Tasawaq (Tuareg name: Tesăwăq),[3] sometimes also called Ingelshi, is a Northern Songhay language spoken by the Issawaghan or Ingalkoyyu, a community surrounding the town of In-Gall in Niger.[4][5] A closely related variety called Emghedeshie was spoken in Agadez but is now extinct.

Tasawaq
Tásàwàq
Native toNiger
RegionAgadez
EthnicityIsawaghan/Ingalkoyyu
Native speakers
21,000 (2021)[1]
Dialects
  • Ingelshi
  • Emghedeshie
Language codes
ISO 639-3twq
Glottologtasa1240
ELPTasawaq
Location of Songhay languages[2]

Northwest Songhay:

  Tasawaq
  Tagdal

Eastern Songhay:

  Dendi
Sawaq
PersonAsawagh / Ingalkoy
PeopleIsawaghan / Ingalkoyyu
LanguageTasawaq / Ingelshi

It shares some similarities with Berber languages, e.g. Tamasheq. For example in both languages, the grammatical gender of a noun is female if it begins and ends with the letter t.

References

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  1. ^ Tasawaq at Ethnologue (26th ed., 2023)  
  2. ^ This map is based on classification from Glottolog and data from Ethnologue.
  3. ^ Ritter, Georg (2009). Wörterbuch zur Sprache und Kultur der Twareg II Deutsch-Twareg. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz. p. 735.
  4. ^ Michael J. Rueck; Niels Christiansen. Northern Songhay languages in Mali and Niger, a sociolinguistic survey. Summer Institute of Linguistics (1999).
  5. ^ Catherine Taine-Cheikh. [Les langues parlées au sud Sahara et au nord Sahel http://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/halshs-00456346/]. De l'Atlantique à l'Ennedi (Catalogue de l'exposition « Sahara-Sahel »), Centre Culturel Français d'Abidjan (Ed.) (1989) 155–173