Native to Niger Ethnicity Ait-Awari | Region Sahara ISO 639-3 None (mis) | |
Native speakers difficult to estimate; a fraction of the population of 2,000 (2002)
not being passed on to children Language family Afro-Asiatic
Berber
Western
Tetserret | ||
Tetserret (Tin Sert) is a Berber language spoken by the Ait-Awari and Kel Eghlal Tuareg tribes of the Akoubounou (Akabinu) commune in Niger. This main speech area is located between Abalak, Akoubounou, and Shadwanka. The variant spoken by the Kel Eghlal is called taməsəɣlalt. The Tamasheq equivalent shin-sart / shin-sar / tin-sar is used in some older literature. Popular understanding among some Ait-Awari derives the name tet-serret, and its Tamasheq equivalent shin-sart, from expressions meaning 'the (language) of Sirte'.
Tetserret is one of the last Berber languages to be recognised as distinct. As late as 1981, Bernus treated Tetserret as a dialect of Tuareg, and some early sources even confused it with the Northern Songhay languages. The first published linguistic material on Tetserret was Drouin (1984), and only with Khamed Attayoub's (2001) thesis did it become clear how different Tetserret was from Tuareg.
Tetserret is the only surviving Berber language to share a number of sound shifts with Zenaga of Mauritania. It also has non-Tuareg vocabulary found in other Berber languages. For example, afagan (man) resembles Moroccan Tamazight; aiddid (goatskin container for water) resembles Ghadames; and awdosh (ox) recalls Hassaniya Arabic.
All speakers of Tetserret are bilingual in Tawellemmet Tamasheq, which has influenced their language. As of 2011, Tetserret was no longer being spoken with children, and as such appears endangered.