran, the Syrian Arabic Republic and Iraq – have experienced grave problems during such conflicts. The Iran-Iraq war (1980-88) cut deeply into minority communities through forcible recruitment into the armies of both countries and it significantly reduced the size of language communities. Some 60,000 Assyrians were killed on both sides of the conflict. Assyrians, who are Aramaic-speaking Christians, were persecuted by the Saddam Hussein regime and a flicker of hope entered their community when Saddam fell and Iraq was occupied by US forces in March 2003. Increasingly, however, Assyrians began to be targeted by insurgents, and as a result, 150,000 Assyrians are reported to have left Iraq since the beginning of the US occupation.
One of the languages that has suffered most in Iraq is Mandaic. After being forcibly displaced from the southern marshes by the Saddam Hussein regime, Mandaeans have later been the subject of persecution by insurgents in the wake of the US occupation. Of the 30,000 to 60,000 Mandaeans who lived in Iraq in the 1990s, a large number left the country after 2003, and only some 6,000 to 7,000 are said to have remained; the number of them who speak Mandaic is much smaller.
Iraqi Kurdish may be the only language to have benefited from the 2003 occupation. With the establishment of the Kurdistan Regional Government in northern Iraq and significant autonomy for Iraqi Kurdistan, Iraqi Kurdish may now be said to be safe. The Kurdish language in both the Syrian Arabic Republic and the Islamic Republic of Iran is vulnerable, however. In the Islamic Republic of Iran, apart from Kurdish, the Balochi language (of a community of about 3 million) is also vulnerable. Syriac and other varieties of Aramaic, and Armenian, spoken by about 200,000 people in the Syrian Arab Republic, are also vulnerable.
The emigration of Jews from the Middle East and North Africa since 1948 has brought to Israel a large number of languages and language varieties spoken by Jews in their countries of origin. Judeo-Iraqi and Judeo-Yemeni are still sooken in Israel but are endangered as the younger generations do not learn them. North African Jews have brought at least three languages to Israel: Judeo-Arabic of Tunisia, a distinct language described in the outstanding book by Cohen (1975), and, above all, Judeo-Arabic of Morocco (Judeo-Moroccan) and Judeo-Berber. These are now extinct in North Africa. Statistical information on the survival of languages and varieties among resident and exiled populations is difficult to come by, and some of our conclusions about the status of individual languages have been through personal communications.
War and other conflicts are among the most important causes of language endangerment, as can be seen clearly in the Middle East and North Africa. In some cases, however, conflict and confrontation have had the effect of raising awareness of the importance of language as a vehicle of culture and identity. In North Africa this has triggered community-based revitalization initiatives and may have slowed language endangerment.