izli (verse) after the style of Rrways: zzwarɣd aldžžig ur-d zzwarɣ ifriwn g tafuyt n tfsi a tadabut yuran, ur yad tsserɣa tfgga n usmun-i

In Tamazight "to burn" and "to purify" are eerily close (false cognates, I think): ɣus: pure, clean ɣus: to be burnt A saying: iḍuḍan iɣsan irden ayd isɣusn aɣrum (the fingers that cleaned the grain, burnt the bread)

May I introduce to you some really impressive Libyco-Berber monuments? In Bordj Hajar, close to Chemtou in Tunisia, three fragments of massive obelisks have been found. They have been reconstructed in the Chemtou museum (thanks, wikipedia!). Their original height was probably around 3.5 meters 🤯

En mai 2026

It's finally here! Just received my translator's copies...

A question re "hyya" in Tamazight: Ex 1. "hyya, ur iddi!" (SO, he did not go!) Ex 2. "tizizwa hyya yan ubaxxu nna..." (a bee IS an insect that...) Between conjunctive and copular use, is this the same particle, or two different particles? In both cases can be replaced by presentative 'hat'.

Does anyone know any good research papers on the phenomenon of folk linguistics and the way it intersects with ethnonationalism and ethnic writing? You know, the type that claims language X is the oldest language & the origin of all world languages?

Sow, Cow, Steer, Constellation In Tamazight (SE Morocco) Ursa Major is called: 'tafunast': cow It's position in the sky was traditiuonally used to forecast a good year (meaning rains): horns oriented west (West is also called 'tiṭṭ n unẓaṛ': eye of the rain) ------ In Tashlḥiyt: izgarn (steers)

Important new publication of historical Berber lingusitics, esp. onomastics. Edited and organized by the brilliant Carles Múrcia (not on here, I think), with, among many others, articles by @lameensouag.bsky.social and myself.

/ḍ/ and /ṭ/ are often allophones in many Tamazight variants of SE & CA Morocco, as in 'tinqqaḍ' = 'tinqqaṭ'. From Bynon's texts, this is not the case for the Imilchil region variant, except where the name for the letter Ḍ is concerned: "ṣṣad wr ynqqiḍ, ṬṬAD ywwt zy waflla, ṬṬA wr ynqqiḍ" (p. 81)

Reading D. Casajus on Emrewelqis (Imru' l-Qays) in Touareg poetry. A bit of boasting 'adaptranslated' into Tamazight: Mṛulqqis hat nkkin assa ayd-t igan addud, giġ-ak timmaẓ a bu-yzlan ur-d ikkisn i taḍfi n ddunit ġas imnḍiḍan yafid afus g tfrut anggu t-isselkan Source: shorturl.at/6EM54

A similar saying in Tamazight (SE Morocco): "iẓ̌ẓ̌iž ġf ixf-nnk a bu-tfullust" (feather on your head, chicken thief) The short story: stolen chickens, everybody gathers, village chief climbs on a bench, looks over the crowd, utters these words; the guilty reaches to brush-off non-existent feather.

These pics remind me of home. So what do we call some in Tamazight: 1. Cistanche: 'abəllu n wakal' (phallus of the earth). Why? well, look at its root :) Unsurprisingly, it is used in trad. pharmacology as a stimulant, aphrodisiac, against impotency, sterility... Other names: Laoust: idərġis 1/

Centering the eye, a few fig. exp in Tamazight: >tiṭṭ n unẓar: eye of the rain = west >tiṭṭ n ufud: eye of the knee = patella >iglgiz n tiṭṭ: scarab of the eye = pupil >alln n yiḍgam: yesterday's eyes = insomnia >tiṭṭ mẓẓiyn: small eye = contempt >tiṭṭ n tmdwult: widow's eye = type of dandelion ...

