Talk:Central Atlas Tamazight

IRCAM, Dahir and tzm

IRCAM does not really deal with tzm but rather zgh. The way IRCAM sees it the Dahir deals with zgh (a convergent norm of all three Berber/Amazigh dialects/languages) not only tzm.

/ṇ/?

A Course in Spoken Tamazight indicates in one place that /ṇ/ is a phoneme, but I suspect this may be a typo. (I haven't seen any examples of it in the book, and the grammar book it's paired with doesn't include it in its phoneme list.) Can anyone clear this up? Mo-Al (talk) 17:09, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Abdel-Massih (1968) p. 10 also implies it, and p. 19 gives an unconvincing example (looks like pharyngeal harmony). Mo-Al (talk) 23:01, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

/ḳ g̣/

Abdel-Massih (1971) implies that /ḳ g̣/ are pronounced as fricatives in Ayt Ayache just like /k g/, but doesn't state it explicitly. Is this true? Mo-Al (talk) 05:09, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Aha! See Abdel-Massih (1968) p. 16. Mo-Al (talk) 23:04, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

AA /ḳ g̣ q̣/ > AS ?

Do Ayt Ayache /ḳ g̣ q̣/ become /k g q/ in Ayt Seghrouchen? Mo-Al (talk) 05:18, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

'the third' in AS

Abdel-Massih p.33 surprisingly doesn't say that 'the third' would be w/tisːtlata in Ayt Seghrouchen. Is it really wisːšrad/tisːšratː? Mo-Al (talk) 04:53, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

wisːrbʕa or wisːṛbʕa?

Abdel-Massih (1971) p.30 has wisːrbʕa with an undotted r which p.32 (referring to the fraction, though I'd assume it's the same basic word) has wisːṛbʕa. I'd think the latter would be more expected given that the word '4' is given as ṛbʕa. I think it's very likely that either is acceptable given the amount of variation in pharyngealization seen in other places, but I just want to make sure. Mo-Al (talk) 04:58, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

Latinate orthography

[1] implies that the Berber Latin alphabet is used by all (or perhaps just most) Amazigh, but it doesn't explicitly state its use in Central Morocco Tamazight. Can anyone find a source which explicitly states which writing systems are used for Central Morocco Tamazight? Mo-Al (talk) 01:03, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

I notice that the main page of the test Wikipedia in CMT links (at 'Lemdet tira n tmaziɣt') to some orthographic standard on the Tarifit wiki. Mo-Al (talk) 01:50, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

That page also links to some sort of standard on INALCO's site. Mo-Al (talk) 01:57, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

That seems to be more of a phonetics article that makes a passing reference to orthography. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 02:09, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

isːiwlas in AS

Can isːiwlas mean both 'he spoke to him' and 'he spoke to her' in Ayt Seghrouchen? (Abdul-Massih p.79 has a gap.) Mo-Al (talk) 06:05, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

Similarly, can ašːuninɣ mean both 'he will kill you (mp)' and 'he will kill you (fp)'? (c.f. Abdul-Massih p.80) Mo-Al (talk) 01:20, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

'tamazigt'?

I notice that the Romanization 'tamazigt' is used in the infobox. Wouldn't 'tamaziɣt' be more appropriate? Mo-Al (talk) 05:00, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Ah, figured it out. They were using the character 'ɡ' rather than 'g', which [[2]] implies may render as a gamma depending on the default font. I'll change it to 'ɣ'. Mo-Al (talk) 05:14, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

'shilha?'

Ethnologue states that one name for CMT is "Shilha". Is this because they are grouping it with Tashelhiyt? Mo-Al (talk)

meaning of 'tamazight'

I'm not sure that I believe (Chaker, 1) in saying that 'Tamazight [is] the Berber word for language'. I would think that 'tamazight' would refer to Berber language, deriving from 'amazigh'. Is this fair to say? Mo-Al (talk) 00:23, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

tifinagh on public signs in Morocco

This article seems to contradict itself: one source states that Tifinagh isn't found on public signs in Morocco, yet there is an image of a sign in Morocco with Tifinagh. How can this be resolved? Is it just that Tifinagh has only been put on some public signs recently, or perhaps that it is legal but uncommon? Mo-Al (talk) 05:22, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

I'd say we remove it for now. Something might come about in research that will provide readers with better contextualized information. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 05:41, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

I suspect that the sign is one of the ones referred to in the article that got taken down overnight, but I'm not certain. Mo-Al (talk) 16:54, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

South Oran

Is South Oran a seperate dialect of Tamazight or a collection of dialects spoken by tribes (presumably southern varieties)? Mo-Al (talk) 21:19, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

Velarized or pharyngealized?

