Talk:Berber languages

	Berber languages was one of the good articles, but it has been removed from the list. There are suggestions below for improving the article to meet the good article criteria. Once these issues have been addressed, the article can be renominated. Editors may also seek a reassessment of the decision if they believe there was a mistake.
Article milestones Date Process Result July 14, 2004 Peer review Reviewed July 22, 2007 Good article reassessment Delisted
Current status: Delisted good article

This  level-4 vital article is rated B-class on Wikipedia's content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects:

Languages This article is within the scope of WikiProject Languages, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of languages on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.LanguagesWikipedia:WikiProject LanguagesTemplate:WikiProject Languageslanguage articles ??? This article has not yet received a rating on the project's importance scale. Berbers High‑importance This article is within the scope of WikiProject Berbers, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Berbers on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.BerbersWikipedia:WikiProject BerbersTemplate:WikiProject BerbersBerbers articles High This article has been rated as High-importance on the project's importance scale. Tunisia High‑importance This article is within the scope of WikiProject Tunisia, an attempt to better organize information in articles related to Tunisia. For more information, visit the project page.TunisiaWikipedia:WikiProject TunisiaTemplate:WikiProject TunisiaTunisia articles High This article has been rated as High-importance on the project's importance scale. Morocco High‑importance This article is within the scope of WikiProject Morocco, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Morocco on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.MoroccoWikipedia:WikiProject MoroccoTemplate:WikiProject MoroccoMorocco articles High This article has been rated as High-importance on the project's importance scale. Help expand the project: edit history watch purge You can help! يمكنكم أن تساهموا Here are some tasks awaiting attention: Article requests : Mounir Charïbi Assess : Rate the Unassessed Morocco articles and Unknown-importance Morocco-related articles. Cleanup : Cleanup listing for this project is available. See also the list by category Geographical coordinates : Add geographic coordinates to articles in Category:Morocco articles missing geocoordinate data Photo : See requested photographs in Morocco Stubs : Morocco stubs Other : Translate from Arabic: Sellam Ameziane, Mrebih Rebbu Africa: Algeria / Libya / Mali / Niger This article is within the scope of WikiProject Africa, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Africa on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.AfricaWikipedia:WikiProject AfricaTemplate:WikiProject AfricaAfrica articles ??? This article has not yet received a rating on the project's importance scale. This article is supported by WikiProject Algeria. This article is supported by WikiProject Libya (assessed as High-importance). This article is supported by WikiProject Mali. This article is supported by WikiProject Niger. British Overseas Territories This article is within the scope of WikiProject British Overseas Territories, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of British Overseas Territories on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.British Overseas TerritoriesWikipedia:WikiProject British Overseas TerritoriesTemplate:WikiProject British Overseas TerritoriesBritish Overseas Territories articles ??? This article has not yet received a rating on the project's importance scale.

Archives

Index Archive 1

I think that "THamazighth" should be mentioned as another translation for "Berber language" as in many regions no words start with "T". In addition, neither the terms "Berber" nor "Tamazighth" is used to describe the language people speak in many regions. Only the "dialect" name is used (as Thakbaylith in Kabilya and Thashawith for the Shawi Language in Aures Algeria) Josef.b

This would be a good place to furnish the pronunciation of "Tamazight". Kortoso (talk) 22:24, 15 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Added to Central Atlas. Copy here if you like. — kwami (talk) 10:10, 10 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Removed there and here as well. See discussion there. - Thnidu (talk) 05:20, 7 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The Arabic word must surely be from the Greek 'barbaros', generally agreed to be an onomatopoeic term indicating people who make unintelligible sounds. A discussion of the Greek term in antiquity may be found in Strabo Geography Bk 14,2,28 188.97.114.49 (talk) 12:15, 18 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

You need a reliable source for that conclusion. --Taivo (talk) 12:26, 18 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The OED says of Barbary, which the etymology section of Berber refers to,

I. [the common noun] a. OF. barbarie, ad. L. barbaria, barbariēs, ‘land of barbarians, barbarism,’ f. barbar-us barbarous. In II. [the proper name] ult f. Arab. Barbar, Berber, applied by the Arab geographers from ancient times to the natives of N. Africa, west and south of Egypt. According to some native lexicographers, of native origin, f. Arab. barbara ‘to talk noisily and confusedly’ (which is not derived from Gr. βάρβαρος); according to others, a foreign word, African, Egyptian, or perh. from Greek. The actual relations (if any) of the Arabic and Gr. words cannot be settled; but in European langs. Barbaria, Barbarie, Barbary, have from the first been treated as identical with L. barbaria, Byzantine Gr. βαρβαρία land of barbarians: see sense 1.

I don't know what's been concluded in the century since that was written, unless perhaps this entry has been updated. — kwami (talk) 21:46, 18 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It hasn't been. - Thnidu (talk) 05:28, 7 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

What is a sub-language? —Tamfang (talk) 23:22, 14 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

sub– was added on April 18 by 78.155.227.221 without explanation. I'll remove it. —Tamfang (talk) 23:23, 14 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Unlike Arabic, European languages distinguish between the words "Berber" and "barbaric".

Does Arabic really use the same word for both? —Tamfang (talk) 07:46, 21 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, Arabic uses the same word to describe an Amazigh (Berber) and a Barbarian, i.e. "بربري" transliterated as "barbari".

E3 (talk) 12:32, 7 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

In deference to the controversy over whether Berber is a WP:NPOV term, considering its connotations in being associated with "barbarian" as well as the emergence of a stronger Amazigh identity (especially during the Arab Spring, with the language now being official in Morocco and used by organs of the partially recognized National Transitional Council in Libya), I suggest this article be moved to either Tamazight or Amazigh languages (a WP:COMMON term used by Al Jazeera, Foreign Policy, Deutsche Welle, BBC News, and others). Support for this position comes from Noah Feldman, who notes that the "preferred term today is Amazigh" for the so-called Berber people, and comments I've seen here and elsewhere on Wikipedia seem to bear this out. So, I thought I would bring this name change (in keeping with Wikipedia's policy of neutrality) proposal up for discussion. -Kudzu1 (talk) 20:44, 4 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia article names are driven by the dictates of WP:COMMONNAME. "Berber" is by a huge margin the most common name of this language group in English. No other name is even close. Thus, Wikipedia's policies dictate that this article remain right here at "Berber" where it is. English speakers will be looking for "Berber", so that is where this article should stay. --Taivo (talk) 21:16, 4 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed. In addition, 'Tamazight' is also used to refer to the Central Atlas Tamazight language, and this could potentially cause a lot of confusion. Mo-Al (talk) 23:57, 4 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Agree with Kudzu1, Ethnologue uses Amazigh Languages, media and government of Morocco & Algeria do the same. Even EB uses Amazigh. [1]. I'm sure that Berber is more popular All-time. But if you do a search restricted to the last two decade I bet Amazigh is more common and WP recommends using current rather than older names.

Anyway this title will ultimately change, since it is pejorative in origin. Even what is called the "Maghreb" today was called "Barbary coast" for a long long time.

Tachfin (talk) 20:25, 20 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Ethnologue does not use "Amazigh", it uses Berber. Within linguistic circles, "Berber" is prohibitively the most common English usage. None of the other terms are even close to Berber as the common name of this language group. I oppose any move as it would violate WP:COMMONNAME. EB is only one source, what do all the other encyclopedias use? So far, the evidence that either of you have presented for moving this article is paper thin. No solid evidence, no move. --Taivo (talk) 20:50, 20 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

You're right about Ethnologue, I got mixed up and spoke too quickly. We're only discussing the possibility of a move and of course it wouldn't be done without hardcore argumentation and evidence.

Regards, Tachfin (talk) 21:07, 20 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Hi,

I personally approve of renaming the article to Tamazight languages, the term Berber can be confusing and very derogatory. Indeed the term "Berber" has been more popular but so was another derogatory word used for Americans of African ancestry. Sincere apologies for the example but it seems rather necessary to point it out. Moreover as the term "Barbarian" and "Berber" are very close in Arabic and other languages and may still be used as derogatory terms to describe North Africans.

Regards

E3 (talk) 12:47, 7 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Hello Wikipedians, since this conversation in 2013 the common name in linguistics has definitely shifted to Amazigh languages as awareness has grown and the Amazigh language movement has developed. It is now co-official in several countries as 'Amazigh' rather than 'Berber'. Although I respect that 5 years ago Berber may have still been more prevalent (even if offensive), now in 2018 I think there is not a strong case to support maintaining this anachronistic (and offensive) name. I propose we move the article to Amazigh languages! Paolorausch (talk) 21:30, 11 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The criteria to meet is commonname as verified by all reliable sources, not just to those in the linguistic world. I might be behind the times, but I think 'Berber' is still the term most widely used and understood. Being offensive to some is not a valid reason for changing it. Roger 8 Roger (talk) 22:20, 11 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Do we know what policies are relevant here? I suspect that there is some prior cases of similar situations. I can think of quite a few times when the most common thing for something was very inappropriate for Wikipedia. There must be some guidance we can gleam!Paolorausch (talk) 05:24, 16 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The last edit, by User:Tachfin, removed the graphic showing the name "Tamazight" written in Roman and Neo-Tifinagh. That's fine, since the Neo-Tifinagh name is in the infobox... if the user has a font that supports it. The Tifinagh article has the appropriate flag --

{{Contains Tifinagh text}}

-- but this article doesn't.