Prallelism: > Tamazight: tifiras = pears tifiras = facial features/traits > French: poire = pear poire = face/mug

Translated into Tamazight: Tifsa "tfsy tižži n uldžžig, han ddunit trwas tanast n lbxur ar-k ttalɣn a Ṛbbi ysignaw, d waman, d uqmmur ima nkkʷni nẓẓiẓy udm n wakal ismigiln ad ig agḍṛuṛ" (PS: السواري "clouds (night clouds that bring rain)"

"tinzar n wadus" or "tinzar n tkira" Incidentally, is 'takira / tikira' a cognate of latin 'cēra'? @maartenkossmann.bsky.social

A tale for the times (in Tamazight) Agru iggʷdn i waman "inna-yak, izdɣ yan ugru g yatt tasiftt; yan wass iɣṛḍ ugru ɣf yan iflilu ar iṛqqa tafuyt, hattn bdun-d imqqa n unẓaṛ. inna-yas ugru "ur nniɣ ad qqimɣ daddɣ amm uḥyuḍ ad mmɣeɣ, ad uɣulɣ s tgmmi" iwa inḍw s ammas n tasiftt mar ad ur immeɣ"

Ahayku / Haiku: igzayn idd tawargit nġd tidt-- timitar n ugurdu > Original by Kikaku: kiraretaru yume wa makoto ka nomi no ato > transl. by Robert Hass: stabbed to death! was my dream true? the marks of a flea </>

"ur tmziɣt ka-n tɣarast addag tnɣit afgan, hat ɣas afgan ayd tnɣit hlli" (transl. into Tamazight)

Coincidence or cognates? Greek: Δρῦς (drûs) "oak tree" Tamazight: adrn "oak tree"

Morocco: Public sector LLMs trained on Darija and Amazigh. Issues with AI aside, i wonder if the LLMs will be regionalized to account for dialectal var, (with code-switching :-o) and be more accessible, or just stuffed with IRCAM artificial koine...

I made a map of 3.4 million Bluesky users - see if you can find yourself! bluesky-map.theo.io I've seen some similar projects, but IMO this seems to better capture some of the fine-grained detail

“The phonetics of Tarifit: variation and change in a Moroccan Amazigh language” by Mohamed Afkir and Georgia Zellou (Feb. ’26) [free until Feb. 18] www.cambridge.org/core/element...

Pour quelques semaines, chaque vendredi, je propose dans l’émission de @xaviermauduit.bsky.social sur @franceculture.fr une chronique sur l’histoire de l’Afrique. 3 minutes pour raconter l’histoire du Sahel et du Sahara et comment on l’écrit aujourd’hui. www.radiofrance.fr/francecultur...

A Berber manuscript written in 1764 turned up in the Berber-speaking town of Tiout in Algeria. But it wasn't in the local language at all - it was a copy of Al-Ḥawḍ, the keystone of the Tashlhiyt ms tradition in Morocco, described in Meziani's recent thesis. dspace.univ-batna.dz/server/api/c...

A while ago, I put together an article on a funny little chain tale about a cat's big long-term plans, only attested in NW Africa, which I call “What Do You Want Money For?” Just before publication, I finally came across a parallel - a Yiddish nursery rhyme. journal.oraltradition.org/postscript/

Korandje: "I left you a little couscous, but the cat ate it." ʕa-k-ks=ni.sṭ ɑz=fʷ=kadda mʷəš a=nɣ-a

A different take in this Moroccan saying (Darija): dīr ṛasǝk bīn ṛṛyus u ʕǝyeṭṭ a qǝṭṭaʕ ṛṛyus (put your head amid other heads, and shout for the headsman)

'addag d ikka wkrkas imi n iɣrm ikka-d ḍaras uḍaḍ izwurt-id uḍaḍ' (rendered into Tamazight)

In the Aures, yesterday was Pharaoh Day, ass n Ferɛun. www.facebook.com/massa.khadid... In local tradition, it's the day Pharaoh is thought to have drowned in the Red Sea as he pursued Moses, and the agricultural (Julian) New Year's Day. This was calqued from a lunar calendar to a solar one:

Question for NAfrica dialectologists: Is there any compelling reason to continue mapping "dialect" to "tribe" (w/ its colonial admin state legacies), as if the two were congruent? Particularly in regions with imbricated populations? Why not 'speech communities' or some such? 🙏🏼

Dove sono i generali Che si fregiarono nelle battaglie Con cimiteri di croci sul petto ? --Maurizio de André, 'La collina' Mani-kn a yid-žnninar igmin aggasn n imnɣi s yidmarn ibubban ismḍal n iskni ? (transl. into Tamaziɣt)

A good illustration of this point at a lexical level: in Tamazight 'urine' = aman n tasa (liver water) A clear ref. to the medieval theory of the 3 digestions (coctions), (Ṛazī, Ibn al-Jazzār, Issac Israëli...< Galien): stomach, liver, tissues, with the 2nd coction in the liver producing urine.

