Judeo-Berber language

Judeo-Berber or Judeo-Amazigh (ⵜⴰⵎⴰⵣⵉⵖⵜ ⵏ ⵡⵓⴷⴰⵢⵏ tamazight n wudayen, berberit yehudit) is any of several hybrid Berber varieties traditionally spoken as a second language in Berber Jewish communities of central and southern Morocco, and perhaps earlier in Algeria. Judeo-Berber is (or was) a contact language; the first language of speakers was Judeo-Arabic. (There were also Jews who spoke Berber as their first language, but not a distinct Jewish variety.) Speakers immigrated to Israel in the 1950s and 1960s. While mutually comprehensible with the Tamazight spoken by most inhabitants of the area (Galand-Pernet et al. 1970:14), these varieties are distinguished by the use of Hebrew loanwords and the pronunciation of š as s (as in many Jewish Moroccan Arabic dialects).

Speaker population
According to a 1936 survey, approximately 145,700 of Morocco's 161,000 Jews spoke a variety of Berber, 25,000 of whom were reportedly monolingual in the language.

Geographic distribution
Communities in Morocco where Jews spoke Judeo-Berber included: Tinghir, Ouijjane, Asaka, Imini, Draa valley, Demnate and Ait Bou Oulli in the Tamazight-speaking Middle Atlas and High Atlas and Oufrane, Tiznit and Illigh in the Tashelhiyt-speaking Souss valley (Galand-Pernet et al. 1970:2). Jews were living among tribal Berbers, often in the same villages and practiced old tribal Berber protection relationships.

Almost all speakers of Judeo-Berber left Morocco in the years following its independence, and their children have mainly grown up speaking other languages. In 1992, about 2,000 speakers remained, mainly in Israel; all are at least bilingual in Judeo-Arabic.

Phonology
Judeo-Berber is characterized by the following phonetic phenomena:


 * Centralized pronunciation of /i u/ as [ɨ ʉ]
 * Neutralization of the distinction between /s ʃ/, especially among monolingual speakers
 * Delabialization of labialized velars (/kʷ gʷ xʷ ɣʷ/), e.g. nəkkʷni/nukkni > nəkkni 'us, we'
 * Insertion of epenthetic [ə] to break up consonant clusters
 * Frequent diphthong insertion, as in Judeo-Arabic
 * Some varieties have q > kʲ and dˤ > tˤ, as in the local Arabic dialects
 * In the eastern Sous Valley region, /l/ > [n] in both Judeo-Berber and Arabic

Usage
Apart from its daily use, Judeo-Berber was used for orally explaining religious texts, and only occasionally written, using Hebrew characters; a manuscript Pesah Haggadah written in Judeo-Berber has been reprinted (Galand-Pernet et al. 1970.) A few prayers, like the Benedictions over the Torah, were recited in Berber.

Example
Taken from Galand-Pernet et al. 1970:121 (itself from a manuscript from Tinghir):

ixəddamn ay n-ga i pərʿu g° maṣər. i-ss-ufġ aġ əṛbbi ənnəġ dinnaġ s ufus ən ddrʿ, s ufus ikuwan.

servants what we-were for Pharaoh in Egypt. he-cause-leave us God our there with arm of might, with arm strong.

Servants of Pharaoh is what we were in Egypt. Our God brought us out thence with a mighty arm, with a strong arm.