Zenati languages

Zenati
Geographic
distribution		North Africa
Linguistic classificationAfro-Asiatic
Subdivisions
Language codes
Glottologzena1250

The Zenati languages are a branch of the Northern Berber language family of North Africa. They were named after the medieval Zenata Berber tribal confederation. They were first proposed in the works of French linguist Edmond Destaing (1915)[1] (1920–23).[2] Zenata dialects are distributed across the central Berber world (Maghreb), from northeastern Morocco to just west of Algiers, and the northern Sahara, from southwestern Algeria around Bechar to Zuwara in Libya. The most widely spoken Zenati languages are Tmazight of the Rif in northern Morocco and Tashawit Berber in northeastern Algeria, each of which have over 3 million speakers.

  1. ^ Edmond Destaing, "Essai de classification des dialectes berbères du Maroc Archived September 4, 2011, at the Wayback Machine", Etudes et Documents Berbères 19-20, 2001-2002 (1915)
  2. ^ Edmond Destaing, "Note sur la conjugaison des verbes de forme C1eC2", Mémoires de la Société Linguistique de Paris, 22 (1920/3), pp. 139-148