Tashelhiyt (also Tashelhit or Tachelhit or Tachelhiyt or Shilha, native name: , French: tachelhit, Arabic: تشلحيت) is the largest Berber language of Morocco both by number of speakers (between 8 and 10 million) and by the extent of its area. Tashelhiyt is spoken in Southern Morocco an area ranging from the northern slopes of the High-Atlas to the southern slopes of the Anti-Atlas, bounded to the west by the Atlantic Ocean. The eastern limit of the Tashelhiyt area is difficult to pinpoint because of a smooth transition into Southern Middle Atlas Berber (Tamazight). The Sous region is central to the Tashelhiyt area, hence it's often called Sous-Berber or tasusiyt (tasousit), even though it stretches to surrounding regions well outside of Sous. Tashelhiyt is known for its rich oral literature. Literature written in the Arabic script has been produced from the second half of sixteenth century on; Muhammad Awzal (ca. 1680-1749) was the most prolific poet of the Tashelhiyt literary tradition.

Geography and demography

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The Sous, one of Morocco's most fertile regions, irrigated by the Wadi Sous and separated from the Sahara by the Anti-Atlas Mountains, is the central area of the Chleuhs (sometimes Shluh or Soussis, Tashelhiyt ), the speakers of Tashelhiyt. As early as the eleventh century, the area was noted for its cultivation and export of sugar. The sale of sugar to Portuguese, Dutch and English traders as well as a share in the Trans-Saharan gold trade brought prosperity to the region. A traditional Islamic schooling system, 'a rare example of a self-organised and productive education system in an almost entirely rural environment' (vd. Boogert 1997:9), has existed in the area for centuries.

Literature

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Tashelhiyt, like other Berber languages, has an extensive body of oral literature in a wide variety of genres. Fables and animal stories often revolve around the character of the jackal (uššn); other genres include legends, imam/taleb stories, riddles, and tongue-twisters.

Less well known is the existence of a distinct literary tradition which can be traced back at least to the early sixteenth century. For at least four centuries, Sous Berber has been written by local scholars in a Magribic variant of the Arabic script. The most prolific writer of this tradition was (ca. 1680-1749); the longest extant text in Tashelhiyt however is a commentary on entitled 'the pasture' (al-Mandja) from the hand of al-Ḥasan b. Mubarak al-Tamudizti (d. 1899). Important collections of Tashelhiyt Berber manuscripts can be found in Aix-en-Provence (the fonds Arsène Roux) and Leiden. Virtually all manuscripts are of religious nature, and their main purpose was to instruct the illiterate common people. Many of the texts are in versified form to facilitate memorisation and recitation.

The written language differs in some aspects from normal spoken Tashelhiyt. For example, it is common for the manuscript texts to contain a mix of dialectal variants not found in a single dialect. The language of the manuscripts also contains a higher number of Arabic words than the spoken form, a phenomenon that has been called arabisme poétique. Other characteristics of the written language include use of a plural form instead of the singular; plural formation by use of the prefix ida; use of stopgaps like 'again', hann and hatinn 'lo!' to fill the metre of the verse; and the use of archaisms.

Sounds

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Vowels

Tashelhiyt has three phonemic vowels: /i, a, u/. The schwa (/ə/) which turns up in many words between two consonants (e.g. inbgi = 'guest', tigmmi = 'house') has no phonemic status; some authors do not write it for that reason, while others (e.g. Aspinion) write it because it is heard nonetheless. Historically, schwa is thought to be the result of a pan-Berber reduction or merger of three other vowels. The phonetic realization of the vowels, especially /a/, is highly influenced by the character of the surrounding consonants; emphatic consonants invite a more open realization of the vowel, e.g. = 'stone' vs. amud = 'seed'.

Consonants

Tashelhiyt has thirty-three phonemic consonants. Like other Berber languages and Arabic, it has both pharyngealized ("emphatic") and plain dental consonants. There is also a distinction between labialized and plain velar and uvular consonants.

In Latin orthography, emphatics are marked by an underwritten dot. Also, is written x, is written (Unicode U+0263), and is written y.

		Bilabial	Dental		Postalveolar	Palatal	Velar		Uvular		Pharyngeal	Glottal
			Plain	Emphatic			Plain	Labialized	Plain	Labialized
Stop	voiceless
	voiced
Fricative	voiceless
	voiced
Nasal
Lateral
Trill
Approximant

Grammar

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Pronouns

Tashelhiyt pronouns distinguish between male and female gender in both singular and plural forms of the second and third person. There are several sets of pronouns, each for different contexts. Five common paradigms are given below. The first paradigm of possessive pronouns is used for some specific associative relations such as kinship terms (e.g. baba-k 'your (m) father', 'our father') and spatial relation terms, as in 'its underpart' (lit. in-under-its). The second set of possessive pronouns consists of the preposition nn 'of' and the first paradigm, e.g. tigmmi-nn-k 'your (f) house' (lit. house of you), aydi-nn-sn 'their (m) dog' (lit. dog of them (m)). The 3sm independent pronoun ntta 'he' may be shortened to ntt. The 3sf direct object pronoun appears as stt after a dental stop, e.g. krfat stt 'shackle her!' and also after the particle 'ad'. The 1s possessive pronoun has several allomorphs; after a consonant, the form inu is used and after a vowel the form nu. The final u is realized as w when followed by a vowel-initial word.