While Abdel-Massih refers to the Tamazight emphatics as velarized, I strongly suspect that he's not making a clear distinction between velarization and pharyngealization. Can anyone find either confirmation that what is used is velarization, or evidence that's it's pharyngealized? (Note that the article on Tashelhiyt uses pharyngealization.) Mo-Al (talk) 16:55, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

Given that Penchoen (1973:7) specifically calls them "pharyngealized" with a description of the articulatory gesture, and that surrounding Arabic varieties are also described as using pharyngealization, can we agree that this should be the standard used for this article until better evidence comes around? Mo-Al (talk) 00:08, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

Yes. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 04:50, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

nature of /r/

While Abdel-Massih uses the word "flap" in referring to /r/, he also describes it as involving "vibration" of the tip of the tongue. As such, I'm not convinced that this article should use <ɾ> for it. Mo-Al (talk) 05:53, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

If there's ambiguity, I'd err on the side of using /r/. Authors have used /r/ even with clear instances of flaps because it's typographically expedient. /r/ is even used in languages like English where the /r/ is even more different than between a flap and a trill. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 07:19, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

Some comments about copy editing

Two suggestions for the moment:

1. Leave the lead as is;
2. Trim the lead and then expand again when the article is finished.

I've created a very short version of the lead that I could insert for a day or so to see how it looks; or we could simply not worry about re-writing the lead until later.

Some information from the lead that as a lay reader I have questions about:

1. how did Tamazight become a written system in Latin and when did this occur?
2. did the language migrate to Algeria & France as a result of French colonization; or as a result of geography; or are they entirely separate occurences? If so, then a section devoted to how/why Tamazight is spoken in Algeria/France would be helpful. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 17:17, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

I'm not particularly enamored with the lead itself, so whatever you think is the best course of action is fine by me.

Regarding your two questions, I have been wanting to find information on this topics, but thus far I haven't found any books in English or information on the internet which sheds light on these questions. Another confound is that many sources treat all Berber dialects as a single language, making it difficult to figure out whether "Tamazight" writing and "Tamazight" in France and Algeria are really the Tamazight we are interested in. There are a few other questions which I have had trouble answering for similar reasons (e.g. the classification of Tamazight, info on South Oran). I will, however, try to do more research.

Unfortunately I can't read French, which is the language the bulk of books on Berber topics are published in. Do you think it would make sense to enlist the aid of a French-speaker to answer some of these tricky questions? Mo-Al (talk) 18:40, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

I'll go ahead and change out the lead tonight with the shorter lead that's in my sandbox under the section titled "rewritten version", although not fully rewritten but the beginning of a new lead. Also, to preserve the refs, I'll keep the original lead available until the article is done.

If the information about the Latin orthography and the Tamazight speakers in Algeria & France is inaccessible, it might be better to leave it out for now, until those topics have sources. Certainly I'd recommend leaving the information out of the lead. I have some knowledge of French, so if you can point me to a source & page numbers, I may be able to find those answers (although the issue of Berber languages being treated as one will be tricky at best). If not, then asking for a translator is the next step. Tonight I'll start working on the History section; the Nomenclature section was easy, so I went ahead and edited in mainspace. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 21:47, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

My one concern regarding the edited lead is that in its current form it doesn't make any mention of the phonlogy, grammar, or vocabulary sections. I will defer to your judgement, but I would think that there are a few facts from those sections which might be noteworthy. For instance, Berber languages are quite well-known in theoretical phonology for having words which are analyzed as lacking phonemic vowels, and I think this applies especially to Tamazight and Tashelhiyt.