I don't know the policy for using such flags, but since the word ⵜⴰⵎⴰⵣⵉⵖⵜ ("Tamazight") is the only Tifinagh text in the article, I don't feel that it's necessary and I'm not adding it. However, since users who haven't had any experience with Tamazight are not likely to have the IRCAM font (or any other that may support this script), I'm adding back the Tifinagh half of the graphic. --Thnidu (talk) 19:25, 20 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Hello,

The article didn't contain that PNG before, an IP added it and it screwed the layout. I think Tifinagh scripts are now included in Firefox/Windows by default, which wasn't the case a few years back. My computer is less than 1 year old and I've never installed IRCAM font in it. But Tifinagh script has always showed correctly as any other script. I don't think the PNG is needed anymore, especially that it doesn't fit with the layout. Tachfin (talk) 20:00, 20 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Was Ali Baba from the Arabian Night a Berber? 86.176.190.64 (talk) 00:00, 12 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Why is the noun system described while the verbal one isn't? I think it is more interesting and informative from the viewpoint of comparative Afroasiatic linguistics. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.191.241.225 (talk) 13:20, 7 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Ethnic Berbers are considered to be the bulk of the populations of the Maghreb countries. What does the term ethnic berber mean? I suggest to replace this vague sentence by The bulk of the bulk of the populations of the Maghreb countries are considered to have Berber ancestors. Nahabedere (talk) 09:29, 20 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I can't see a difference between the first group (it consists in changing the initial vowel of the noun, and adding a suffix -n) and the third group (it combines a change of vowels with the suffix -n). Where's the difference between argaz → irgazen and azur → izuran? --androl (talk) 21:25, 5 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

ISO now supports the incipient standard language. We have a stub needing expansion. — kwami (talk) 18:44, 6 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

As areas of Libya south and west of Tripoli such as the Nafusa Mountains were liberated from the control of forces loyal to Colonel Gaddafi in early summer 2011, [...] Couldn't find a more neutral formulation? The idea is the fact that Gaddafi's control was over, we don't need any opinion here about whether people became liberated, since it's not the topic and is a sensitive political issue. - 92.100.181.160 (talk) 17:02, 26 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

https://archive.org/details/NotesDeLexicographieBerbre

07:49, 5 August 2014 (UTC)

https://archive.org/details/DeNomineEtGenerePopulorumQuiBerberiVulgoDicuntur

Rajmaan (talk) 07:53, 5 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Hello Wikipedians, since this conversation in 2013 the common name has definitely shifted to Amazigh languages as awareness has grown and the Amazigh language movement has developed. It is now co-official in several countries as 'Amazigh' rather than 'Berber'. It has a new standard form, and other areas of Wikipedia have already adopted the endonym. Although I respect that 5 years ago Berber may have still been more prevalent (even if offensive), now in 2018 I think there is not a strong case to support maintaining this anachronistic (and offensive) name. I propose we move the article to Amazigh languages! Anyone disagree?Paolorausch (talk) 23:08, 21 July 2018 (UTC) Example, one ISO code uses Standard Moroccan Tamazight https://iso639-3.sil.org/code/zgh — Preceding unsigned comment added by Paolorausch (talk • contribs) 23:10, 21 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Agree In support of moving the article to Amazigh languages. Sambasoccer27 (talk) 00:59, 12 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Berbers which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 15:01, 25 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Does anyone have a source for the pronunciation of the term "Tamazight" in English? Wiktionary currently gives a form with the last syllable as /zaɪt/ which seems implausible, as if it were a borrowing into Middle English. As a native English speaker though, I can't say it's cropped up enough in speech for me to have some sense of what the norm is, and it's entirely possible that my /zɪɣt/ or /zɪgd/ (depending on how much I'm anglicising) is a weird spelling pronunciation from lack of exposure to it in speech Tristanjlroberts (talk) 20:24, 19 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

This isn't a full answer but my understanding is that the spelling is a transliteration meant to represent a native pronunciation close to /tamazɪɣt/. I have doubts whether there's any standard English pronunciation since it's not a common English word ("Berber" has been the Western designation for a long time). I've had a quick look but couldn't find anything that would suggest a clear answer to that specifically. Will keep an eye out though. R Prazeres (talk) 03:13, 9 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Tristanjlroberts and R Prazeres: The pronunciation with a diphthong is attested here. Lexico only has Amazigh, with /-iːk/ for -igh. –Austronesier (talk) 07:46, 9 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Berber was originally comes from roman word 'barbaros'. and it comes to other languages due to translating from roman works. but the translators maintained the word 'Berber'. But we as amazigh people. we don't want to be known as Berbers. or Berber speakers. because we are Imazighen whom speak Amazigh. It's a part of our identity to be known as Imazighen not berbers. So we need to look again in the term of 'Berber' in order to modify it as long as we "Imazighen" don't want to admit the term 'Berber'

Berbers = Imazighen / Amazigh people. Berber language = Tamazight / Amazigh language. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ipshel (talk • contribs) 17:13, 14 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I would like to point out that on 17:20, 7 November 2020, Phonology and Grammar was deleted for referring to a singular "Berber language" and not Berber Languages like the name of this article, and not citing any sources. I'm not complaining about that, I'm casting a raised eyebrow at the grammar being RE-written, translated from the German Wikipedia, and once again referring to a singular "Berber language"Jimydog000 (talk) 10:17, 22 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

A typological characterization of a language family of course can include an overarching discussion of phonology and grammar of the individual languages, pointing out both commonalities and internal diversity. That's what the best scholars do in the best sources, like Kossmann in his chapter "Berber" in Frayzyngier & Shay (2012), The Afroasiatic Languages, Cambridge University Press. As long as it's sourced and doesn't create the misleading impression of a single "Berber language" (which is not the case here), everything is fine. –Austronesier (talk) 12:43, 22 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I disagree that everything is fine, as the original grammar and phonology cited some sources. And you should of seen the atrocity that was the phoneme table before I fixed it. I would also like to echo the other discussions on this talk page and reccomend a seperate article called Tamazight (Berber) be created. Jimydog000 (talk) 21:11, 23 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, I'm preparing myself for a job in South America and have to learn next to spanish, several native languages. I have a friend from Béjaïa and when I started my lessons, he was very surprised to find very close similarities between this two languages. Not only the pronouns, a lot of other words too. I'm no linguist - is it possible, that such similarities can originate independent from each other? This words existed long before the invasion of the Spaniards and as long I found out, Spanish and Portugese had a countable impact of Arabic, but barely impact of Berber words. Best --Jucos (talk) 16:06, 27 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

These similarities (apparently you specifically mean the pronouns of the 1st and 2nd person singular and plural, see Kabyle grammar § Personal pronouns, though the similarities strike me as quite vague; I'm not aware that they've ever been noticed and remarked upon by linguists, either) are virtually certainly completely accidental. The Berber languages belong to the Afro-Asiatic family and this means that they are distantly related to Semitic and Ancient Egyptian, among others. The similarities may well be even less evident in Proto-Berber reconstructions (and Proto-Berber language § Grammar does confirm this suspicion), let alone even earlier stages.

Incidentally, Mark Rosenfelder has analysed a comparison between (Cuzco or Ayacucho?) Quechua and Semitic languages here to illustrate the pitfalls of superficial language comparison, and a deliberately absurd list of similarities between Quechua, Standard Chinese and other languages here.

Note that Berber and Quechuan have a more general similarity in that both are generally considered by linguists to be not a single language, but a family each of several closely related languages, much like Slavic, North Germanic, or Arabic, for that matter. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 07:38, 27 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Blueshiftofdeath: I had to revert your recent changes because: 1) the article is about the "Berber languages" (there are many of them). 2) Tamazight is an invented language that some countries have developed independently of one another. M.Bitton (talk) 16:17, 14 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm, but the sources I was looking at referred to "Tamazight" interchangeably with "Berber languages" (both referring to the general group of languages spoken by several communities)? I see many different publications about "Tamazight" which specify which particular language they're talking about. Additionally, even the "Berber" encyclopedia etc. pages elsewhere refer to it as "Tamazight" in parentheses afterwards. Blueshiftofdeath (talk) 16:23, 14 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

They are not the same thing. Tamazight is used in Algeria and Morocco to refer to the invented official Berber languages. M.Bitton (talk) 16:27, 14 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Oxford University Press disagrees (10.1093/obo/9780199772810-0219), as does Cambridge University Press (https://www.jstor.org/stable/26351981), which I cited in my edit. See also Map 10 in "Words and Worlds: World Languages Review" (ISBN 9781853598272). A cursory search also shows "Tamazight" and "Berber language" used interchangeably outside Morocco and Algeria, for example the BBC article "Libya's GNC Speaker says new constitution should recognize Berber language".

Meanwhile, I don't see any reliable/recent sources claiming "Tamazight" and "Berber language" are distinct. Blueshiftofdeath (talk) 16:50, 14 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

A cursory search also shows "Tamazight" and "Berber language" You're missing the point. Yes, Tamazight (a standardized version) is theoretically a Berber language that is official in Algeria and Morocco, but it doesn't change the fact that there are many Berber languages (notice the plural) that are spoken in the Maghreb (our primary topic). M.Bitton (talk) 17:14, 14 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The fact that "Tamazight" is grammatically singular doesn't mean it refers to one language. "Chinese" refers to multiple languages as well.

The sources I linked unambiguously use "Tamazight" to refer to a group of many languages spoken throughout North Africa. Quote from the first source from Oxford University Press, "Berber (aka Tamazight) is a branch of the Afro-Asiatic language phylum and counts about forty languages, which entirely cover North Africa, stretching from Morocco to Egypt, as well as from the Mediterranean Sea to the Sahara and the northern and western Sahel, including Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso." This clearly supports my edit over the previous version of the page. Blueshiftofdeath (talk) 17:22, 14 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

1) It does refer to two different standardized languages that are official in Algeria and Morocco (that's a fact that needs to be accounted for). 2) There is no reason to remove "Berber languages" from the beginning of the first sentence. M.Bitton (talk) 17:25, 14 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

1) If "Tamazight" is used in Algeria to refer to one specific language, that could be added as a note/clarification (probably in Terminology?). I don't think "Tamazight" being used in some contexts to refer to a single specific language means that it can't be put in the first sentence, when it is broadly (I would argue much more commonly) used to refer to the same thing as "Berber languages". (Similarly, "Chinese" is often used to refer to Mandarin Chinese specifically, but the "Chinese language" page still leads with just "Chinese".)

2) I moved "Tamazight" to the beginning of the sentence so that "(/ˌæməˈziːk/ AM-ə-ZEEK; Berber name: Tamaziɣt, Tamazight, Thamazight; Neo-Tifinagh: ⵜⴰⵎⴰⵣⵉⵖⵜ, Tuareg Tifinagh: ⵜⵎⵣⵗⵜ, pronounced [tæmæˈzɪɣt, θæmæˈzɪɣθ])" could be moved directly after it. I think this is far more readable, because the connection between "Tamazight" and "Berber name: Tamaziɣt, Tamazight, Thamazight" is way clearer than between that and "Berber languages" or "Amazigh languages". Also, it splits up the sentence less (so that "Berber languages or Amazigh languages" isn't separated from "are a branch of the Afroasiatic language family" in the sentence). This is also in line with other pages (like that for animal species and diseases like polio) where the most common name is not the first bolded one in the article. Blueshiftofdeath (talk) 17:38, 14 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The common name for the Berber languages is "Berber languages". Until that changes (I don't see why it should given the concerned list of languages and how clear and unambiguous it is), MOS:FIRST will apply. M.Bitton (talk) 17:42, 14 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

MOS:FIRST refers to keeping the most common name in the first sentence. "Berber languages" was still in the first sentence in my edit. Following the examples in WP:COMMONNAME, the most common name does not have to be the first name used in the first sentence. In this case, the first sentence is more readable with "Berber languages" used second for the reasons previously stated. Blueshiftofdeath (talk) 17:53, 14 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

It doesn't have to be, but in this instance, it makes sense to have it the way it is. What you're alluding to is literally changing the article's title. If that's what you're after, then you're welcome to start a request for a page move and see what the others think. M.Bitton (talk) 17:58, 14 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not after changing the article's title, since I'm not challenging that "Berber languages" is the most common name. The two points I'm insisting on are:

1) "Tamazigh" should appear as a bolded name somewhere in the first sentence

2) The current structure of the first sentence is hard to read.

