Judeo-Berber language
Judeo-Berber is the language and dialects formed in Berber Jewish communities of central and southern Morocco where Berber dialects were common. Judeo-Berber was the primary, if not the only, language used by many in Berber Jewish communities, though others used primarily Judeo-Arabic. The language arose as a result of Arabic-speaking Jews getting in touch with Berber languages. It is also called Judeo-Amazigh, Judeo-Tamazight, and Jewish Amazigh.
Its speakers immigrated to Israel in the 1950s and 1960s. While mutually comprehensible with the Tamazight spoken by most inhabitants of the area, these varieties are distinguished by the use of Hebrew loanwords and the pronunciation of š as /s/, contrary to Judeo-Moroccan Arabic.
History
The first indication of Jews speaking any Berber language only appears in the early 19th century and it's of rural Jews in Jebel Nefusa and Saharan Ghardaia.As of 1912, about 8,000 of Moroccan Jews spoke Judeo-Berber. The language was spoken in the country's Berber or partly Berber rural and mountainous areas. 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 a Berber language.
Due to the mass migration of Moroccan Jews after the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, the number of speakers declined as the language was not passed down to new speakers, leaving it with only about 200 speakers left in France and Israel as of 2023.
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. Jews were living among tribal Berbers, often in the same villages, and practiced old tribal Berber protection relationships.Phonology
| Front | Central | Back | |
| Close | i | u | |
| Mid | ǝ | ||
| Open-mid | |||
| Open | a |
Judeo-Berber is characterized by the following phonetic phenomena:
- Centralized pronunciation of /i u/ as
- Neutralization of the distinction between /s ʃ/, especially among monolingual speakers
- Delabialization of labialized velars, e.g. nəkkʷni/nukkni > nəkkni 'us, we'
- Insertion of epenthetic 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/ > in both Judeo-Berber and Arabic