Some pronominal paradigms in Tashelhiyt

	Independent	Direct object	Indirect object	Possessive 1	Possessive 2
1s	nkk	yyi	-yyi	-ø	(i)nu
2sm	kyy	k	a-k	-k	nn-k
2sf	kmm	km	a-m	-m	nn-m
3sm	ntta	t	a-s	-s	nn-s
3sf	nttat	(s)tt	a-s	-s	nn-s
1p
2pm			a-wn	-t-un	nn-un
2pf			a-wnt	-t-unt	nn-unt
3pm	n(it)tni	tn	a-sn	-t-sn	nn-sn
3pf	n(i)tnti	tnt	a-snt	-t-snt	nn-snt
s = singular, p = plural, m = male, f = female, ø = zero morpheme. Source: Boogert & Stroomer (2004).

Nouns

Nouns are marked for gender, number, and case. There are two genders, masculine and feminine. There are several ways to mark plurality in Tashelhiyt. Common plural formations are:

• the affixation of i-…-n for masculine nouns starting in a, or ti-…-in for feminine nouns starting with ta-, e.g. a-fullus 'rooster, cock' > i-fullus-n or ta-gan-t 'forest' > ti-gan-in.
• several kinds of vowel change, for example a…a…u > i…u…a (a-gayyu 'head' > i-guyya) or
• in ethnonyms and loanwords, prefixation of the word id or ida, (id-bllarj 'storks' < Gr. pelargos; ida ssur 'walls' < Arabic, ida wsmlal 'the Ida Ousemlal people' < asmlal sg.). The use of ida is a characteristic feature of poetic language.

Sometimes a combination of vowel change and affixation is used, e.g. ilf 'wild boar' > alfiwn or ass 'day' > ussan. Double consonants are often shortened and single consonants doubled, e.g. a-fus 'hand' > i-fass-n, a-gllid 'king' > i-gld-an.

Tashelhiyt nouns come in two cases, commonly called état libre (EL) and état d'annexion (EA), that are marked by prefixes. A noun appears in the état d'annexion in a number of syntactic contexts. The most important among these is when the noun occurs as a subject in postverbal position, e.g. isu wa 'the horse () drinks', y-azzl wu-ššn 'the jackal (u-ššn) runs', or tnwa t-fiyyi 'the meat (ti-fiyyi) is cooked, done'. Nouns are also in the état d'annexion after numerals and most prepositions: sin wu-lawn 'two hearts (u-lawn, sg. ul)', tamart n u-rgaz 'beard of the man (a-rgaz)', ifta s dar 'he went to'' the woman ()'.

In most other cases, nouns have the état libre or unmarked case; this is also the form in which the noun would appear in a dictionary. Nouns starting with u or tu in the état libre have wu and tu in the état d'annexion. Other forms cannot simply be predicted from the unmarked form, cf. for example a-fus (EL), u-fus (EA) 'hand' but a-fud (EL), wa-fud (EA) 'knee', and ta-gra (EL), t-gra (EA) 'bowl' but ta-ɣla (EL), (EA) 'lamb'. Another term for the état d'annexion is état construit or construct state.

Verbs

Verbs carry the person, number and gender information of their subject in the form of affixes. There are four inflectional forms of the verb, traditionally called aorist, preterite, negative preterite and intensive. The basic opposition is between the aorist, a non-past form which lacks further tense information, and the preterite which often conveys past tense. The intensive (usually called inaccomplit in French) encodes habitual and/or durative/continuative aspect. It is often preceded by a particle ar, for instance in ar ttsisn waman (lit. ar cook:3pm:INT water:EA) 'the water is cooking'. In texts, a sequence of aorist verb forms usually follows after the initial setting of tense by an imperfect or intensive verb form.

A relative form of the verb, usually called participle, is used in relative clauses. It looks like the preterite form of the verb, with affixes added for person and number: i-...-n for 3rd person singular (y-...-n with vowel-initial verbs), and -in for 3rd person plural. For example, the relative forms of ili 'to be' (with preterite form lli) are illan and llanin for singular and plural, respectively. A singular imperative consists of the bare form of the verb without any affixes (fssa! 'be silent, sg'); in the plural, the imperative distinguishes between masculine and feminine by means of the affixes -at and -amu, respectively.

Stative verbs, verbs expressing qualities, are characterized by initial i- in the aorist, e.g. 'be big (aorist)', imim 'be sweet (aorist)', ili 'be, exist (aorist)'. The aorist form of stative verbs usually has a subjunctive or counter-factual reading, whereas the preterite form (characterized by gemination of the consonant, e.g. lli/lla 'be (pret.)') generally is used to express a (current) state of affairs, e.g. llan islman ɣ isaffn (be:PRET:3pm fish:pm in river) 'there are fishes in the river'. Tashelhiyt has only few simple adjectives; the most common adjectival construction is the relative form of a stative verb, as in (man PTC:sg:m-be.big-PTC:sg:m) 'big man'.