An alternate proposal I think would also be acceptable would be something like:

The Berber languages (/ˌæməˈziːk/ AM-ə-ZEEK; Berber name: Tamaziɣt, Tamazight, Thamazight; Neo-Tifinagh: ⵜⴰⵎⴰⵣⵉⵖⵜ, Tuareg Tifinagh: ⵜⵎⵣⵗⵜ, pronounced [tæmæˈzɪɣt, θæmæˈzɪɣθ]), also known as the Amazigh languages or Tamazigh, are a branch of the Afroasiatic language family. Blueshiftofdeath (talk) 18:07, 14 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I suggest leaving the Tamazight transcription for the word Tamazight. Something like:

The Berber languages, also known as the Amazigh languages or Tamazight (/ˌæməˈziːk/ AM-ə-ZEEK; Berber name: Tamaziɣt, Tamazight, Thamazight; Neo-Tifinagh: ⵜⴰⵎⴰⵣⵉⵖⵜ, Tuareg Tifinagh: ⵜⵎⵣⵗⵜ, pronounced [tæmæˈzɪɣt, θæmæˈzɪɣθ]), are a branch of the Afroasiatic language family.

18:12, 14 December 2022 (UTC) M.Bitton (talk) 18:12, 14 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Well, the reason I didn't do that in my initial edit is because I think that it's hard to read having this huge transcription in between the subject and verb of the sentence. On my (fairly wide) screen there's literally a full line between the subject ("The Berber languages, also known as the Amazigh languages or Tamazight") and the verb ("are a branch of the Afroasiatic language family"). That was my reasoning for moving "Tamazigh" to the beginning of the line, so that there was this easier to read, continuous strip: "also called the Berber languages or Amazigh languages, are a branch of the Afroasiatic language family." Blueshiftofdeath (talk) 18:17, 14 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The transcription (meaningless to everyone who's not accustomed to the language) doesn't have to be there. We can simply add it as a note to the Tamazight word. M.Bitton (talk) 18:25, 14 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

That sounds good to me :-) . Blueshiftofdeath (talk) 18:28, 14 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

 Done M.Bitton (talk) 18:48, 14 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Blueshiftofdeath: the section about the Arabization of the administration is still misleading as it concerns the written languages (Arabic and French). Also, the source "Obtaining Jurisdiction over States in Bankruptcy Proceedings after Seminole Tribe" doesn't seem to mention what is attributed to it and nor does Reem Bassiouney's book (chapter 5). M.Bitton (talk) 17:40, 15 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, sometimes the citation auto-generation tool messes up and I don't notice (I've been having some technical difficulties recently), I didn't mean to cite that source.

I found another source ("Identity crisis." The Economist, vol. 348, no. 8076, 11 July 1998, p. 69. Gale Academic OneFile) which states:

"Protests have erupted in Algeria over a law making Arabic Algeria's only official language for public life. The law, in force from Jul 5 1998, led to sackings of state shops in Kabylia, a Berber speaking region. Many Kabyles also use French in business, with Arabic as their third language. Supporters of the law see the protests as favoring French domination and are concerned that anti-Arab feeling may be linked to Berber opposition to the law. There are doubts as to the enforcement of the law and whether it will become a weapon used to marginalize factions in Algeria's establishment."

What do you think about adding in that? Blueshiftofdeath (talk) 17:48, 15 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Re: Reem Bassiouney's book, I was referencing these sections:

"According to Mostari (2004), after independence Algeria was committed to the policy of Arabisation. Arabisation was encouraged by Algerian nationalists and political leaders who were trying to carve a niche for themselves amidst a French-speaking elite (Mostari 2004: 26). [...] During the following years, from 1979 onward, a large part of cultural life was Arabised, including primary and secondary education and many humanities faculties at universities. Broadcasts on radio, television stations, public signs and the judicial system were Arabised as well."

"In 1991 a tough law stated that Algeria would be completely Arabised by 1997, and a law was issued stating that anyone who signed a document written in any language other than Arabic would pay a fine of about 40 to 200 dollars (Benrabah 2005: 425)."

"Taleb Ibrahimi, who was minister of education in 1967, informally allowed Moulad Mammeri, a Berber/Kabylian writer and academic, to restore the chair of Berber studies at Algeirs University. However, this was not enough recognition of the Berbers’ linguistic rights, which were ignored after independence. Berbers began a linguistic resistance movement by banning their children from speaking (colloquial) Arabic at home and making a point of speaking French in shops, cafés and restaurants (cf. Kahlouche 2004: 106; Mahé 2001: 471). For the Berbers, SA was unable to deliver a democratic secular ideal. Berbers demanded recognition and freedom of expression. More unrest broke out in 1988, which was again supressed by the government (Tigrizi 2004)."

"In 2003 Tamazight was declared a national language. In 2004 the president described it as a dividing factor (Lewis 2004). He then declared openly in 2005 that there would be only one official language and not two. Tamazight was adopted as a national language by the National Assembly on 8 April 2003 (Benrabah 2007a). In 2004 Abderrazak Dourari became head of the institute for the planning of Tamazight. From 2005 onwards, Tamazight has been introduced in the first three years in middle school for three hours a week (Benrabah 2007b: 77)" Blueshiftofdeath (talk) 18:00, 15 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

No worries. As I stated previously, the 1998 law (which was aimed at countering the French language) only concerned the written languages (Berber was never one of them and Reem Bassiouney doesn't link the two). I wouldn't use the economist for a scholarly subject that is covered in multiple RS (their claim that Arabic is the Kabyle's third language is plain stupid). M.Bitton (talk) 19:32, 15 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

That's fair. I do think though that right now it's a odd there's no background as to how there was unrest due to the lack of recognition of Algeria's Berber language (which is why it was added as a national language in response to the riots), which was closely related to Arabisation following Algerian independence. So I would really like some line about that, which even in just the Reem Bassiouney source there's enough support to add.

Here's another quote from the source I missed earlier: "There was a stronger than expected backlash after independence from the Berber-speaking tribes, who, as we have said, make up about 25 per cent of the population. They began an armed struggle against the authorities in 1962—3 after forming the Socialist Forces Front (FFS), which was opposed to Arabisation policies in Algeria (Mahé 2001: 442)." (This quote immediately precedes the one about Taleb Ibrahimi.)

Given this plus the previous quotes, how about something like:

"After gaining independence from France in 1962, Algeria committed to a policy of Arabisation, which was met with armed opposition by some Berber tribes. After 1979, Arabisation policies encompassed public education, broadcasting, and the judiciary system. While directed towards the removal of French as an official language, these policies led to dissatisfaction and unrest amongst Tamazight speakers, who made up about one quarter of the population."

(I think this avoids implying that policies surrounding writing were the main cause of unrest.) Blueshiftofdeath (talk) 23:50, 15 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Except that the FFS uprising was in opposition to the one party system (its leader was not a Berberist by any means). I can supply the RS if you want to learn more about it. M.Bitton (talk) 00:17, 16 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Yes I'd love to read more about it! Thanks in advance :-) .

In the mean time, I'll just take you at your word for it, so how about:

"After gaining independence from France in 1962, Algeria committed to a policy of Arabisation, which, after 1979, encompassed public education, broadcasting, and the judiciary system. While directed towards the removal of French as an official language, these policies led to dissatisfaction and unrest amongst Tamazight speakers, who made up about one quarter of the population." Blueshiftofdeath (talk) 00:32, 16 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

That looks good to me, except that I would replace Tamazight with Berber (the common name + Tamazight refers to the standard language that nobody speaks). As promised, here are a couple of sources ([2][3]) that will hopefully be of help to you. M.Bitton (talk) 00:49, 16 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Awesome, will add that in now! And thank you for the links. It'll probably be a while until I get to it, but I really want to read up on Berberism in the near future so I can go through the page and cite/clarify what I can, so the reading material is greatly appreciated. Blueshiftofdeath (talk) 01:14, 16 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Right now, the sections on morphology/syntax take up more of the page than seems to be standard (looking at other language pages in better standing). Also, I think currently there's not enough information on how different Berber languages compare to each other re: the common morphological and syntactical features.

I'm currently thinking either of the following would be a good move:

1) Move the Morphology/Syntax sections into a new page ("Grammar of the Berber Languages" ?) and add even more tables to compare languages, or replace the current tables with new tables that include multiple languages (like the table following "In Kabyle and Tuareg, the perfect of verbs that express a quality is conjugated with suffixes: " in the page right now) (The "Berber" chapter in "The Afroasiatic languages (2012)" even already has charts for multiple languages for the same grammatical features!)

2) Move the individual examples/charts into the pages for each individual language, and then just reference the grammar pages for those languages on this page (like in Finnic languages#General characteristics) Blueshiftofdeath (talk) 14:36, 18 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Most of the material was added here:[4]. I trust that the original text in the German WP was written by someone with a solid knowledge about the Berber languages, but I can see a major OR issue in the current version of the text (which speaks a bit against solution 1): many generalized statements are unsourced, and only the examples are verifiable. E.g. things like:

• "The personal pronouns of Berber can be divided into two main groups: free forms and clitics, the latter being further classified according to their syntactic function. The following example forms are taken from Tahaggart, a dialect of Tuareg..." – The Tahaggart data is sourced, but which source tells us that this is a recurrent feature in Berber languages?
• "In Kabyle and Tuareg, the perfect of verbs that express a quality is conjugated with suffixes..." – Is this meant to imply that this is a characteristic particular only to Kabyle and Tuareg? And if so, where is the source in support of it?

Typological overviews are fun to write, and again, I trust that someone wrote this piece in good faith and with considerable expertise, but for WP, generalized statements need explicit sources. So to be on the safe side, we should follow secondary sources such as Kossmann's chapter in the 2012 volume, or Mohamed Elmedlaoui's chapter in this book (both of which I used to write this short section: Cushitic_languages#Typological_characteristics). Once the text is solidly based on secondary sources, it will of course be ok to flesh out generalized statements with primary language data from individual language sources (if space allows). –Austronesier (talk) 20:53, 19 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Sounds good! I'll probably take a stab at it in the next week or two. Blueshiftofdeath (talk) 03:19, 20 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I've made a first pass at rewriting the Morphology and Syntax sections (which I've merged for now into one section); will make a second pass when I get access to "Semitic and Afroasiatic: Challenges and Opportunities", which will probably be in a few weeks. In any case I believe that everything in the section now is explicitly taken from a secondary source.

