Genericized trademarks in Tarifit: danun "yoghurt", from the brand Danone kikkuz "roasted salted corn", from the brand King Kotes

Stative verbs are very common in Tarifit, in my experience, even more so than adjectives. Unlike other verbs, they use the perfective aspect without a past meaning. Examples: mɣar - "to be big, old" mẓi - "to be small, young" aggʷej - "to be far" bbuhři - "to be crazy" hřec - "to be sick"

Tarifit word of today: ɣarduc "mouse" Strangely, the r is not vocalized.

A lot of the time, Tarifit verb loans from Arabic that look like stem II verbs correspond in meaning to Arabic stem V verbs. For example: geɛɛed "to get up" < كعد "to raise" (sense = تكعد "to get up") sewweq "to go shopping" < سوق "to inform" (sense = تسوق "to go shopping")

Tarifit word of the day: bluka - "to be blocked, to be jammed" abrid ibluka marra - "the road is completely blocked" Also has a causative derivation: ssebluka - "to block, to jam" sseblukix-t - "I blocked him" (e.g., on WhatsApp)

Crazy etymology tree

Tarifit word of today: abarkun [ɛβaːkʊˑn] "balcony" < fr. / es.

Tarifit word of today: plinča - "clothes iron" < es. plancha Also used as a verb with the form plinčar: plinčar-ayi arruḍ inu - "iron my clothes for me"

Tarifit word of today: ḍḍumanḍa - "order" (as in online shopping) igg-as ḍḍumanḍa - "he ordered it" It looks Romance, but I can't pinpoint exactly which word it's borrowed from.

Zenaga orthography is so confusing

Tarifit word of today: splikar [splɪkaː] "to explain" < sp. explicar I feel like the s- doubles as the causative prefix.

Oops, my table below is wrong. Not as cursed as I thought (still cursed).

Oh my, it gets quite cursed.

@maartenkossmann.bsky.social Does this table look correct to you? This is from Wiktionary, where I have been working on Tarifit entries in my spare time.

In Marokkaans-Nederlands kan je veel dingen "gooien". Een paar voorbeeldzinnen: hij gooit rwina - hij schept chaos hij gooit zotte acties - hij doet gave daden hij gooit boze oog - hij geeft hem een boze oog

I've been reading 'Aménagement graphique, grammatical et lexical du rifain (berbère du nord du Maroc)', and it's made me think, maybe we're done with the step of creating dictionaries and need to start thinking about language planning!

Tarifit baby-talk term of today: ḷḷahukbar [lˤːɑɦʊkˤβˤɑˤː] "prayer"

In Marokkaans-Nederlands is het normaal om een Marokkaans spreekritme over te nemen. Dat is ook wat mensen het lastigst vinden om te imiteren. Benadrukken doe je b.v. door een woord te verlengen en hoger te laten klinken: hij heeeeft da gedaan

Central Atlas Tamazight and Tarifit oddly share these features: ḵ /ç/ > c /ʃ/ g̱ /ʝ/ > y /j/ yṯ /jθ/ > ct /ʃt/ l > ř (various realizations) Both call their language t(a)maziɣt Miss any? 😶‍🌫️

Tarifit word of today: atarras "human being" < تراس tərras "artilleryman" Anyone know the story behind the semantic shift?

This might be a pretty out-there idea, but we know that there already was r ~ ʁ variation in Maghrebi Arabic dialects in pre-colonial times. In the case of Morocco: certain Jebli dialects, as well as some Jewish dialects iirc. This might have helped with identifying ʁ as a rhotic.

One question I've wondered for a while: Why do French loanwords in Maghrebi Arabic and Berber borrow r /ʁ/ as /r/ even though /ʁ/ exists? I don't think it's education, as even the oldest loanwords already do this.

Thanks for the update! So it looks like this version (beans and no teeth) is a pan-Moroccan proverb. Was curious and foud out that it also exists in Darija: "Rebbi taye3ti lfoul ghir li ma3endou dras" Source: www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZBI... (1/2)

Marokkaans-Nederlands verbindt bijzinnen zonder voegwoord Voorbeelden uit Antwerpen: ik ging naar daar direct hij wordt boos = ik ging daarheen en toen werd hij boos ik doe raam open ik zie hij staat daar = ik doe het raam open en zie dat hij daar staat

Tarifit riddles: 1. anu x wanu, aman walu = ɣanim a well on a well, but no water = a reed 2. isess war ityiwin, itẓumma war itfid = ařɣem he drinks and doesn't get full, he fasts and doesn't get thirsty = the camel

Am I just stupid, or is this definition poorly written: Beau-frère (le mari de la belle-sœur du conjoint) So, the husband of one's spouse's sister-in-law? Wouldn't one's spouse's sister-in-law be your own sister?

In Antwerpse jongerentaal bestaan er een paar doubletten van dialect en standaardtaal: droog "droog" - droeg "niet grappig" dood "dood" - doed "saai" Je zou nooit zeggen "hij is dood" met de betekenis van saai, en "hij is doed" met de bekenis dood, dus ze zijn echt gelexicaliseerd.

I've noticed many Riffians online incorrectly using ṭ and ḍ for /θ/ and /ð/ (and also using th and dh in more general contexts). This suggests that for Riffian speakers, these spirantized consonants are perceived as phonemes in their own right, not merely as allophones of /t/ and /d/.