I'll do some research in the coming days to try to find better information on these questions. The only source I have for Tamazight being spoken in France and Algeria is Ethnologue, so perhaps there isn't enough verification for it to be included in the lead yet. While I don't know when the Latin alphabet started being used, there are many sources which confirm that it is in widespread use now. Also, the latter question might be more easily resolved by looking into sources on Kabyle, which appears to have more robust use of Latin. Mo-Al (talk) 01:17, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

I am also considering e-mailing someone at IRCAM via the contact info available on the web to ask these questions, though I'm unclear on which person would be most appropriate to query. Mo-Al (talk) 04:32, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

It's fine to leave the existing lead or to move in the slightly changed lead here for the time being. I tried to move in the short lead, but as all the refs are set up in the lead it's not possible to change anything at the moment. In preparation for changing the lead, the full refs should be set up in the body of the article, leaving only <ref name= /> tags in the lead.

As to content, the sentence above definining Berber languages & phonology is quite good, and something such as that should make its way into the lead.

Unfortunately I'm quite busy in real live at the moment so this will be a slow process, but after thinking about it for a day, I realize it's best to copyedit the body and then return to the lead later. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 15:59, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

I'll begin helping to migrate the refs into the body. Mo-Al (talk) 16:34, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Done. Mo-Al (talk) 16:56, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. Footnote 17 stills shows an error -- ref missing. Once this is finished, I'll copy to my sandbox, apply the changes, and copy back. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 17:48, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Fixed. A ref name was missing a quotation mark. Mo-Al (talk) 18:44, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

We're getting there. I've disentangled the refs from the "Rewritten version --long" in my sanbox which at this point is essentially a slight rewording. Please have a look and let me know if it's okay, and then I'll move it into article as the new lead. I have reorganized the paragraphs slightly to mirror the article, and also to set up how I envision the lead to be once the article is finished. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 20:06, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

One more comment: should the section about the dialect continuum be removed from the lead as it's now been moved into the text, or leave as is? Truthkeeper88 (talk) 20:22, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Looks good to me. And I think that since Tashelhiyt and Tarifit are already referred to in the lead, mention of the dialect continuum isn't crucial. Mo-Al (talk) 22:24, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Tamazight & Latin

I was wondering if, between the end of Roman colonization, and before the push for Islamism, there may have been some Christian activities in the area, and hence the Latin. The article about Adrian of Canterbury indicates that there must have been some monastic activities which would have included a scriptorium and Latin orthography. Now all we need are sources! Truthkeeper88 (talk) 22:39, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

The area was part of the Vandal kingdom in North Africa - they were Arian christians - untill they were conquered by the Catholic romans. There is also a long pagan history in the Carthaginian period. Whether the use of latin script dates back to then i don't know. ·Maunus·ƛ· 22:44, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

I strongly doubt that this theory is true. For one thing, I am under the impression that all Berber literature of the Middle Ages was in the Arabic script. Secondly, the Berber Latin alphabet in its current form was clearly designed by Berber speaker(s) rather than imposed, as it marks emphatics, pharyngeals, and doesn't mark vowel allophony, which are all features that foreigners would be unlikely to notice or understand. Also, the use of gamma <γ> for the velar fricative (which the article implies is actually <ɣ>, which thought isn't the case) must be inspired by the linguistic tradition. In addition, the wiki article says (unreferenced though) that "the version below has been widely used, particularly in Kabyle publishing, for several decades.", which implies that there isn't a lasting tradition of using the Latin alphabet, at least in the current form. And it's definitely the case that Berber has been almost exclusively unwritten throughout its history, and the only dominant cultural force in the area was that of the Arabs, so I also doubt that a lasting tradition of using another script (besides Arabic) could have had a sustained tradition. Mo-Al (talk) 01:03, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

Good arguments. I also doubt that Berber languages were written in pre-arab times, the vandals and romans probably didn't care much about teaching writing to nomadic peoples.·Maunus·ƛ· 01:05, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

All good arguments. Thanks. I'll leave the information as currently written, and stick to straight copy editing. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 01:37, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

Strangely this source does imply that the Latin alphabet was used for a short while over a millennium ago. I doubt it's related to the modern Berber Latin alphabet, but I had never heard of that before! Mo-Al (talk) 03:32, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