(I ended up deleting most of the existing material because either it didn't seem to be generalized, it was potentially out of date (it seems like a lot of advancements were made around the 1950s) and there were newer sources that covered similar material, or it was impossible for me (or probably the typical English Wikipedia user) to verify because the source was in French.) Blueshiftofdeath (talk) 03:26, 25 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Deleting material because it is in a language you don't know is not acceptable. Foreign-language sources do count as sources on English Wikipedia; if you can't verify it because you don't know the language, the appropriate of course of action is to let it be. Also, as far as I can see, a lot of the material you deleted did have recent English-language sources, e.g. much of the stuff in the syntax section. It is possible that some of the explicit or implicit claims in the material I translated from the German wikipedia were not adequately sourced (I haven't checked its sources myself), but at least it did include tables showing examples of what the grammar of a Berber language might look like. As things stand, you have just deleted that and, in most cases, not added any comparable or adequate replacement for most of the tables, nor even moved them to the articles on the respective individual languages. All in all, this is a rather destructive approach to other people's work.--62.73.72.3 (talk) 12:03, 16 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I noticed that in the subclassification section, no single subclassification system is given as the most prominent, and no consensus is given on what "Eastern Berber" refers to; but the infobox for the page gives the impression that there is a general consensus on a certain subclassification system, as displayed on the map, and "Eastern Berber" lists "Siwi, Nafusi, Sokna, Ghadamès, Awjila" as its languages with no qualification. Have there perhaps been developments in classifying Berber languages that is not reflected in the subclassification subsection, or does the infobox not reliably reflect the current citeable understanding of Berber languages? Blueshiftofdeath (talk) 03:58, 25 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@M.Bitton I find your changes to the table for the population of speakers of Berber languages in Algeria misleading, as:

- The International Encyclopedia of Linguistics cites sources only from 1973-1997, with the population for Kabyle speakers likely coming from Chaker 1983, yet is listed as being from 2003, more than two decades later

- Language Diversity Endangered, listed as being from 2015, cites Ethnologue 2001

Given that the population of speakers is highly dependent on the time due to a number of factors, I think it's critical to include the actual original time of the estimate. (I realize I put 2022 instead of 2020 for Ethnologue in the table -- I plan to fix that, but wanted to clarify this issue before I bother making more changes.) Additionally, if the original source is available, I think we should include that and not later works that simply reproduce the same estimate, for clarity. (This is why I did not include Ethnologue 2015 in the Morocco population table; I just included a note in the 2004 Moroccan census row that this figure was also used by Ethnologue, since that's another source people very commonly reference.)

In any case, it seems silly to me to argue that the Ethnologue 2022 figure is "inconsistent" with the figure provided by Ethnologue 2001. Not to mention the Ethnologue 2022 figure is totally consistent with every single estimate I have seen across dozens of sources regarding what percent of the Algerian population speaks a Berber language. (Well, it lists the percentage as being lower now -- 20% rather than the 25-30% range I've seen elsewhere -- but I don't think it's at all controversial that the relative number of speakers of Berber languages is decreasing.)

I will try to obtain a copy of Ethnologue 2001, and the sources used in The International Encyclopedia of Linguistics, so their estimates may also be included with dates. Blueshiftofdeath (talk) 18:00, 7 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Blueshiftofdeath: The International Encyclopedia of Linguistics was published in 2003. Language Diversity Endangered doesn't mention Ethnologue in the cited page. There is nothing special about Ethnologue (if anything, it's less reliable than the secondary sources). The fact that Ethnogue makes baseless claims by doubling the estimates of the population without explanation is something that should be highlighted. Ethnologue's numbers are not consistent with the secondary sources. In any case, we have a table where we should list all of them. M.Bitton (talk) 18:06, 7 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The International Encyclopedia of Linguistics being published in 2003 doesn't mean its figures are from 2003. It only cites sources from 1973-1997. Either it's extrapolating from those figures (like Tamazight of the Ayt Ndhir did for its figures in Morocco), or it hasn't updated the figures. I think it's problematic we don't know which. At least Ethnologue lists the year the figures are sourced from.

Language Diversity Endangered cites Ethnologue 2001 on page 137, immediately after the section where it lists Berber speaker population figures. It explicitly says on page 124 the figures are from Ethnologue. Blueshiftofdeath (talk) 18:30, 7 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

It doesn't mention where those figures are from, as for Ethnologue, apart from the year, everything it list is taken from god knows where.Language Diversity Endangered cites a number of sources, it doesn't say that the numbers given were taken from Ethnologue. M.Bitton (talk) 18:35, 7 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Language Diversity Endangered page 124: "The 24 Amazigh languages listed in table 1 (see also Map 8) are an attempt to present an overview of the distinct Amazigh languages. Update information on the languages is mainly derived from the Ethnologue 2001 in its electronic version of December 2004 (Grimes ed. 2001)." Blueshiftofdeath (talk) 18:41, 7 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Great. This means that we have Ethnolgue's 2004 estimates (which they somehow doubled in 16 years, despite the number of Berber speaking people decreasing). M.Bitton (talk) 18:45, 7 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

It's the 2001 estimates though, just reproduced online in 2004. And that estimate leaves only 20% of the Algerian population speaking Berber languages, which is down from other similar kinds of estimates; nothing so shocking that prevents including these numbers, given Ethnologue is a well respected publication.

I also wish we had more transparent sources, but if Ethnologue is the only thing anyone's used in the 21st century, I think it makes the most sense to just use that. People can see it's from Ethnologue and make their own conclusions. It could be worth looking for other sources we can add to qualify the reliability of the Ethnologue estimate too. Blueshiftofdeath (talk) 18:54, 7 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

It still doesn't explain the doubling of the numbers (that are actually decreasing). Luckily, it's not our only source. M.Bitton (talk) 18:57, 7 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Blueshiftofdeath: why did you revert my changes? I already explained to you that we can't give UNDUE weight to Ethnologue ans since we're not listing Ethnologue's sources, I don't see why we should do that for the sources that simply say that their numbers are "mainly" based on a source. M.Bitton (talk) 19:09, 7 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think it's undue weight, it's just the only reliable source from the last 20 years on how many speakers of Berber languages there are in Algeria. If there's another source, that would be added in the main text too. No need to delete Ethnologue from the main text. I wasn't including the information from 2001 etc. just because I think it makes the page harder to read listing all these numbers; it makes sense to have all the estimates in the table and have the most recent ones (last 10 years or so) singled out. But I'm more strongly against deleting this information from the main text than I am against including everything in the table in the main text as well.

Also, your changes broke my citations. Blueshiftofdeath (talk) 19:13, 7 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

It's not the only source and there is absolutely nothing special about it. It's estimates should be treated like all others and listed in the table, that's all. Fix the citation, but don't revert my changes. M.Bitton (talk) 19:16, 7 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Where is your additional source from the last 20 years? It makes no sense to assert that Language Diversity Endangered counts when it's simply reproducing Ethnologue 2001. (Or "mainly" reproducing Ethnologue 2001 -- I don't think we need to nitpick that it may have some small amount of unnoted influence from another source.) I'm not claiming that Ethnologue is "special" in any way, just that it's there, is acknowledged as a reliable source, and makes an explicit attempt to stay up-to-date. I would love to include, with equal weight, as many sources as possible that do the same. Blueshiftofdeath (talk) 19:21, 7 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

It didn't take me long to find a source that is more reliable than Ethnologue will ever be. It gives the estimate of the Kabyle speakers at 3 million (less than half than the number given by someone sitting in his office/bedroom thousands of miles away). M.Bitton (talk) 19:26, 7 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Blueshiftofdeath: I noticed that you removed what I added again (despite being asked not to). I therefore reverted restored the content (feel free to add what you want to the table). M.Bitton (talk) 20:34, 7 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I can accept including The International Encyclopedia of Linguistics, but I insist that including Language Diversity Endangered is unacceptably misleading. I didn't remove those numbers, I just attributed it more accurately to Ethnologue 2001. Blueshiftofdeath (talk) 20:36, 7 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

You can't do that (because i's says mainly, not all), and I don't see why we should treat it differently from Ethnologue (we don't attribute its numbers to whatever sources it's using). M.Bitton (talk) 20:38, 7 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

We are though, that's why we changed "2022" to "2020" in the table; the publication is from 2022 but it says the figures are from 2020. This is also why I didn't include Ethnologue 2015 or Semitic and Afroasiatic: Challenges and Opportunities in the table for Morocco.

Language Diversity Endangered doesn't explicitly cite any source for its population numbers except Ethnologue 2001. I don't understand why you are insisting on hiding that from view. Blueshiftofdeath (talk) 20:44, 7 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

No, we're not attributing Ethnologue numbers to anyone but Ethnologue itself. Language Diversity Endangered says "mainly" (to a table that is full of other languages), it doesn't specifically says what you want it to say. It's RS, that's all that matters. M.Bitton (talk) 20:47, 7 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I don't want it to say anything in particular; it seems like you're insinuating I have some kind of agenda, and if that's the case, I would like to know what you think that is, because I suspect it is making this discussion more difficult than it should be. Just in case, I'd like to state for the record that I have no affiliation with Algeria, Algerians, or the Kabyle language whatsoever, and I have no desire to see the population numbers go one way or another.

Anyway, the problem in this specific case is that leaving Language Diversity Endangered in the table implies that it's a different estimate, made by a different party only 5 years earlier, compared to Ethnologue 2022 (using 2020 sources); clearly this matters as you were referencing it in that context earlier in this conversation. But it's "mainly" -- and any common sense reading would interpret this as "almost entirely" -- based on the very same organization as Ethnologue 2022, AKA Ethnologue, with the primary difference being that it's from 21 years previously. That is clearly unacceptable.

If and only if we get the actual numbers from Ethnologue 2001 and they differ from Language Diversity Endangered, then I'll stand corrected. Blueshiftofdeath (talk) 20:58, 7 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

In all honesty (not just saying it), I have nothing but respect for you (we did have a nice discussion before if you recall, when I suggested to forward some RS to you; and I would love to keep it that way).

Mainly or almost entirely doesn't mean all and it's not for us to judge what is excluded. Having the earlier Ethnologue numbers would actually suit me as I don't hold that them in high regard given how they seem to double their numbers at will (something that the readers should be made aware of). M.Bitton (talk) 21:05, 7 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Yes I recall, so it additionally confused me that I was getting the impression my arguments weren't being earnestly considered; I'm relieved I just got the wrong idea! Thanks for the clarification and kind comment :-) The respect is mutual!

I have the Ethnologue 2001 (14th edition, what was being used online in 2004) information on Algeria here: https://web.archive.org/web/20060502170527/http://www.ethnologue.com/14/show_country.asp?name=Algeria

The numbers are exactly the same as in Language Diversity Endangered, with the exception of Ethnologue capping the number of Kabyle speakers in Algeria at 6 million rather than 3 million. We could include a note (similar to in the Morocco population table) that Language Diversity Endangered uses these numbers, with a different estimated cap on Kabyle speakers. To have it included as a separate entry is confusing at best, and actively misleading at worst.

