Central Atlas Tamazight

This article is about the Berber dialect of Central Morocco called Tamazight exclusively. For other uses of the word "Tamazight", see Berber languages.
Central Atlas Tamazight
Tamaziɣt
ⵜⴰⵎⴰⵣⵉⵖⵜ
أمازيغية أطلس الأوسط
Pronunciation[tæmæˈzɪxt, θæmæˈzɪxθ]
Native toMorocco
RegionFès-Meknès, Béni Mellal-Khénifra and Drâa-Tafilalet
Native speakers
3.1 million (2020)[1]
Standard forms
Tifinagh, Arabic
Official status
Regulated byIRCAM
Language codes
ISO 639-3tzm
Glottologcent2194
  Location of Central Atlas Tamazight speakers
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Central Atlas Tamazight or Atlasic (native name: ⵜⴰⵎⴰⵣⵉⵖⵜ Tamazight [tæmæˈzɪxt, θæmæˈzɪxθ]; Arabic: أمازيغية أطلس الأوسط) is a Berber language[nb 1] of the Afroasiatic language family spoken by 3.1 million speakers.[1]

Central Atlas Tamazight is one of the most-spoken Berber languages, along with Tachelhit, Kabyle, Riffian, Shawiya and Tuareg. In Morocco, it comes second as the most-spoken after Tachelhit. All five languages may be referred to as "Tamazight", but Central Atlas speakers are the only ones who use the term exclusively. As is typical of Afroasiatic languages, Tamazight has a series of "emphatic consonants" (realized as pharyngealized), uvulars, pharyngeals and lacks the phoneme /p/. Tamazight has a phonemic three-vowel system but also has numerous words without vowels.

Central Atlas Tamazight (unlike neighbouring Tashelhit) had no known significant writing tradition until the 20th century. It is now officially written in the Tifinagh script for instruction in Moroccan schools,[2][3] while descriptive linguistic literature commonly uses the Latin alphabet, and the Arabic alphabet has also been used.

The standard word order is verb–subject–object but sometimes subject–verb–object.[4] Words inflect for gender, number and state, using prefixes, suffixes and circumfixes. Verbs are heavily inflected, being marked for tense, aspect, mode, voice, person of the subject and polarity, sometimes undergoing ablaut. Pervasive borrowing from Arabic extends to all major word classes, including verbs; borrowed verbs, however, are conjugated according to native patterns, including ablaut.[5][6]

  1. ^ a b Central Atlas Tamazight at Ethnologue (27th ed., 2024) Closed access icon
  2. ^ "Tifinagh alphabet and Berber languages". Omniglot. S. Ager. n.d. Retrieved December 17, 2009.
  3. ^ Cite error: The named reference ReferenceC was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  4. ^ Cite error: The named reference am295 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  5. ^ Cite error: The named reference sadiqi25-26 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  6. ^ Cite error: The named reference am153 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).


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