I'm in the "Orthography" section, and as a lay reader, am still curious how an ancient language uses Latin script in the modern day. Assuming other readers such as myself wonder the same, I'd suggest developing the Latin section a bit more by somehow presenting the history of the Latin orthography if possible. Also, the Arabic section could be developed more as well to indicate the history of the Arabic orthography. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 01:49, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

I'll try to find time to do some research sometime this week. Btw I strongly suspect that much of the info on the Arabic orthography in the Tashelhiyt article also applies to Tamazight, but the source uses the name "Tashelhiyt" so I can't really cite it. Mo-Al (talk) 04:33, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

It appears that the Souag source answers this question. Mo-Al (talk) 02:16, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Good new information! I'll swing by to copyedit as soon as I have a chance. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 02:57, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Genetically?

What's a good synonym in linguistics for "related genetically"?
"In the same family"?
"In the same language family"?
This is a question I truly don't know the answer to , but the use of genetically is confusing as currently written. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 02:06, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

it is standard linguistic usage to talk about linguistic family relationships being genetic - it does sometimes confuse laypeople. I suppose "like language B belongs to X language family " or "belongs to the same linguistic family as language B" are the most user friendly ways to put it.·Maunus·ƛ· 02:17, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

Tamazight grouped under Tashelhiyt?

Truthkeeper88 removed the sentence According to some{{Who|date=June 2009}} Tamazight should be grouped with [[Tashelhiyt]].. For now the deletion probably makes sense given that it's remained uncited for a long time. However, note that this isn't redundant -- the wording is poor, but it should state that "Tamazight should be grouped under Tashelhiyt". This comes from an unsourced statement on the current revision of the Atlas languages article. Perhaps it shouldn't be included until a source can be found -- none of the sources I looked through adopted this view specifically, although I remember one (I can't recall which) implied that Tashelhiyt was Tamazight's "umbrella" language.

If anyone has information regarding this question, it would be extremely helpful. In my opinion, this is an important detail if true, because of the great confusion surrounding the classification of Berber dialects. For reference, the statement was added by User:S710 here. Mo-Al (talk) 04:52, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Sorry about that. I deleted it because the sentence was in two places: at the end of the classification section and at the end of the dialect section. However, this brings up a good point. Reading the dialect section, in my view, it would be better if developed more: provide a description of the Atlas mtn., region (something like extends xxx miles from xxx to xxx); provide definition in greater degree of where the different dialects occur in the region, and this, I believe would be the area to add back in the sentence about Tashelhiyt; and finally add a section about the unique characteristics of each dialect specific to each region. As I see it, the current section that's two paragraphs long could be perhaps four paragraphs, or at least three. Anyway, sorry to create confusion, it was late, I wanted to think about the organization of the section, and I didn't have time to write a long post, but I do understand the sentence is important. The placement of the sentence is the issue, in my view. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 13:37, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

One more post: see how the issue of classification, nomenclature, dialect and geography are in one section here in the Ottawa language article. An option for this article would be to collapse the nomenclature, classification & dialect sections into one section, and adding some information about geographic distribution is it applies to dialects within that section. In my view, the writing appears to be "choppy" because in some sections information is implied leaving the reader having to do more work than necessary, if that makes sense. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 14:53, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Definitely. I've tried to be very cautious in not stating facts which weren't made explicit in my sources. I think this also calls for more research. Mo-Al (talk) 20:00, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

If you don't mind, I'll copy Nomenclature, Classification and Dialect into my sandbox and work on it there instead of working on it in mainspace. I'd like to attempt combining the three, and if you approve of the results then I'll move into the article, and if not, then not a problem. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 00:39, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Here's an attempt at combining/reorganizing the material from the following sections: Nomenclature, Classification, Dialects. From the perspective of a lay audience, the text flows better without the section interruptions, but am not sure whether I've retained the meaning. If it's good we'll move it into the article tomorrow. It needs one more run through as I still see a few little things to be copy edited, but nothing that can't be done in mainspace. Let me know what you think, and it's fine to tell me if I'm totally wrong! Truthkeeper88 (talk) 01:47, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

