Senhaja de Srair or Senhaja Berber (, , ), is a Northern Berber language. It is spoken by the Senhaja Srair Berbers inhabiting the central part of the Moroccan Rif. It is spoken around the Ketama and Targuist area, west of the Tarifit speaking area in eastern Rif.
Despite its speech area, the language belongs to the Atlas branch of Berber. It has also been influenced by the neighbouring Riffian language.
Besides Senhaja de Srair, the language is also known in English as Tasenhajit,, Senhaja Berber, Senhajiya, Shilha/Shelha, Shelha n Senhaja and Tamazight n Senhaja. The most widespread endonym (term used by the speakers themselves) to refer to their language is Ccelḥa 'Shelha'. If necessary, one can specify, depending on the (sub-)tribe: Shelha of Ketama, Seddat, Taghzut, etc., or simply "our Shelha". Some Senhaja de Srair Berber activists prefer the name Tasenhajit or Senhaja Berber, as the term Shelha can refer to other Berber languages as well.
Senhaja de Srair, according to the Unesco is an endangered language.
Senhaja de Srair speakers are generally less involved in the Amazigh Cultural Movement. Their situation can be partly explained by their marginalization from both the Berber world and the Moroccan society as whole. Their language lacks official recognition, as state language policies have primarily focused only on the three large Moroccan Berber varieties (Tashelhit, Middle Atlas Berber, and Tarifit).
Additional factors contribute to this limited engagement: geographic isolation in the mountains, the economic situation (their region being the center of cannabis cultivation), prejudice against them, the fact that they are overlooked by Berbers from other regions, and so on.
Recently, the association of "Amazighs of Senhaja of the Rif" has emerged, with the aim of promoting and preserving the Senhajan language and cultural heritage. Its most active members include Charif Adardak, Iliasse Aarab, Mounir Aghzennay, Mohamed Ben Abdellah Aghzout and few more. Besides many various cultural initiatives, the association created "Tidighin" a magazine devoted to the cultural and linguistic heritage of Senhaja Srair.
Senhaja de Srair exhibits significant internal dialectal variation: the Ketama dialect is considered distinct from that of other tribes and is now spoken only in seven villages: Ait Ahmed, Ait Aissi, Makhzen, Asmmar, Talghunt, Sahel, and Zgara. the Senhaja de Srair is also spoken in the village of Ighoumad, on the northern slope of Adrar Dahdouh, but this sector of Ketama has its main contacts with the Berber speakers of Ait Seddat, which favoured the preservation of the language there.
Near the current Berber-speaking Senhaja Srair, there are communities that still speak Tasenhajit: In Ait Gmil, in the Bni Chboun fraction, the villages of Bougherda, Belḥekk and LmaáºÂiyyin. And in Ait Boufrah, the village of Akhzouz. As well as Zouaoua, which is a small village of the Fennassa tribe.
The prevalence of Senhaja de Srair spoken also varies among the tribes:
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Senhaja de Srair speakers are not used to writing in their language. Unlike some other Berber languages, Tifinagh script is never used in Tasenhajit. If the language is written, especially in the case on Computer-mediated communication, Latin script is the most considered one, numbers are sometimes (but not consistently) used to represent some sounds. The Berber Latin script:
Dialects of Senhaja de Srair are Ait Ahmed, Ait Bshir, Ait Bunsar, Ait Khennus, Ait Seddat, Ketama, Taghzut, and Zerqet.
Each dialect has its own shifts such as:
There are three peripheral vowels (a, i, u) and a central vowel, schwa [ÃÂ], written as e. The vowel a is usually realized as [æ], i as [ê], u as [u], e as [ÃÂ].
When a peripheral vowel follows a pharyngealized consonant, it is lowered and retracted. The schwa is pronounced as [u] before w and as [i] before y. In word-final position, the sequences -ew frequently develop into -u, and -ey into -i.
Generally speaking, consonant assimilation is regressive, which means that a consonant is impacted by the sound that comes after it. The preverbal ventive clitic d is an exception to this pattern, deviating from the typical regressive behaviour.
Alveolar stops and post-alveolar fricatives are the consonants most frequently impacted by assimilation. Voicing assimilation is especially common. For instance, a voiced + voiceless sequence tends to become voiceless (e.g., d + t â t^t, ã + t â x^t), whereas a sequence of voiceless + voiced consonants usually produces a voiced result (e.g., t + d â d^d).
These procedures vary among dialects, though. Compared to Ketama and Zerqet, assimilation phenomena are generally less common in Hmed, particularly within the verbal complex.
Sibilant harmony is a type of Long-distance assimilation, in which sibilants often assimilate to each other.
The consonant n is special and can be assimilated in a variety of ways. It may assimilate to the following l, ll, r, á¹Â, but does not assimilate to other consonants including m or b . This assimilation is optional and varies among speakers, as the assimilation to l/ll appears to be more widespread than to r/á¹Â.
In Berber languages, two consecutive vowels are typically avoided. One of the following approaches is usually used to resolve such a sequence when it occurs:
Senhaja Berber distinguishes two genders: masculine and feminine. As in most Berber languages, masculine nouns and adjectives generally start with a vowel (a-, i-, u-), while feminine nouns generally start with t- and end with a -t. e.g.
Senhaja Berber countable nouns distinguish a singular from a plural. Masculine plurals generally take the prefix i-, feminines ti-, and take the suffix -en in the masculine and -in in the feminine, e.g.
As in all Berber languages, the state distinction (or annexed state) is typically indicated only in the singular, and only for nouns whose stems begin with a. Most plural nouns and nouns whose stems begin with i or u~w do not show a distinction between states. In feminine singular nouns, the state distinction can be marked whether the noun begins with ta or ti, as the initial vowels may be dropped.
Verbs are conjugated for three tenses: The Aorist (a(d) + verb / (ma)c-a(d) + verb), it expresses a non-realized event (irrealis, future, uncertainty, possibility, probability, wish, conditional, prospective, subjunctive, etc.). The Perfective can express a dynamic event in the past, or a stative (including resultative) event. The Imperfective is used for the progressive, simultaneous, habitual, general, iterative, durative, etc.
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</div> The verb in Berber always agrees with the subject in gender and number, and is conjugated for person by adding affixes. e.g.
Verbs are always marked for subject and may also inflect for person of direct and indirect object. e.g
Verb derivation is performed by adding affixes. There are two types of derivation forms: causative and passive.
Senhaja Berber usually expresses negation in two parts.The first (preverbal) negator can be u, ur, or ud. The second (postverbal) negator can be c, ci, or cay: the three are usually in free variation, the postverbal negator can be absent in certain contexts.
Berber verbal nouns are usually derived by adding often the nominal prefix a- or t- to the verb stem, just that the feminin verbal nouns are more concrete in their meaning.
Independent personal pronouns in Senhaja express person (first, second, and third), number (singular and plural), and gender (masculine and feminine).
Based on the LeipzigâÂÂJakarta list, 17% of the vocabulary in Senhaja de Srair is borrowed from Arabic.