35th Annual Student Research Conference
Qaran Berber: An Analysis of a Previously Undocumented Egyptian Variety of the Berber Languages
Adam F. Bishop
Gregory Richter, Faculty Mentor
The Berber languages are a branch of the Afroasiatic language family, and they are spoken by the Berber people of northern Africa. In Egypt, Berber languages are spoken by about 20,000 people. These speakers were previously thought to speak only Siwi Berber, the Berber language of the Siwa Oasis. However, recent data elicited from a male speaker born in the Qara Oasis northeast of the Siwa Oasis has revealed that there is an undocumented Berber variety spoken by the Qaran people. My ongoing research involves online text and audio elicitation from the native Qaran Berber speaker. I will present data that include the 100 terms of the Swadesh list, information on verb and pluralization morphology, data on Qaran Berber phonology, and the use of the Tifinagh alphabet in Qaran Berber, along with additional phrases freely provided by the native speaker.
Keywords: Qaran Berber, Berber language, linguistic analysis, Qara Oasis, undocumented language, phonology, morphology, Tifinagh alphabet
Topic(s):Linguistics
History
African Studies
Presentation Type: Oral Presentation
Session: 204-2
Location: SUB GEO C
Time: 10:30