If that sounds good, I would like to undo your latest revision and make these suggested changes; this would retain the other updates made, which you didn't seem to have any objection to. This way I don't have to go find what else I'd updated and redo that as well. Blueshiftofdeath (talk) 21:44, 7 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

They are not the same. While Ethnologue lists 2,537 million in 2001 and 2007, that is 8% of the population (its own claim, while attributing 6 million to other sources, without saying which ones), Language Diversity Endangered lists 2.5 to 3 million (this accounts for their own calculations as well as common sense, since the numbers can't possibly be doubled without a valid explanation). I have no objection to the 2007 Ethnologue estimate being added separately (for the reason mentioned above).

You also removed The International Encyclopedia of Linguistics entry. M.Bitton (talk) 22:04, 7 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Do you have a link to the 2007 numbers? I'll add them in.

Language Diversity Endangered is using 2 significant figures for estimates in the millions... 2.5 million here is pretty self evidently "the same" as 2.537 million, just rounded. If you disagree that this can be moved from its own row into a note on the Ethnologue 2001 row, maybe we should call in a third opinion.

I can add back in The International Encyclopedia of Linguistics. Blueshiftofdeath (talk) 22:14, 7 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Here's the link for the 2007 estimate and to the 2012 estimate (we can use this instead, of both). No objection to having a third opinion. M.Bitton (talk) 22:44, 7 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Great; I'll hold off on making these changes though until we get the third opinion (on if Language Diversity Endangered should be included as its own row in the "Estimated Number of Speakers of Berber Languages in Algeria" table). Blueshiftofdeath (talk) 22:51, 7 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@M.Bitton Since 6 days have passed since I re-added this issue to the Third Opinion page with no response, I'll also request a third opinion on the Languages WikiProject. Blueshiftofdeath (talk) 18:11, 19 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Blueshiftofdeath: 6 days is nothing, and besides, this is not a language issue, it's wp policy one. M.Bitton (talk) 18:31, 19 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

It gets de-listed as "stale" after 6 days, and it can only be re-listed once (which I'll do now), that's why I mention it.

I figured the Languages WikiProject would be neutral (not biased towards either your or my position) and also have people that would be interested in providing a third opinion. Blueshiftofdeath (talk) 19:27, 19 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Blueshiftofdeath and M.Bitton: Hello! I'm attempting to address the Wikipedia:Third opinion request. First, I have to say I'm not entirely certain of the breadth and specifics of the dispute here, even after examining diffs in addition to reading this discussion. So could I ask that you both characterize the entirety of the dispute as you see it, including the reasons in favor of both positions as you understand them, in a single paragraph each, please? I will say that if the dispute boils down to a disagreement over a number from different sources, I'm inclined to suggest including both values citing their supporting sources, smallest first. Δπ (talk) 21:40, 10 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Δπ (talk · contribs) wants to offer a third opinion. To assist with the process, editors are requested to summarize the dispute in a short sentence below.

The "Estimated Number of Speakers of Berber Languages in Algeria" table includes the estimated number of speakers of Berber languages (both for individual languages, and in total across languages) from multiple sources, along with the date; should Language Diversity Endangered be included?

Viewpoint by Blueshiftofdeath

My objection to the inclusion of Language Diversity Endangered is that I believe it is misleading to include under that name and with its publication date of 2015. The date is important because the number of speakers will of course vary with time; the number of speakers is probably not going to be the same as decades pass.

Regarding its estimates of the number of speakers of Berber languages (also called Amazigh languages), Language Diversity Endangered says quote, "The 24 Amazigh languages listed in table 1 (see also Map 8) are an attempt to present an overview of the distinct Amazigh languages. Update information on the languages is mainly derived from the Ethnologue 2001 in its electronic version of December 2004 (Grimes ed. 2001)."

Additionally, the relevant numbers provided by Language Diversity Endangered are identical to those provided by Ethnologue 2001 (available here: https://web.archive.org/web/20060502170527/http://www.ethnologue.com/14/show_country.asp?name=Algeria), with the exception of the population of Kabyle speakers being listed as "2.5 - 3 million" in Language Diversity Endangered, whereas Ethnologue 2001 says of Kabyle: "2,537,000 or more in Algeria (1995), 8% of the population. Estimates by some sources are up to 6,000,000 in Algeria (1998). Population total all countries 3,074,000 or more."

I think it's safe to say that the numbers in Language Diversity Endangered are estimates from 2001, not from 2015. Additionally, including it as a separate row alongside Ethnologue 2001 is misleading, seeing as they're really the same estimate, not two separate estimates. I would like to include Language Diversity Endangered as a note in the Ethnologue 2001 row (noting that Language Diversity Engangered in 2015 cited the same estimates, with a smaller cap on the number of Kabyle speakers); for an example of how this would look, you can see the "Estimated Number of Speakers of Berber Languages in Morocco" table.

Viewpoint by M.Bitton

Basically, we have a table showing the estimates of the number of speakers of the various Berber languages in Algeria (each row consisting of the source, the publication year and the estimates). All the numbers are guestimates (numbers based on, derived or extrapolated from previously published numbers that are derived in the same manner). One of the sources has a table (page 133) that lists its numbers, not just in Algeria, but in all the Maghreb countries. The source in question also states on page 124 that "The 24 Amazigh languages listed in table 1 are an attempt to present an overview of the distinct Amazigh languages. Update information on the languages is mainly derived from the Ethnologue 2001 in its electronic version of December 2004".

The important thing to note here is that the source specifically uses "information" (which is vague) and "mainly" (meaning not all), leaving the readers with no way of knowing which information is theirs and which is Ethnolgue's. Any attempt at comparing their numbers to Ethnolgue's in the hope of drawing some conclusion would obviously be WP:OR. Furthermore, even if we allow ourselves to indulge in a bit of original research for the sake of argument, a quick comparison shows that for three of the languages, in Algeria alone, it lists different numbers (Kabyle, Temacine and Tidikelt), with the last two having a question mark instead of a number (as given by Ethnologue), essentially proving that the numbers have been revised/reviewed by the author and not simply blindly copied (therefore, making them the source's own).

Additionally, the 2015 numbers are also closer to what one would expect and to Ethnolgue's 2012 estimates, which are far less misleading than Ethnolgue's recent extraordinary claims that defy common sense and contradict a more reliable source that was published in 2021 (the only source that is written by a scholar with field experience in Algeria).

Ultimately, this is a WP:NPOV and WP:OR issue: since nobody's disputing the fact that the scholarly source is reliable (written by a linguist and published by De Gruyter), there is no reason to either exclude some of its numbers from the list, or worse, violate a wp policy by engaging in some original research, that is grounded on a baseless assumption, in order to attribute them to another source. M.Bitton (talk) 18:03, 13 February 2023 (UTC) _____[reply]

Third opinion

If the tertiary LDE source is "mainly" from 2001, then IMO it's outdated. The numbers in Ethn. (2001) are actually dated 1987 to 1996, but for all we know may be older than that (since no source is provided; the dates may be publication dates rather than the dates of the population estimates), so IMO neither Ethn. 2001 nor LDE should be used on WP. For the three exceptional cases (Kabyle, Temacine and Tidikelt), summarizing the Kabyle data by turning the two Ethn. figures into a range does not "make it the source's own", and rejecting the other two only tells us that the author doesn't believe them, but then I would oppose using Ethn. 2001 figures anyway. I don't know the reason for Bitton's claim that Ethn's current numbers are "extraordinary", but granted Ethn. is not always a RS. Their numbers should all come with a reference; if they don't, then IMO they are essentially unsourced and Ethn. should not be treated as RS. If the "extraordinary" numbers do have citations, then IMO we should compare that source or sources against the "more reliable source that was published in 2021". That is, IMO we should have the 2021 source (assuming it's RS) either alone or, if the current Ethn figures are referenced to a RS, alongside the current Ethn figures. There's no need to go back to numbers from the last century unless we have reason to believe that current figures would be even less reliable. Given the generally poor quality of data on Berber languages, I doubt that data from ca. 1990 that haven't been adjusted for population growth or language attrition are going to be more reliable than recent data. — kwami (talk) 08:31, 20 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Kwamikagami Thanks for weighing in! I did see that there was discussion in the Languages WikiProject saying that Ethnologue should be considered unreliable if its figures are undated, and reliable if they are dated; is that what you mean by "sourced" in this case? The Ethnologue 2022 figures for all the Berber languages are dated, although I'm not sure what source was used.

The 2021 source referenced by M.Bitton is "Negation in Kabyle," which I believe is reliable, but which is about Kabyle syntax rather than population or status; the population size of quote "more than three million" is mentioned off-hand as background. Blueshiftofdeath (talk) 10:45, 20 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

And the 2021 source also fits with the Ethnologue figure above.

It's not just whether the Ethn. figures have dates, but whether sources are provided. If we don't have a source to follow up with, we can't know how old the data actually is, how reliable it is, or even if Ethn. copied or interpreted it correctly. (They sometimes make copy or arithmetic errors.) There should be a citation, and the citation should appear in the bibliography. A bare date as in the 2001 edition is not enough to be able to verify anything. — kwami (talk) 10:52, 20 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

So if we find the Ethnologue 2022 source, are you recommending we just stick with that? We currently have a table that lists multiple population estimates with the associated date; I think both me and M.Bitton were in agreement that listing multiple sources in an organized way was helpful, seeing as (especially, it seems to me, in Algeria) there is a fair amount of disagreement in academia as to the number of speakers of Berber languages.

Here are some other comments on the population I found in other sources:

"No reliable recent estimate of the number of Berber speakers exists; relevant data is both scarce and hotly contested. The estimates brought together by Kossmann suggest a range of 30-40% for Morocco, 20-30% for Algeria, [...] Selecting the midpoint of each range, and substituting in the mid-2017 populations of each of these countries would yield a total speaker population of about 25 million, 22 million of them divided almost evenly between Morocco and Algeria." (From the "Berber" chapter in Arabic and contact-induced change (2020))

"In Algeria today, it is estimated that Amazigh speakers represent 25% of the population." (From "The Sociolinguistic Situation in North Africa: Recognizing and Institutionalizing Tamazight and New Challenges" in the Annual Review of Linguistics (2023))

"Algeria has two primary versions [of Berber] and four smaller ones: Taqbaylit, from the Kabylie region, spoken by 5 million persons; Chaoui, from the Aures region southeast of Kabylie, the language of 2 million persons; Tamzabit, of the 200,000 Ibadi Muslims of the Mzab valley in the south around Ghardaia; Znati, the dialect group of 150,000 persons [...]; Tachenouit, in the Chenoua and Zaccar Mountains west of Algiers, spoken by 100,000; and Tamesheq, the idalect of Algeria's 100,000 traditionally nomadic Tourags of the far south [...]." (The Berber Identity Movement and the Challenge to North African States, citing 2009 issues from Jeune Afrique.)

