Ghomara language

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The language of the Ghomara is a Northern Berber language of the Zenati subgroup, spoken on the western edge of the Rif in Morocco. Contrary to the Ethnologue, it is not extinct; Peter Behnstedt reports that it is spoken in at least the douar of Amtiqan and its immediate neighborhood, just west of Oued Ouringa. However, it is spoken by only a small minority of the Ghomara; even in 1931, according to Carleton Coon, only one of their eight tribes, the Beni Bu Zra, continued to speak it. It is mutually comprehensible with Tarifit.

[edit] Bibliography

• Peter Behnstedt, "La frontera entre el bereber y el árabe en el Rif", Estudios de dialectología norteafricana y andalusí vol. 6, 2002.
• Georges Séraphin Colin, "Le parler berbère des Gmara", Hesperis 9, 1929, pp. 43-58.