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
1989: 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
2.2
Linguistic Features of the Berber Language:……………………
2.2.1 Berber
Scripts…………………………………………………………6-9
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………………………………………………………………