I have no objections. My only question is as to what the section should be titled. Mo-Al (talk) 03:15, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

I"d like Maunus' input here, but my inclination would be to name the section "Classifcation". From a rhetorical standpoint it's a combination of definition/classification (name a thing; identify the class with characteristics; identify the category within the class with characteristics). From a readability standpoint "Classification" makes the most sense, imo. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 14:12, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

I think "Classification" would be the perfect title for that section. Also it has become sort of a standard section to include in language related articles.·Maunus·ƛ· 17:24, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Thank you. I'll move it into the article with new section name. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 17:29, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Wikilinks

As per the comment in the [peer review] I'm removing wiki links as necessary. Ideally terms only need to be linked once, but I'm struggling with the question of having a heavily linked lead (not ideal) or delinking the lead and re-linking in subsequent paragraphs. Advice is welcome. Thanks. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 19:40, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Ablaut links to Apophony. Is this correct? Truthkeeper88 (talk) 19:54, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

I think they're basically just different terms for the same thing. Mo-Al (talk) 21:55, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Okay, so I won't worry about that. Which do you prefer, a delinked lead, or a delinked body? Or shall I decide and forge ahead? Thanks. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 22:32, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

If I had a good sense of when to wikilink, we wouldn't be having this discussion. I suppose it depends on whether you think readers of this page are more likely to read the head and skim the body, or read the whole article in detail. Mo-Al (talk) 05:27, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

In that case I suggest following policy about linking. Since the lead will most likely undergo some more revision, I'll remove links from there, and then re-add according to policy if necessary. Thanks. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 07:58, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Copy editing comments

I'm finished here for now, but will return later. In my view, this is a good article, and deserves to be brought to GA status. I've learned a lot while working on it, which is one of the reasons I prefer working on articles such as these. My advice is to fill in the content a bit: it's better to overwrite, and then delete if necessary, rather than leaving the reader struggling for information. Last night I read the Inalco source which was interesting and I thought some of that information could be brought into the article in greater detail. Also, I haven't worked on any of the sections after "Orthography" as they are quite technical, so before I return here I'll copyedit one or two other such articles to get a sense of the formatting and presentation for those sections. Finally, the lead is still problematic: I've been tweaking it slowly in my sandbox, but have decided to wait until the entire article is finished before rewriting the lead, and at that point decide where to wikilink and where not. Thanks for allowing me to work here; I hope I haven't made any content errors. Let me know if you need any help, and I'll return for the sections I've left undone when I have a better sense of how to copyedit those areas. Again, really interesting subject and a good article. I don't think it really needs too much more in the way of content work, but it does need some. Thanks again. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 02:13, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

I highly appreciate your help. Hopefully I'll be able to fill in some of the factual gaps in this article soon, but I feel less confident about proper formatting. I think I'll definitely need more copyediting assistance before this article is ready for Good Article candidacy. I'll try to leave the lead as it is currently so that you can edit it as you see fit when the time comes. Mo-Al (talk) 03:39, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Tamazight under Tashelhiyt -- moving claim to talk page

I've decided to move the claim that "some argue that Central Morocco Tamazight should be considered a dialect of Tashelhiyt" from the article, as I've been unable to locate any evidence that it is valid. Does anyone else know anything which would support this claim? Mo-Al (talk) 03:26, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

Discussion

This article is in an appalling state. For a start, it seems to be based on the false premise (taken from the Ethnologue, no doubt) that the Zenati varieties "South Oran" (ksours sud-oranais) and northern Ait Seghrouchen belong to Central Atlas Tamazight. For another thing, someone seems to have stuck pretty much the entirety of an article on Berber into it, yielding vast sections of no relevance at all to its topic. I can see the remnants of a good article somewhere underneath, but unraveling it would not be easy. - Lameen Souag (talk) 21:25, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

To be more specific: I suggest removing or rewriting from scratch the entirety of "History", almost all of "Official status" and "Orthography", and most of "Geographic distribution" and "Status", as properly belonging in an article on Berber in general, not on Middle Atlas Tamazight. The rest looks great, apart from the conflation of Ait Seghrouchen and South Oran into Central Atlas; since Abdel-Massih makes the same mistake, the bits citing him might need to be checked to confirm that they refer to Ayt Ayache rather than Ayt Seghrouchen. - Lameen Souag (talk) 11:22, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

Before spending a lot of time rewriting, be sure you review WP:OR, WP:SYN, WP:RS, and WP:V. If your rewrite is not properly referenced to mainstream scientific literature, it may be subject to immediate reversion. --Taivo (talk) 11:27, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

I take it that means that deleting all the non-Tamazight-related material about Chaouis and Kabyles and Casablanca and so forth is uncontroversial?

