Northern Berber languages

Northern Berber
Geographic distribution:	Northwest Africa
Linguistic classification:	Afro-Asiatic Berber Northern Berber
Subdivisions:	Kabyle Atlas group Zenati group
Ethnologue code:	58-16

The Northern Berber languages form a dialect continuum across the Maghreb that constitute a branch of the Berber language subgroup of the Afroasiatic family. Their continuity has been broken by the spread of Arabic, and to a lesser extent by the Zenati group of Northern Berber, which shares certain innovations not found in the surrounding languages, notably a softening of k to sh and an absence of a- in certain words, such as "hand" (afus vs. fus.)

The Northern Berber languages, with those spoken by over a million people in bold, are:

• Moroccan Atlas languages:
  • Shilha (also called Tachelhit, Tasusit; includes "Judeo-Berber"), in southern Morocco
  • Central Morocco Tamazight
  • Senhaja de Srair (listed erroneously as Zenati by the Ethnologue), in the southern part of the Rif in Morocco
• Zenati languages
  • Ghomara, in the northwestern part of the Rif in Morocco
  • Riff (Tarifit), in northern Morocco
    • Beni Snous (Tlemcen), in western Algeria near the border
    • Arzew, in western Algeria (extinct?)
  • South Oran Berber, in the ksours along the Algerian-Moroccan border
    • Figuig dialect, in southeastern Morocco
  • Central Maghreb Berber
    • Achacha (extinct), north of Mostaghanem in Algeria
    • Bel Halima (extinct), west of Tiaret in Algeria
    • Ouarsenis (extinct?), east of El Asnam in Algeria
    • Haraoua (extinct?), south of Ain Defla in Algeria
    • Shenwa (Haqbaylit; Beni Menacer, Djebel Bissa), between Tipasa and Ténès in north-central Algeria west of Algiers
  • Shawiya (Chaouia), south of Constantine in northeastern Algeria
  • Mzab–Wargla (northern Saharan varieties):
    • Mozabite (Tumzabt, Ghardaia) of the M'zab, Algeria
    • Wargla (Tagergrent) at Ouargla, Algeria
    • Oued Righ Berber (Ethnologue name "Temacine Tamazight") in Oued Righ, around Touggourt and Temacine (Algeria)
    • Tuat of Touat and Gourara, Algeria (the Ethnologue name "Taznatit" is a misnomer, as that name is used for most Zenati languages)
  • Tidikelt
  • Sened in Tunisia (extinct)
  • Zuwara (controversially classified by the Ethnologue as part of Nafusi, along with the previous), in northwestern Libya
• Kabyle (Taqbaylit), in Kabylia, east of Algiers
  • Various groups near Blida, such as the Beni Salah and Beni Bou Yaqoub (extinct?)

The eastern boundaries of the group seem to be controversial; some sources include the Nafusi and Ghadames languages, while others do not. Most sources agree in regarding Ghadames as outside of Northern Berber, but the Ethnologue does not.

There is no authoritative answer to the question of which of these to describe as a "language" versus a "dialect"; some academics have seen not only Northern Berber but all the Berber languages as dialects of a single language, while others come up with much higher counts. At any rate, mutual comprehensibility among Northern Berber languages is high, though not perfect.