As you can see, the two most recent of these are consistent in roughly estimating there to be at present 11 million speakers of Berber languages in Algeria, which is significantly more than the numbers given by Ethnologue 2022. However, they do not break their estimates down into more specific languages. I thought the table was a good way of presenting this kind of information alongside earlier estimates that additionally include a breakdown into more specific languages. I'm not sure though how it'd be best presented in the main text; I think it's noteworthy that most sources list Kabyle speakers as being 60-70% of speakers of Berber languages in Algeria, but I wasn't sure if synthesizing that information would count as original research. Blueshiftofdeath (talk) 13:10, 20 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

It could be that the Ethn. data is old. They only give dates, most of which are 2020, but that could be a republication of older data. I've asked if they can ID the source. — kwami (talk) 13:42, 20 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, Ethn. got back to me. Their current figures are based on ethnicity and are from Jacques Leclerc.[5] They took his percentages of the 2020 World Factbook population of 42,973,000. They note the results are similar to the Joshua Project.[6]

So yeah, not exactly a RS, but it appears there is no RS. IMO, since Ethn. doesn't provide their source for readers to follow up on, we should use Leclerc's numbers directly and cite him. — kwami (talk) 01:54, 21 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, I edited the section in question based on your input. Let me know @Kwamikagami and @M.Bitton if we have consensus around the new version. Blueshiftofdeath (talk) 16:31, 21 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Blueshiftofdeath: I reverted the edit because that's not what the third opinion suggested. M.Bitton (talk) 16:36, 21 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Kwamikagami: that joshuaproject's numbers are similar to Ethnologue's should come as no surprise since they use them (along with ethnopedia and the likes), what's strange though is Ethnologue's calculations (the numbers that are supposed to be based on Jacques Leclerc's don't add up), though I guess that's not really an issue if we are to use Leclerc's numbers directly. M.Bitton (talk) 16:48, 21 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

FYI: the 26th edition of Ethnologue has just been released, it gives 7,496,400 speakers for Kabyle. I can copy/paste number for other Berber languages here if needed.

(and I think Ethnologue is RS per Ethnologue#Reception,_reliability,_and_use, but always good to have other sources as well) a455bcd9 (Antoine) (talk) 19:48, 21 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Ethn. can be a RS; the problem is that they aren't always, and when they don't provide their sources it's hard to know. They've improved a lot over the past few editions, but they weren't designed to be the default academic reference, so they're playing catch-up and there is still a lot of bad data. Sometimes they don't distinguish ethnic from speaker populations, sometimes the data is much older than the dates given, etc. As they update their numbers, they're trying to be more careful and more verifiable than they were originally, but sometimes they can't find good data, and there's usually no indication that the data they found may be unreliable. So, personally, if they don't provide a source to evaluate, I wouldn't consider them a RS.

(Often uncited figures may be p.c. from someone in the field, and some of that may be excellent, but again it's hard to know.) — kwami (talk) 20:06, 21 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I replaced the Ethnologue citations with the Jacques Leclerc citation directly in my edit here; M.Bitton reverted it due to the change not accurately reflecting your input, although I would like to hear your feedback to the changes directly.

If the Jacques Leclerc citation is not acceptable, perhaps we can use the overall Berber languages speakers numbers (based on the "20-30% of the Algerian population" range, which is used by all the 21st century sources so far, including Jacques Leclerc) in addition to more specific language breakdown percentages; The Berber Identity Movement and the Challenge to North African States (mentioned in a previous reply) puts the number of Kabyle speakers as about 2/3 of all speakers of Berber languages in Algeria, which lines up with other estimates cited so far. This would put Kabyle speakers as about 13-20% of the Algerian population.

I also will say I can't agree with M.Bitton's most recent suggestion we use the 2004 numbers from Jacques Leclerc directly. Blueshiftofdeath (talk) 20:35, 21 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

No, you cited Ethnologue and its clone (joshuaproject), while cherry picking the sources that you like and leaving out the ones that you don't. The suggestion to use Jacques Leclerc directly is not mine, it's Kwamikagami's (the third opinion that you asked for). What's the point of asking for one if you're not willing to take it into consideration? Would you have done the same thing if they somehow agreed with you? M.Bitton (talk) 20:46, 21 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I did replace the Ethonologue citations with Jacques Leclerc for the number of Kabyle speakers. I kept the Ethnologue citation for the total number of speakers / non-Kabyle speakers, which was not under discussion. I removed sources from before the 21st century, as was suggested. I have no context as to joshuaproject being Ethnologue's clone as I am only following what I believed were the third party suggestions from this discussion, with the knowledge that these edits can always be iterated on and improved by all parties until we reach consensus. I don't really have context on what makes you think I'm cherry picking sources; if you laid out what sources were unrightly excluded versus included, that might make it more clear, although of course you're not obligated to do so.

I think pointing out what specific parts of the edits are objectionable is a better way to move forwards towards consensus than simply reverting them with generalized disapproval. You could also make an edit that attempts to implement the suggested changes, and I would in turn attempt to comment productively on that. I really just want to have a reasonable version of this section -- and I am very open as to what that may look like, so long as it's not misleading (for example, portraying 20th century figures as 21st century figures) -- so we can continue editing the rest of the page. Blueshiftofdeath (talk) 21:07, 21 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

No, you didn't. Jacques Leclerc's numbers are nowhere near what Ethnologue claims (the percentages don't lie) and besides, the third opinion (that you asked for) was clear, yet not only you don't agree with it, but for some reason, you are attributing it to me. M.Bitton (talk) 21:15, 21 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I genuinely find this bewildering. The third opinion to me seems to say "replace Ethnologue citations for the number of Kabyle speakers directly with Jacques Leclerc and the World Factbook, but use the same numbers." That's what I changed in my edit. I also don't understand what you say I'm attributing to you. Blueshiftofdeath (talk) 21:18, 21 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

No, the third opinion says to use Jacques Leclerc's numbers directly, something that you clearly don't agree with (while attributing the suggestion to me). I don't need to provide the diffs since that's what you said above. M.Bitton (talk) 21:22, 21 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, I see. I apologize for the miscommunication; I interpreted Kwamikagami's comment as citing Jacques Leclerc's percentages with a direct citation, rather than using the number of speakers in that table. I had thought they wouldn't want to use numbers from 2004 without adjusting for population, due to their previous comment that "Given the generally poor quality of data on Berber languages, I doubt that data from ca. 1990 that haven't been adjusted for population growth or language attrition are going to be more reliable than recent data."

I'm realizing I may be mistaken here. @Kwamikagami , could you please clarify on your suggestion -- do you think we should use "3 million Kayble speakers" (what I believe is @M.Bitton's interpretation for your suggestion)?

My personal stance is that this is inappropriate, since it conflicts significantly with more recent estimates of the overall number of speakers of Berber languages in Algeria as 20-30% of the population. But I'm ready to go ahead with what @Kwamikagami as the third opinion here suggests. Blueshiftofdeath (talk) 21:28, 21 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

That's not my interpretation of their suggestion. What I believe they're suggesting (they can correct me if I'm wrong) is to use the numbers directly and do our own calculations (if we have to, since Ethnologue is inacapable of achieving such a simple task). BTW, the 20% Berbers is pure myth. For instance, the CIA states that only 15% of Algerians identify as Berbers and even that percentage is a stretch given what the Arabization has done to the Berberophones (ex: you'll be hard pressed to find a chaoui speaker in Batna, the heartland of the Chaoui people). M.Bitton (talk) 21:34, 21 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I haven't even checked Leclerc's figures. I was just saying that, IMO, since Ethnologue is based on Leclerc (and, new point, since Joshua Project is largely based on Ethn.), we should use and cite Leclerc rather than Ethn. What exactly that would look like I haven't really thought about. We might give percentages of the population, along with a date. We might give absolute figures along with a date and the population of Algeria as of that date (or rather the population Leclerc used to calculate his numbers). It would be OR in my opinion to recalculate the populations, updating them as a percentage of the current population as Ethn says they've done, because we don't know that the Berber languages are growing at the same rate as the overall population. E.g. Berber-speakers may have a higher birthrate than Algerians as a whole, or may be shifting to Arabic. And different Berber languages are presumably changing relative to each other: some robust, some shifting. If I were publishing an account myself, I might try estimating the current speaker populations, but that's not something we should do in WP. — kwami (talk) 21:45, 21 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

In that case, how about not including the more specific language split in the main text, and instead referencing the raw numbers from Leclerc (and other reliable sources that give numbers for Kabyle vs Shawiya vs others, with a date) in a table like we have now, so readers can draw their own conclusions? The overall percentage of speakers of Berber languages could be included in the main text. Blueshiftofdeath (talk) 21:49, 21 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

That would take us back to square one. M.Bitton (talk) 21:54, 21 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Giving Leclerc's percentages (rather than the numbers) sounds good to me. M.Bitton (talk) 21:52, 21 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

How about:

Algeria is the country with the second greatest number of speakers of Berber languages. In 1906, the total population speaking Berber languages in Algeria, excluding the thinly populated Sahara region, was estimated at 1,305,730 out of 4,447,149, or 29%. According to the 1966 census, Berber dialects were the native tongue of 17.9 percent of the population. The current number of speakers of Berber languages is a subject of ongoing debate; estimates range from about 20-30% of the population, or, as of 2020, roughly around 11 million speakers.*

Kabyle and Shawiya speakers account for the vast majority of speakers of Berber languages in Algeria. Jacques Leclerc estimated that in 2004 that 9.4% of the Algerian population speaks Kabyle, 5.3% Shawiya, [I would add the rest of the languages with percents here], and less than 0.1% speak [list of languages with less than 0.1% in the table].

• Note: @M.Bitton, I know you mentioned the 20% number being "pure myth"; if you have a recent citation for that, I will edit what I have here to incorporate it. Blueshiftofdeath (talk) 22:09, 21 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

This can wait, let's first see how Kwamikagami want to proceed with regards to the percentages. M.Bitton (talk) 22:16, 21 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I don't have any better data. Last year I summarized the situation in some notes, and came up with the following:

Algeria, 45 million [44M+; pop. pyramid has 47M by 2025]. Algerian Arabic spoken by ca. 85% of the population. Kabyle is spoken by ca. 5 million people in the mountains east of Algiers and was made co-official with Arabic in 2016. Shawiya is spoken by ca. 2 million people near the Tunisian border. Mozabite is spoken by 150,000 in oases of the northern Sahara. In the south, about 40,000 Tuaregs speak Tamahaq.