As for the applicability of a single label, I should be more specific. Obviously it should be mentioned that some sources use the term to cover Ait Seghrouchen - understandably, since, like the Rifis, this group calls its own language tamaziγt. However, it is well-established that northern Ait Seghrouchen (there are two geographically separate Ait Seghrouchen tribes) and the "ksours sud-oraniens", including Figuig, are Zenati varieties, genetically more closely related to Tarifit or Chaoui than to the "Beraber" Middle Atlas varieties of the Ayt Ayache or Ayt Atta; see Destaing's "Essai de classification des dialectes berbères du Maroc" (Etudes et Documents Berbère, 19-20, 2001-2002 (1915) and Kossmann's "Les verbes à i final en zénète" and Essai sur la phonologie du proto-berbère. In fact, I can't find any sources at all by a linguist studying Berber languages claiming that the "ksours sud-oraniens" of Algeria belong to Middle Atlas Tamazight - not even Abdel-Massih (whose map excludes Figuig as well as Algeria) nor the INALCO site (which, bizarrely, includes Figuig on its map but excludes all the mutually comprehensible ksour varieties across the border.) Since the Ethnologue is not written by Berber specialists, and does not give any reference for the idea, I think it can safely be disregarded unless someone comes up with a reliable source. - Lameen Souag (talk) 12:46, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

The point of my posting was not to dispute scientific documentation or to defend Ethnologue. Since you seem to be a new editor here, I was simply saying that whatever you write needs to be properly referenced. Many new users come to Wikipedia and just write their personal opinion based on their own inner voices. Since you seem to be familiar with the scientific literature, you should do fine. Just be sure to reference things properly. --Taivo (talk) 12:55, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

I'm extremely grateful for your contributions. My only concern is that I hope useful information about Berber in general will get subsumed into the Berber languages page rather than being lost into the depths of WikiHistory. Mo-Al (talk) 02:28, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

Okay, I've removed everything which was gave examples explicitly for Ayt Seghrouchen. However I myself am not qualified to judge whether Abdel-Massih's data was tainted or not. Mo-Al (talk) 02:46, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

Thanks - and thanks for putting all the grammatical/phonological info up in the first place! If you feel like another big job, it might be worth putting some of those examples into a new article on Ait Seghrouchen Berber. As I recall Abdel-Massih is generally pretty clear on whether he's discussing Ayt Ayache or Ayt Seghrouchen, so I don't expect that the other data will be tainted. Ayt Seghrouchen proper is actually rather well described - there's a quite detailed, if hard-to-read, grammar by Fernand Bentolila. - Lameen Souag (talk) 09:04, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

I suspect the map will also need editing, judging by the distribution of Ayt Seghrouchen given in http://www.centrederechercheberbere.fr/tamazit.html. I'd suggest including them in cross-hatching or something to indicate that they are sometimes called CA Tamazight. - Lameen Souag (talk) 10:16, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

merge

I merged the phonology article back in, since it had no independent content. Sorry if I messed up anything you were working on above. (That, of course, is one of the problems with content forks.)