Derived verb forms exist: a causative s, medial m (or nasal), and passive tt... can be recognized, as in muddu 'travel' from ddu go' + medial, or smugr 'meet each other' from gr 'touch' + causative + medial. However, derivation is no longer productive, i.e. speakers no longer consciously produce causatives, medials, or passives by applying derivative morphology to verbs.

Prepositions

Most prepositions have a short and a long form. The long form is used with pronominal suffixes, and the short form is used in all other contexts, e.g. nniga-s 'on top of him/her', nnig- tgmmi 'on top of the house'. A common colocation is s-dar 'to' as in s-dar tgmmi 'to the house'. Most of the prepositions require the following noun to be in the état d'annexion; only ar 'until' and some prepositions of Arabic origins such as bɛd 'after' and qbl 'before' are exceptions to this rule. Examples: ddu tafukt 'under the sun (EA)', wayyur n šuttanbir 'in the month (EA) September', ifškan n tgmmi 'the things of the house (EA)', s wuzzal 'by means of the iron (EA)', but ar assf n ljaza 'until the Day (EL) of Judgment', qbl iḍ 'before the night (EL)'.

Tashelhiyt prepositions (v.d. Boogert 1997:284)

short form	long form	translation equivalent
d	id-	'with, in the company of'
dar	dar-	'at, by'
ddu	ddaw-, ddawa-	'beneath, under'
f	flla-	'on; because of'
gr	gra-	'between'
	gi-, gig-	'in'
i	a-	'for, to'
n	nn-	'of'
nnig	nniga-	'on top of'
s	is-	'with, by means of'
	zgi-, zgig-	'from'
s	sr-	'to'
ar	—	'until'

Numbers

In Tashelhiyt, as in most Northern Berber languages, the number system is permeated with Arabic numbers. The original cardinal numbers (one to ten) are yan, sin, , , smmus, , sa, ttam, , mraw, but they are increasingly rare. Van den Boogert (1997) argues some of these to be of Phoenician-Punic origin. As with nouns, feminine forms are derived from the masculine: yat (irregular), snat (irregular), , kkuṣt, smmust, etc. Nouns following cardinals from 1 to 10 are in the état d'annexion. Above ten, they are not pluralized and n 'of' precedes the noun: contrast (four EA-day.pl) 'four days' with (three and ten of EA-jackal) 'thirteen jackals'. In the tens, Arabic numerals are used, e.g. ɛšrin 'twenty', tltin 'thirty', etc. Tens are combined with Arabic units. Sometimes cardinals behave like nouns in that they are countable as well: (two pl-twenty of EA-houses) 'forty houses'. Ordinal numbers are constructed by use of wiss (m) or tiss plus the cardinal number, e.g. 'the third (m)'.

Vocabulary

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Like all Berber languages, Tashelhiyt has absorbed quite some Arabic vocabulary, especially in the religious domain.

Sample text

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The story of the man who sold honey in the souk. ¹ A man was filling some leather bags of honey in the souk. ² There came another man to him, who wanted to buy honey. He said: "At how much do you sell that honey?" ³ The seller said to him: "Just taste it, and if it pleases you, make a bid." ⁴ The man took a bag, poured out some, tasted the honey and gave it back to its owner; he said: "Please hold it, so that I can try another one". ⁵ The seller held it in his hand, the buyer took another bag, poured out some, tasted the honey and gave it back to its owner, ⁶ who held it in his other hand. Then the man took another bag of honey and ran away. The seller could not do anything because of the bags he held. ⁷ He called for help until they liberated him.

for word translation: Story of one man who selling honey in souk. ¹ One man he.fill some leather.bags of honey in souk. ² He.came there to.him one man, want to him buy honey. He.say to.him: "How.much is.it you.sell honey that?" ³ He.say to.him: "Taste it, if to.you it.please then about.her speak. ⁴ He.take man there one leather.bag, he.pour-out it, he.taste honey, he.give it to owner its, he.say to.him: "Hold, until (ar kiɣ) I.test another. ⁵ He.hold it in hand his, he.take again seller that another, he.pour-out it, he.taste honey, he.give it again to owner its. ⁶ He.hold it in hand his other, he.take seller one bag of honey, he.run, he.not-able owner.of honey what to he.do because leather.bags that he.held. ⁷ Then he.call to people that him they.liberate.

Notes and references

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Notes

References

• ISBN 90-6258-971-5
• Boogert, Nico van den & Harry Stroomer (2004) 'Tashelhiyt Berber of South Morocco — a morphological survey'. Unpublished.

External links

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• Ethnologue Report for Tashelhit
• John Coleman, 'Epenthetic vowels in Tashlhiyt Berber' (includes sound samples)
• Tashelhit - Rosetta Project
• Tachelhit Lexicon

Berber languages | Languages of Morocco

Tacheliteg | Tachelhit | Chleuh | Tashelhiyt