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Recognition of the Berber languages has been growing in the 21st century, with Morocco and Algeria adding Tamazight as an official language to their constitutions in 2011 and 2016 respectively. [20] [21] [22] Most Berber languages have a high percentage of borrowing and influence from the Arabic language, as well as from other languages. [23]
Berber-speaking areas in Algeria. The Berber languages are considered the native language of Algeria since antiquity. They are spoken in five major dialects in many parts of the territory, but mainly in Kabylia, in the Awras, and in the Algerian Sahara desert (by Algerian Tuaregs).
The areas of North Africa that have retained the Berber language and traditions best have been, in general, Algeria, Libya, Morocco and Tunisia. Much of Berber culture is still celebrated among the cultural elite in Morocco and Algeria, especially in the Kabylia , the Aurès and the Atlas Mountains .
[citation needed] They speak the Shenwa language, a Northern Berber language that is closely related to the Shawiya language and Zenata varieties spoken by Berbers of the Aures mountains in Eastern Algeria and the Rif region. The Shenwa language has about 76,000 speakers. [1]
It is the largest Berber language in Algeria. [62] It was spoken by 3 million people in 2004 [ 63 ] and has significant Arabic , French , Latin , Greek , Phoenician and Punic substratum, with Arabic loanwords representing 22.7% to 46% [ 64 ] of the total Kabyle vocabulary, with many estimates putting it at about 35%. [ 65 ]
Map of the linguistic situation of Kabyle in eastern Algeria. [11] [12]Kabyle Berber is native to Kabylia.It is present in seven Algerian districts. Approximately one-third of Algerians are Berber-speakers, clustered mostly near Algiers, in Kabylian and Shawi, but with some communities related to Kabyle in the west (Shenwa languages), east and south of the country. [1]
The Mozabite people or Banu Mzab (Arabic: بني مزاب) are a Berber ethnic group inhabiting the M'zab natural region in the northern Sahara in Algeria, numbering about 150,000 to 300,000 people. [1] They speak primarily the Mozabite language, one of the Zenati languages in the Berber branch of the Afroasiatic family.
Tamazight, or Standard Algerian Berber, [1] is the standardized national variety of Berber (specifically Kabyle) spoken in Algeria. It is under active development since the officialization of Berber in Algeria in 2016.