There were some minor problems of IPA not being formatted as such, but more importantly, the uvular consonants were transcribed as ‹x ɣ› and ‹xʷ ɣʷ›, while the velar consonants ‹kʷ ɡʷ› were said to be fricatives [xʷ ɣʷ]. This is quite confusing. I assume it's because one of the sources transcribes them improperly, but we need to be more accurate for a general audience. — kwami (talk) 05:27, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

I was thinking about using summary style for the phonology section, but I probably won't get to it, so that's okay. You are correct in your assumption about the IPA. Mo-Al (talk) 17:18, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

English pronunciation of the name "Tamazight"

The only source provided for the pronunciation */ˈtæməzaɪt/ is the Random House Dictionary. No one in these discussions reports ever hearing it used. I have worked at the Linguistic Data Consortium for nine years on many languages, including the Berber / Amazigh family, and I have never once heard or seen reference to anything like this pronunciation, which I can only imagine to have arisen as a spelling pronunciation. Someone, or some algorithm, at Random House said, "Oh, look, it ends in <ight>. It must rhyme with 'light'. I'll put it in that way."

Rather than have WP support such a dubious loan form, I am removing it without replacement. /tɑmɑˈzɪgt/ or /tæməˈzɪərt/ would be miles closer to correctness here, since both seem to be used, but until I can find a citation for them I will not insert them, lest I be accused of violating WP:NOR. Thnidu (talk) 05:08, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

I concur with your decision. Mo-Al (talk) 06:23, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

[Tzm] is not the language IRCAM standardize but [zgh]. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.143.217.83 (talk) 16:47, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

Old books on Tamazight

dictionnaire français tachelh'it et tamazir't (1907)

https://archive.org/details/DictionnaireFrancaisBerbere

Textes berbères en dialecte de l'Atlas marocain (1908)

https://archive.org/details/TextesBerbresEnDialecteDeLatlasMarocain

Rajmaan (talk) 07:52, 5 August 2014 (UTC)

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GA concerns

After reviewing the article, I am concerned that it no longer meets the good article criteria. Some of my concerns are listed below:

• There are lots of uncited paragraphs, including almost the entire "Geographic distribution" section.
• Many short, one or two line paragraphs.
• Many of the citations listed in the "Bibliography" are not used as inline citations.

Is anyone interested in fixing up this article? Z1720 (talk) 18:08, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

GA Reassessment

Central Atlas Tamazight

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • Watch article reassessment page • Most recent review

Result: Delisted. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 22:28, 8 August 2024 (UTC)

Many uncited statements, including almost the entire "Geographic distribution" section, many sources used in the bibloography are not used as inline citations, and there are many one or two sentence paragraphs. Z1720 (talk) 21:04, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

Have you tried going back to the originally reviewed version? Or removing the uncited sources? Or citing them? ·maunus · snunɐɯ· 11:11, 30 July 2024 (UTC)

@Maunus: The promoted version from 2009 also has uncited sections, since GA standards were lower back then. I do not have enough knowledge of the subject to evaluate what should be cited and what should be removed: if undertook a search for sources, it would take me hours (or even long) for me to properly evaluate, cite, and rewrite the information when necessary. This would take me away from other projects that I would like to work on. If another editor would like to improve this article, I am happy to re-review. Z1720 (talk) 15:12, 30 July 2024 (UTC)

The 2009 version of the article was written by multiple topic experts, several of which were actual linguists working with the language professionally. Those experts however, did not sign up to be on permanent call for removing accumulated junk or for updating the article to conform to whichever standards would come to be implemented some time i the future. You may think that this kind of drive-by reassessment and delisting somehow improves Wikipedia, but in fact it does not. Only doing the actual work does.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 09:50, 31 July 2024 (UTC)

@Maunus: I thank anyone who has worked on this article in the past or presently. However, this article does not have to have GA status. If editors are not "doing the actual work" to maintain the article, then, in my opinion, we should delist the article so that readers know that this article does not meet the GA criteria anymore. If editors do improve the article to address my concerns, then I think Wikipedia has been improved. Z1720 (talk) 14:06, 31 July 2024 (UTC)

Large amounts of uncited text are a fairly clear GA no-no: if no "good" previous version exists, and no editors are willing to step up to do the (considerable) amount of work needed to bring it up to today's GA standards, I don't see an option other than to delist. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 12:40, 7 August 2024 (UTC)

• @Maunus: you made an edit removing unsourced material on July 30. Do you intend to work further on this? Queen of Hearts ^talk 15:27, 7 August 2024 (UTC)
  • Judging by their user talk, they don't. Hence, I will be delisting. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 22:28, 8 August 2024 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.