Not advocating that, but that was my best effort at the time. I think percentages are generally a good idea when you're dealing with a significant fraction of the population, because absolute numbers get dated more quickly. That doesn't work for smaller languages, but often those aren't growing at the rate of the population as a whole anyway. — kwami (talk) 01:13, 22 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Kwamikagami: I was referring to Leclerc's percentages that you mentioned. How should we present them? M.Bitton (talk) 02:50, 22 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see anywhere Leclerc describes his methodology, so I'd make the assumption that the percentages are primary. He claims 27.4% Berber as of 2004. No way the figures are actually that precise; I'd at least say 25–30% so as not to suggest these are hard figures. Then ca. 10% Kabyle, ca. 5% Shawiya, ca. 4% Rift (have I ID'd that correctly?), ca. 2½% Shilha, ca. 1% Mozabite (Mzab + Ghardaia). For the smaller langs, maybe absolute figures would be best? — kwami (talk) 05:26, 22 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The Algerian population has grown by 40% since 2004 so it would be better to keep percentages indeed as absolute figures are totally outdated.

We had a similar debate with M.Bitton a few months ago on Kabyle language, resulting in the current version of the article which cites various sources. Some of them could be re-used here, e.g.:

• Asya Pereltsvaig: ~31m Berber speakers in 2018 in North Africa (excluding the diaspora?),see p. 203.
• Bruce Maddy-Weitzman, 2015 and 2018: 25m Berbers (ethnic? speakers?). Provides details by country, e.g. for Algeria: Speakers of Tachelhit, constituting roughly 8 million persons, are concentrated in the High Atlas and Anti-Atlas mountains and valleys and southeast pre-desert area. Speakers of Tamazight (the same term used to denote the Berber language as a whole), numbering 3 million persons, are centered in the Middle Atlas region. Speakers of Tarifit, also numbering approximately 3 million persons, live primarily in the Rif Mountains of the north. Berbers constitute roughly 20% of Algeria’s population of 39 million. Two-thirds of them (more than 5 million) are Kabyles, originating in the mountainous Kabylie region between Algiers and Constantine, whose dialect is Taqbaylit.
• Encyclopædia Britannica: Berber languages are spoken today by some 14 million people, mostly in scattered enclaves found in the Maghrib, a large region of northern Africa between Egypt’s Siwa Oasis and Mauretania. The heaviest concentration of Berber speakers is found in Morocco.
• Encyclopædia Universalis: On ne dispose pas de statistiques sûres pour évaluer le nombre des berbérophones : les estimations vont de treize à trente millions ; un total de vingt ou vingt-cinq millions paraît admissible

a455bcd9 (Antoine) (talk) 12:32, 22 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

We're all aware that the internet is awash with guestimates (with no provenance or methodology behind them), but that's not what's being discussed here. The third opinion that was requested was given (see above), all we're trying to do is work out how to apply it. M.Bitton (talk) 16:31, 22 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Isn't the first step to remove references to LDE? ("so IMO neither Ethn. 2001 nor LDE should be used on WP"). a455bcd9 (Antoine) (talk) 16:39, 22 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

IMO, any source that doesn't back its numbers properly shouldn't be used, but then again, that's not what's being discussed (see third opinion above), so please let's not make this longer than it ought to be. M.Bitton (talk) 16:45, 22 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I'm trying to convert the full table into text for use in this page, but I think there may be some errors. Leclerc lists "Bédouins de Ruarha" and "Bédouins de Suafa" as having 61,000 "Tamazight" speakers each, but it seems to me these groups correspond with Bedouins, who appear to not speak any Berber languages. I don't speak French, so correct me if I'm wrong. @M.Bitton @Kwamikagami @A455bcd9 Blueshiftofdeath (talk) 21:21, 22 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

There are several typos in the table, e.g. if you compare the language with its family, they don't always align. So either some bedouins historically shifted to Berber, or those are additional typos. — kwami (talk) 21:25, 22 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

IMO, additional sources are usually beneficial, but I suspect that in this case most are simply recycling the same data, sometimes updated for population growth, sometimes not -- thus some of the grosser differences in the numbers. So in this case something like the EB is probably not helpful. I would look either for primary data (something WP generally avoids) or secondary data where the author should have the expertise to evaluate the numbers they're using. Simply being a linguist or anthropologist is not enough, IMO, as such people usually recycle the same population data as everyone else. — kwami (talk) 21:31, 22 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The Jeune Afrique numbers I mentioned before in this discussion also listed numbers by language (rather than just for all speakers of Berber languages in Algeria total). I can't recall other sources that include a split by specific language that don't trace eventually back to/from Ethnologue (let me know if there was something I missed or forgot). However, the Jeune Afrique numbers do not list percentages, and are from 2009.

What do you think about using the Jeune Afrique data for the specific language split? Blueshiftofdeath (talk) 21:36, 22 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Reproducing the quote in question for ease of reading:

"Algeria has two primary versions [of Berber] and four smaller ones: Taqbaylit, from the Kabylie region, spoken by 5 million persons; Chaoui, from the Aures region southeast of Kabylie, the language of 2 million persons; Tamzabit, of the 200,000 Ibadi Muslims of the Mzab valley in the south around Ghardaia; Znati, the dialect group of 150,000 persons [...]; Tachenouit, in the Chenoua and Zaccar Mountains west of Algiers, spoken by 100,000; and Tamesheq, the idalect of Algeria's 100,000 traditionally nomadic Tourags of the far south [...]." (The Berber Identity Movement and the Challenge to North African States, citing 2009 issues from Jeune Afrique.)

@Kwamikagami @M.Bitton @A455bcd9 Blueshiftofdeath (talk) 22:06, 22 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Blueshiftofdeath: with regard to Leclerc's: we know the three common languages that are often cited in all sources (Kabyle, Chaoui and Mozabite), so we'll just stick to those (the others are insignificant). M.Bitton (talk) 22:08, 22 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Leclerc lists three Berber groups as having a greater population than Mobazite speakers, though; if we're going off his numbers, it's odd to leave that out. (I'm having trouble IDing those groups in English.) Blueshiftofdeath (talk) 22:16, 22 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Blueshiftofdeath: we don't have to use what's been ignored by others (for a reason), we just stick to the usual. I can provide another source that also list percentages (if that helps). M.Bitton (talk) 22:17, 22 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I think it's worth checking out whatever sources list percentages per language; thank you for sharing!

I definitely am against leaving out major figures without explanation from a source (in this case, because leaving out those groups misleadingly implies that the source lists Mobazite as the 3rd most spoken Berber language in Algeria). But if the Leclerc source is just one of multiple, maybe it's fine. Blueshiftofdeath (talk) 22:22, 22 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Blueshiftofdeath and Kwamikagami: Here's the source in question. It lists all the spoken languages and gives the estimated percentages of the speakers (10% Kabyles, 5% Chaoui, etc.). M.Bitton (talk) 22:27, 22 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Unfortunately that also cites the Leclerc page, which my understanding is Kwamikagami is recommending we avoid. (Unless it lists other information; I can't easily read the whole thing since it's in French.) Blueshiftofdeath (talk) 22:33, 22 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Blueshiftofdeath: it does for the Kabyles (not the rest though), and it's the only one so far that mentions the methodology used as well as checking in place whether certain languages are still used. What's important though is the fact that it list all the languages that are spoken (so that we don't have to guess when using Leclerc's percentages, which were recommended by Kwamikagami). M.Bitton (talk) 22:39, 22 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

That sounds good; if we get consensus on using it with Kwamikagami and A455bcd9 (to avoid the issues with converting Leclerc's table directly into text), then I can type something up that uses it.

I would also like to hear everyone's opinions on the Jeune Afrique numbers; I figure the more unique data we have, the better. It fits the evaluation of what the top 3 languages are, and the percentages are significantly different from Leclerc's, making me think it's not recycled data. I was unable to find the a copy of the cited issue of Jeune Afrique though. Blueshiftofdeath (talk) 22:51, 22 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The trouble with Jeune Afrique and other sources like it is that they don't mention their sources. I think it's best we stick with what we agreed upon so that we don't go back to square one. Leclerc's numbers are simple, all we have to do is pick the ones that have been used by others from them (we are not obliged to use all of them). M.Bitton (talk) 22:54, 22 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Does Leclerc mention his source? Blueshiftofdeath (talk) 11:00, 23 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

No, but from what I understand, it has been recommended by Kwamikagami because it's used by others, including Ethnologue (the source that some sources seem to use blindly). Anyway, why am I being asked to justify the third opinion that you asked for? M.Bitton (talk) 13:19, 23 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I was just asking.

Kwamikagami didn't say anything about only using one source, or not using Jeune Afrique specifically. I don't see what reason there is not to include it.

In any case, I'm ready to just go along with the majority opinion (which again, thus far does not include "not using the Jeune Afrique numbers.") Blueshiftofdeath (talk) 15:30, 23 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

We know what they said (it's written above). Again, this is the opinion of the third party that you asked for, so either you're willing to respect it or you're not (it's that simple). M.Bitton (talk) 15:49, 23 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Where did they say we shouldn't use the Jeune Afrique numbers? I may have missed it due to how long this conversation is; if so, I apologize. Blueshiftofdeath (talk) 15:54, 23 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

If we have reason to think that one source copied from another, then IMO we don't want to present it in the table as if it were an independent source, because that would weight the table towards those numbers. I recommend using Leclerc because a lot of sources seem to go back to him. — kwami (talk) 15:57, 23 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I understand that part; but do you think we shouldn't additionally use the Jeune Afrique numbers? Like I said earlier, they aren't the same as the other numbers at all, so I don't really understand the problem. But since you're the one resolving this issue, I'm ready to just go along with it if you really think they should be excluded. Blueshiftofdeath (talk) 15:59, 23 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

What's so special about Jeune Afrique? Why should we use it instead of other crap that we can find online?

As far as as I'm concerned, the issue has been settled, so all that's left now is working out how to apply the recommendation (something that Kwamikagami is actively doing). M.Bitton (talk) 16:03, 23 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

It was used in an academic book, so I assume the author had some reason to think it's reliable. The one thing we all agree on is that there is no single clear correct estimate for how many Kabyle vs Shawiya etc speakers there are, and it's a subject of debate, so I think it's only prudent to include at least two sources. That's why I made a table of sources in the first place. But it seems like all of those alternate sources are going to be excluded on account of going back to the Leclerc numbers. Blueshiftofdeath (talk) 16:08, 23 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Ethn. has been trying for years to find a decent source, and the best they could come up with is Leclerc. BTW, in their response they agreed with me that sources for Berber are "notoriously bad". They commented that Leclerc is "not a very reliable source but, at this point, better than nothing." So if we use multiple sources that are based on Leclerc, then we make those numbers look more reliable than they probably are. But at least Leclerc is a linguist, and has made a concerted effort to estimate populations; the author of the Jeune Afrique article presumably has not, so it's likely to be even less reliable, and for all we know is based on Leclerc or some other source like Ethn. that was based on Leclerc, or perhaps just as likely some source they found online that was based on Ethn that was based on Leclerc, or on an older edition of Ethn. that was based on even worse or more dated sources than Leclerc. Unless the author of the Jeune Afrique article is someone notable? — kwami (talk) 16:07, 23 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I disagree in that I think it's worth having second numbers (see above reply to M.Bitton), but I'll accept this as the majority opinion then. Blueshiftofdeath (talk) 16:10, 23 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that it's worth having additional sets of numbers. Do we have any reason to think that JA is a second set of numbers, rather than just copied off of a source that copied from a source that we already show? Even Bara (2020) copied from Leclerc for languages that he didn't have independent data for. — kwami (talk) 16:13, 23 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, I just saw your edit.

