Atlas linguistique des variétés berbères du Rif

The Rif Berber varieties (North Morocco) belong to the northern Berber languages and thus are part of the large Afro-Asiatic language phylum. They are limited geolinguistically by the varieties of Ktama (the so-called Senhaja varieties) in the West, by the koinè of Gersif in the South (the last location before the corridor of Taza) and by the varieties of the Iznassen in the East, which have spread to Arabic speaking varieties to the Morocco-Algerian border. Besides their complex phonological processes, which can influence morphological structures, the Rif Berber varieties are mostly known because of their extreme dialectal differences. Linguistic variations analysed in the present book are mainly of horizontal or geographic types. Nevertheless, vertical and diachronic types are also linguistically analysed due to the relation between geographic diversity and temporal divergence. Social (class, sex, age…) and individual (mainly ideological-historical and psychological aspects) variation also affect geographic linguistic variation. The data were collected in a fieldwork period of nine months (summer 2001 – summer 2003), where the author covered a distance of over more than 400 km, visiting 452 villages of 36 tribes. Most of the varieties spoken in the Rif region are unknown or little documented in the Berber studies. In fact, this geographic area, mainly Berber speaking, is the scientifically least studied one of Morocco. Its economic and socio-political marginalisation, until nowadays, is one of the most significant factors of this lack. The extended analyses in this book are presented in numerous geographic linguistic maps embedded in synchronic and diachronic explications. This book is the first linguistic Atlas in the Berber studies and addresses the Rif area for the first time in geolinguistics.