A Senhaja speaker having a relatively fluent conversation with a Ghomara speaker: www.youtube.com/watch?v=DKWj...

The many words for "face" in Tarifit, some with a pejorative sense and some not: udem (most neutral) aɣembub, aɣenbub, aɣembuz, axencuc, aɣenzur, aqensur, axenzur, aɣenfuf, axenfuf, axenfir, aqenfuḥ, aqedmur

Tarifit equivalents: irden: wheat imendi: barley tafsut: millet azqun: cultivated oats aṛṛuz: rice ddṛa: corn

In het standaard Nederlands spreken we van de zogenaamde korte i /ɪ/, en lange ie /i/. In Antwerpen is daadwerkelijk lengte de voornaamste onderscheiding: /i/ vs /iː/. Meestal komt dit overeen met elkaar: Zit /zit/ Ziet /ziːt/ Vis /vis/ Vies /viːs/ Maar niet altijd: Niet /nit/ Iemand /imant/

Cool false cognate pair: Indonesian asri "beautiful" Tarifit aẓři "beauty"

Kent iemand hier de "straattaal" term kriva /krɪvːa/? Dit gebruikte wij in antwerpen als tussenwerpsel met de betekenis "Dit heb je zelf gezocht (karma)". Heeft iem. een idee voor de etymolgie? Het klinkt niet Arabisch of Berbers.

In Tafersit Tarifit, word-initial /t/ often spirantizes to /h/: haddart "home" < taddart This feature is widespread across even distantly related Berber varieties, occurring in Shawiya, Ghomara, Senhaja, and Chenoua.

En tamajeq les emprunt au français ont souvent un pluriel en -tan -Gaẓẓatan ( les gaz) - Velotan ( les vélos) Mais c'est aussi le cas pour emprunt pour d'autres langues comme l'anglais

Final update to this, I have found an example with "le": lugaz "stove" < le gaz

I think this proverb and its variants are present all over North Africa. In Kabyle we say: "Yefka Rebbi irden i yir-tuɣmas" (God gave wheat to [those who have] bad teeth) In this variant it's wheat instead of beans, and it's to those who have bad teeth instead of no teeth. 1/2

Awesome shared proverb between Senhaja and Tashelhit: Senhaja: U itakka Rebbi ibawen ɣa i wa a yellan cay ɣur-es itaɣṣin. "God gives beans only to the one who has no teeth" Tashelhit: Ar yakka rbbi ibawn i ɣwa lli ur iṭṭafn uxsan. "God gives beans to the one who has no teeth" 1/2

A list of some successful neologisms in Tarifit: amaziɣ (vs. inherited maziɣ) - "Berber" amezruy - "history" azul - "hello" tarifit - "Riffian language" (originally tmaziɣt was used) tiřelli - "freedom" As a 2nd-gen immigrant in Europe, I never grew up with these, I had to learn them.

CəCC(-a) nouns in dialectal Arabic are borrowed into Tarifit as CCuC, apparently based on the Arabic plural: afrux < fərx (pl. frux) aqcur < qəšr-a (pl. qšur) aqdur < qədr-a (pl. qdur) This phenomenon is quite widespread in Berber.

Tarfit baby talk word of the day: ubbaḥ - "kiss"

I'm trying to understand the semantic shift of Tarifit ksi ("to lift, to take"). It's likely cognate with other Berber ks (perfective ksi), which means "to graze, to tend." Is this shift plausible?

In Tarifit loanwords, Arabic t sometimes gets taken over as ṯ /θ/ and sometimes as t /t/: /ṯ/ ṯmenya < Ar. tmənya ssefṯ "Saturday" < Ar. əs-səbt /t/ tesɛa "nine" < Ar. təsʕa zzitun "olive" < Ar. zītūn Other than age (newer loans chiefly have /t/), it seems to be a bit random.

I just discovered the etymology of the popular Maghrebi cat name Minuš: It comes from Turkish Minnoş, from minik ("tiny, small") +‎ -oş. I had thought that uš was the Berber expressive suffix -uš. Guess it's a false cognate.

I recently read an article talk about the irregular development of Proto-Berber *st in its descendants. I found another example: Tarifit assam "lightning, thunder" Senhaja de Srair astammen "lightning"

Just curious, how accepted (or not) is the root system in Berber morphology? If it's falling out of favor, what's the alternative analysis?

Pharyngealized consonants in Moroccan-Dutch in the vicinity of back vowels Examples from Antwerp: aa daar - [dˤɑːrˤ] oo door - [dˤɔːrˤ] o top - [tˤɔpˤ] a zand - [zˤ(ː)ɑntˤ] ~ [z(ː)a̟nt]

I've been thinking about this a little more. If this phenomenon were unique to Berber, it could mirror why l- appears in Arabic borrowings, essentially to mirror the Berber prefix a-. But the French article also shows up in Arabic loans from French, so that can't be it.

Almost all the same from my variant. And then you have (from Tmz SE Morocco), ones where the article is dropped: bašklid < bicyclette brmisiu < permission žnninaṛ < genéral (milit.) ttilifu < téléphone etc. I wonder if there are any phonotactics at play, or some kind of constraint?