Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Eastern Berber vocabularies on Google Books

Some digitised Eastern Berber vocabularies from the first half of the 18th 19th century for your perusal, if you're into that sort of thing. I was particularly impressed to find a Sokna vocabulary - I haven't yet read any other source on that language, though admittedly I haven't looked that hard.

* Lyon's vocabulary of the Berber of Sokna, from 1820
* Hornemann's vocabulary of Siwi, from 1798 (at my homepage)
* Caillaud's vocabulary of Siwi, from 1826
* Minutoli's vocabulary of Siwi, from 1827
* Koenig's vocabulary of Siwi, from 1839 (lots of other vocabularies in here - Somali, for example, and Nubian and even Fur)

Friday, May 08, 2009

Some Zenaga (Mauritanian Berber) words

Zenaga is the barely surviving Berber language of southwestern Mauritania around Boutilimit. Here are a few words I think are found only in Zenaga (and in some cases Tetserret), all from Taine-Cheikh. Unfortunately, I haven't found any really comprehensive dictionaries of (for example) Tashelhit, so I could well be wrong. If I am (as I was with agwəḍ), I'd love to hear it!

  • ämkän "young herd animal (eg sheep, goat)" - p. 308
  • ārwiy "scorpion" (< *arwəl) - p. 452
  • täygaḌ "young she-goat" (< *talgaḍ) - p. 577
  • agaḏ̣iy "Moor, bidani (white man)" - p. 181
  • täššänḍuḌ "mirror" - p. 129
  • taʔgaṛḏ̣aS "paper". (Other varieties have similar forms, but without any final s.) - p. 24
  • tämärwuS "bride" (Ahaggar Tuareg has rwəs "to be in rut" - obviously related, but not quite the same sense!) - p. 451