Native to Algeria Linguist list grr-gou | ISO 639-3 grr (included) | |
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Region Gourara (wilaya of Adrar) Native speakers 11,000, including Tuwat (2014) Language family Afro-Asiatic
Berber
Northern
Zenati
Mzab-Wargla
Gurara | ||
Gurara (Gourara) is the Zenati Berber language of the Gourara (Tigurarin) region, an archipelago of oases surrounding Timimoun in southwestern Algeria. Ethnologue gives it the generic name Taznatit ('Zenati'), along with Tuwat to its south; however, Blench (2006) classifies Gurara as a dialect of Mzab–Wargla, and Tuwat as a dialect of the Riff cluster.
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Characteristics
Gurara and Tuwat is the only Berber language to change r in certain coda positions to a laryngeal ħ; in other contexts it drops r, turning a preceding schwa into a, and this latter phenomenon exists also in Zenata Rif-Berber in the far northern Morocco.
There is inconclusive evidence for Songhay influence on Gurara.
Ahellil
The local tradition of ahellil poetry and music in Gurara, described in Mouloud Mammeri's L'Ahellil du Gourara, has been listed as part of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity by UNESCO.