#3 Ibn Tunart (d.1172) continued: > الجعل, scarab, dung beetle: zanzər A quick survery of a few dictionaries: > Taine-Cheikh (Zenaga): iʔẕ̌ənẕ̌ər 'scarabée stercoraire, bousier' > Destaing (B. Snous): zinzer 'bousier' > Serhoual (Rif): tišurin uzinzar 'boules de bousier' 👇🏽

Anyone with an interest in North African folklore is likely to have heard of rain-dolls: Taghenja / Tlghnja / etc. But they also occur all over the Levant. An example from Tel Brak, Syria: www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7sm...

In Writing Timbuktu, Shamil Jeppie brings to light the long overlooked, centuries-long, culture of the book in West Africa. Available January 20 (17 Mar UK pub). Learn more: press.princeton.edu/books/hardco... #History #ReadUP

A new article by Carles Murcia (in English, despite the title) about the etymology of the place name(s) Thagaste www.ifc-ojs.es/index.php/pa...

"Y ahora mi paracaídas cae de sueño en sueño" --Vincente Huidobro Was trying to transl. into Tamazight but couldn't find in any dict a word for 'paracaidas'= parachute. Yet, Tmz has similarly constructed words: 'tarazal' 'tartafuyt'= sunhat, parasol... So, perhaps: 'tartaḍuri" or 'tarattuty'?

Spending too much time with Magritte...

More gleanings: Ibn Tunart's (d.1172) dictionary (MS_088_a). Brackets= my lect, Tmz, Goulmima, Morocco) > isggusn: years (isggʷasn) > irn: months (ayyurn) > tanbdudt: summer (anbdu, ṣṣif) > tagrst: winter (tagrst) > talddrar: spring (tifsa, ṛṛbiʕ) > tamnžušt: fall (amḍṛ, lxrif) *seasons all fem!

transcendance = transe sans danse Comme quoi, c'est pas avec Kant qu'on fait une rave

On avarice: > qḍan yibawn, imawn qqiman-d d wudmawn (the fava beans are quickly gone, mouths and faces are what remains)

Maybe macaronic Darija and Tamazight (Berber) is the way to go 😱 Ḥasan al-Yūsī (d.1691) didn't mind: wa qawmun žiyaʕun sakanū fī tagnit xāfū ḍḍiyafaʰ kasabū yat tigdit wa qad nazal(n)a ʕinda-hum ġer učči wa kullu man minnā iggen ur ičči ! 👇🏽

A few gleanings from Ibn Tunart’s (d.1172) dictionary (MS_088_a): > tid-xsinin: coal (lit. ‘the extinguished ones’ in opp. to ‘live coals’: tirgin) > azki, azgi: pottery (my local lect: ajʷg̱̱̱i) > tazkkiwt: (donut-like) jug stand 'Ar. al-jiʔawa' (local lect: tazzwutt - usually from palm fiber) 👇🏽

It's not narcolepsy, it's s "disco nap"...

It’s Tuesday, oral exams period coming up, so a (temporary?) end to this Libyco-Berber tombstones series. But first: some really puzzling stuff. A series of inscriptions was found in 1938 in Mechta el Maza close to Bouchegouf (ex-Duvivier), Guelma region, eastern Algeria (RIL 1076-1091) 🧵

Gender agreement in Tamazight: From Bynon's, a case where a (masc.) loanword from Arabic: /lžamʕ/ retains the gender of the (fem.) word it displaces /timzgida/: > [...] yddu s lžamʕ taxatart ž Fas. (p. 83) (then) he goes to the big mosque in Fez Despite the modifier's S; usually calls for masc

I know I risk mass-unfollowing and cancellation, but today we will look at a Libyco-Berber inscription on a rock, not at a tombstone. In 1960, a spectacular found was made in the High Atlas in Morocco at a place called Azib-n-Ikkis. It consists of a stylized man in a cowboy coat with LB inscription

For Saturday’s Libyco-Berber tombstone, let’s have a look at a double inscription on the same stone, RIL 989, found in Mechta Charef in eastern Algeria. Copy by Rodary.🧵