Berber languages outside Mauritania have a number of different morphological classes of vowel-final and semivowel-final verbs (“final weak verbs”). The situation in Zenaga of Mauritania looks very different. In this article, the Zenaga reflexes of the non- Mauritanian weak verbs are compared by studying all relevant cognates. As a result, it proves possible to establish to what extent the main weak verb classes of non- Mauritanian Berber are reflected in Zenaga, and to what extent certain irregularities can be understood from Zenaga-internal developments.

Figuig Berber (eastern Morocco) has a large number of deictic constructions. Among these, a construction with a preposed pronominal element followed by a genitival phrase is by far the most common. All deictic constructions use a basic contrast between two elements: -u and -ənn. In exophoric deixis, the former has proximal interpretation, while the latter has distal interpretation. In endophoric deixis, the situation is more complicated. For some speakers, only constructions with -ənn are permitted in this use, while other speakers use both constructions with -u and -ənn, without clear contrast. In the article, emphasis is laid on when endophoric deictic marking is used, and when it is absent. In principle, such marking shows that the referent has already been mentioned in the previous context, and can be regarded anaphoric. However, in such situations, it is still possible not to mark the noun. This is mainly the case when there is only one potential referent in a given situation, as, for example, in the case of kings, or as is often the case with nouns modified by a genitival phrase.

The Berbers, an indigenous people of North Africa, belong to the group of “nations without a state.” For centuries, they were marginalized by the Arab majority or manipulated by European colonizers. Since the mid-twentieth century in North Africa, a movement for a Berber and Pan-Berber identity has been growing strongly. The movement has disseminated the neologism “Amazigh” as the endoethnonim of this group of peoples. The process of building (creating) a Berber identity has been slightly different in Morocco (where the stabilizing role of the monarchy has been highlighted) and in Algeria (where it has taken more violent forms). With the rise of Berber self-awareness in North Africa and the activity of the Berber diaspora in Europe (mainly in France), civil society organizations (associations) were established in Morocco and Algeria to defend the rights of the Berber minority. After many attempts and despite the resistance of Arab elites the Berber language and culture were recognized by the state authorities as equivalent to the Arabic component of the Algerian and Moroccan identity. State institutions (the Institut royal de la culture Amazighe—the IRCAM—in Morocco, and the Haut Commissariat à l’Amazighité—the HCA—in Algeria) were established for the revitalization of the Berber culture and langua

My series “Some Berber Etymologies” is to gradually reveal the still unknown immense Afro-Asiatic heritage in the Berber lexical stock. The first part with some miscellaneous Berber etymologies was published back in 1996. Recently, I continued the series according to initial root consonants1 in course of my research for the volumes of the “Etymological Dictionary of Egyptian” (abbreviated as EDE, Leiden, since 1999, Brill)2 with a much more extensive lexicographical apparatus on the cognate Afro-Asiatic daughter languages. As for the present part, it greatly exploits the results of my ongoing work for the the fourth volume of EDE (analyzining the Eg. lexical stock with initial n-). The present part contains etymologies of Berber roots with initial *n- followed by dental stops. The numeration of the entries continues that of the preceding parts of this series. In order to spare room, I quote those well-attested and widespread lexical roots that appear common Berber, only through a few illustrative examples. The underlying regular consonant correspondences between Berber vs. Afro-Asiatic agree with those established by the Russian team of I.M. Diakonoff and summarized by A.Ju. Militarev (1991, 242–3).

This paper is based on examining a limited number of Arab–Berber sources whose main objective is to highlight that the Muslim West (Maghreb – al-Andalus) constituted a multilingual geographical space. First, I will look at the question of the Almoravids and the mastery of languages in a context of power. Then, I will raise the question of the linguistic skills of the sovereigns in al-Andalus. After this, I will give some details on the Berber language in the Marinid Maghreb. Finally, I will propose some brief conclusions of a provisional nature, emphasizing the interest of the study of linguistic uses and cultural contacts in the Muslim West in the Middle Ages.