I have no idea who the author of the Jeune Afrique article was, but the numbers were used in a book by Bruce Maddy-Weitzman. (https://english.tau.ac.il/profile/bmaddy)

The numbers are different ratio wise from the other provided sources. (It lists Kabyle speakers as 66% of the Berber speakers in Algeria and Shawiya as 26%.) Blueshiftofdeath (talk) 16:18, 23 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Maddy-Weitzman is a historian. Maybe he evaluated various sources and decided the JA numbers were the most reliable. Maybe he just grabbed it as a convenient source. Does he say either way? Perhaps JA is an independent estimate. More likely, it's based on something that's based on a pre-Leclerc edition of Ethn, which would explain the different ratios. No sources or methodology = not reliable. — kwami (talk) 16:26, 23 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

His reference to it says:

"The numbers are taken from Jeune Afrique, nos. 2549 (November 15-21, 2009) and 2551 (November 29 - December 5, 2009). Most mappings of Algeria's Berber dialects fail to mention the Chenoua and Touat-Gourara regions. See also Kossman and Stroomer." Blueshiftofdeath (talk) 16:31, 23 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Jeune Afrique is not a scholarly source. The Tachenwit (as an endangered language) is easily sourced (Leclerc mentions it), though one can understand why it's not usually mentioned (given the very low number of speakers). M.Bitton (talk) 16:32, 23 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

At this point I'm wondering if we should just leave out the language-specific numbers/percents on this page entirely and go back to Salem Chaker 1984 (where my impression is everything really comes from -- seeing as Leclerc also doesn't share his methodology) to just say Kabyle and Shawiya are the top 2 languages. Blueshiftofdeath (talk) 16:39, 23 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Nobody is disputing the fact that Kabyle and Shawiya are the top 2 languages. Salem Chaker is a Berber activist (too involved politically to be considered as a third party source). M.Bitton (talk) 16:43, 23 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Basset 1952 then! Blueshiftofdeath (talk) 16:46, 23 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

This is getting ridiculous. I really don't know what else to say (just sitting here scratching my head and wondering what was the purpose of asking for the third opinion). M.Bitton (talk) 16:48, 23 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

In all seriousness, like I said, I'll just go along with what the majority opinion (regarding specifically how to present the amount of speakers per individual Berber language in Algeria) is in the end. (I only added more info on Jeune Afrique because Kwamikagami asked directly for clarification.) Leaving out the exact breakdown is also a serious suggestion; I don't like leaving out that kind of information, but if consensus is impossible otherwise (due to the lack of sources), maybe it's the right move. Blueshiftofdeath (talk) 16:58, 23 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

You suggested we call in a third opinion, I accepted. The 3O was given, I accepted it too. I really don't understand why we're still talking about it instead of moving forward with it. M.Bitton (talk) 17:23, 23 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I asked Professor Maddy-Weitzman about this after Kwamikagami's earlier comment; just earlier today he got back to me, saying:

Here is the relevant page(annotated map) from the November 2009 issue that I quoted. As you can see, the source is Salem Chaker, whom I call the "Dean" of Berber studies, from his book "Berberes Aujourd'hui". Blueshiftofdeath (talk) 01:20, 27 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Can we get the figures directly from Chaker? — kwami (talk) 01:30, 27 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Probably; it seems the book is for sale online and shouldn't be that hard to get a hold of. But also it's in French so I would be looking for it blindly... I'm willing to give it a try if it's necessary and no one else it willing, I guess.

I thought I'd also share this commentary from Maddy-Weitzman, after I shared Leclerc's page with him:

A couple of comments about it: 1) the estimates are from 2013; 2) He writes: "soit 8,8 millions des Algérien (représentant ainsi 27,4 % de la population) parlent l'une des variantes du berbère" .  

Since Kabyles are universally said to constitute approximately 2/3rds of the Amazighphones in Algeria, it makes no sense to speak of 3 million Kabyles  (approximately 1/3d)  perhaps it's a misprint.  I'm also surprised to see  the categories: "Berbères du Moyen-Atlas" (more than 1.2 million),  "Berbères Ishilhayn (Shilha du Nord)" (630,500),  and  "Berbères shilha" (233,900, a number that suspiciously matches exactly the next category on the list - the Mzab Berbers) :  I've never seen these three categories in reference to Algeria, only Morocco.

My more recent book (2022), refers to common estimates of the Amazigh population in Algeria as constituting 20-25% of the country's 44.5 million (as of May 2021), with the Kabyles being two thirds of that.  I also reference a lower estimate of Amazigh speakers (15% of the total population), by Mohamed Benrabah, in a 2014 book by Moha Enaji. Benrabah, too , counts the Kabyles as 2/3rds of all Amazighphones.

In case it's of interest, he also shared that the Jeune Afrique article was called "Algérie: Le Paradoxe Berbère" and was written by Cherif Ouazani. Blueshiftofdeath (talk) 11:54, 27 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

No comment on Leclerc's other numbers (as I already explained why apart from the Kabyle, the Shawi and Mozabite numbers, everything should be ignored).

Here's the Jeune Afrique article. I don't see anything in it that would support his claim. M.Bitton (talk) 12:58, 27 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

What do (1) and (2) refer to above? Who writes "soit 8,8 millions des Algérien"? — kwami (talk) 20:48, 27 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

(1) and (2) refers to this page by Leclerc. "soit 8,8 millions des Algérien" is at the beginning of section 2.2.

Re: the link for the Jeune Afrique article: It looks like the web and print editions are different? The print edition has an image of a map, and a timeline. The map is what lists the numbers of speakers. It also has a heading that says:

Une Présence sur l'ensemble du pays:

Hormis le recensement général de 1966, qui établissait la proportion de locuteurs en tamazight à 18,6% de la population, il n'existe aucune statistique fiable. Dans son ouvrage Berbères aujourd'hui, le linguiste Salem Chaker les évalue entre 25-30% de la population, soit à un peu plus de 10 millions de personnes. Blueshiftofdeath (talk) 21:25, 27 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks!

BTW, Ethn. is changing their figures because they should've had 9.4% per Leclerc. — kwami (talk) 22:04, 27 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

It was quite obvious that they made a mistake, because the sudden jump in their estimate that I highlighted in the other discussion didn't make any sense. Besides, given Algeria's Arabization programme, one would expect the number of the overall speakers to be below that of the 1966 census (something around 15%, as stated by some sources, seems reasonable). M.Bitton (talk) 22:25, 27 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Blueshiftofdeath: have you ordered the 3rd edition (2022) of Berbères aujourd'hui? I can't find it in the Wikipedia Library. Seven libraries have it. I assume that Chapter 1 ("Données de base") and 2 ("Le plurilinguisme en Afrique du Nord : une fragilisation du berbère") include estimates about the number of speakers (Sommaire). There's a Kindle version on Amazon and ePub/PDF here. I can buy it if you haven't already ordered it. a455bcd9 (Antoine) (talk) 09:49, 6 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Unless you have access to it @Kwamikagami? a455bcd9 (Antoine) (talk) 09:55, 6 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I hadn't ordered yet -- that'd be awesome if you got it, I think you have a much better chance of finding the numbers in it than I do ;-) Thank you!! Blueshiftofdeath (talk) 12:29, 6 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Blueshiftofdeath: What exactly do you intend to do with the numbers of a Berberist? M.Bitton (talk) 13:59, 6 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Kwamikagami you asked "Can we get the figures directly from Chaker?", I've just bought the book, here are all the relevant excerpts I found:

• "Les dynamiques réelles à l’œuvre travaillent toutes dans le sens de la régression du berbère." (p. 11)
• "Ce livre est une suite fortement actualisée et développée de mon ouvrage Berbères Aujourd’hui (1ère édition : 1989, 2ème édition revue et augmentée : 1998)."
• "En l’absence de statistiques linguistiques fiables, on peut estimer l’ensemble des Berbérophones entre vingt et vingt-cinq millions de personnes, dont la très grande majorité se situe en Algérie (20 à 25 % de la population) et au Maroc (30 à 35 % de la population)." (p. 25)
• "Au total, on peut raisonnablement penser que le nombre de Berbérophones en France se situe entre 1,5 et 2 millions de personnes, composés pour 2/3 de Berbérophones d’origine algérienne, majoritairement Kabyles, et pour 1/3 de Berbérophones d’origine marocaine[65]." (p. 122)
• "[65] L’important travail de M. Tribalat (voir bibl.) avance une proportion de Berbérophones nettement plus basse (28%). Ce pourcentage est très certainement inférieur à la réalité ; l’enquête dirigée par M. Tribalat a porté sur une immigration récente, encore peu intégrée, dans laquelle la proportion d’arabophones est effectivement plus importante." (p. 122)
• "Le chiffre de 28 % avancé par M. Tribalat (1995) paraît notoirement sous-évalué. Un indice de sociologie électorale le confirme d’ailleurs : lors de l’élection présidentielle algérienne de 1997, le candidat kabyle (Saïd Sadi) a obtenu 28 % des suffrages en France. Or, il s’agit de façon certaine d’un vote ethnique, exclusivement ou quasi exclusivement kabyle, mais qui n’a sans doute pas rassemblé tous les votes kabyles puisqu’il n’y avait pas de candidat du FFS et que S. Sadi et son parti, le RCD, étaient loin de faire l’unanimité des populations kabyles. On proposera de retenir plutôt un pourcentage de plus ou moins 35% de Berbérophones pour l’ensemble des populations originaires de l’Afrique du Nord. Cette estimation reste hypothétique mais elle est compatible à la fois avec ce que l’on sait du phénomène migratoire maghrébin et avec les chiffres de la population berbérophone dans les deux pays concernés (20 à 25 % en Algérie, 35 à 40 % au Maroc)." (p. 122)
• "TRIBALAT Michèle, 1995 : Faire France. Une enquête sur les immigrés et leurs enfants, Paris, La Découverte."

And... that's it! 😅 a455bcd9 (Antoine) (talk) 14:23, 6 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Awesome! It's great that it seems to be up to date for 2022, and provides the methodology behind his calculations. I will also say that I very frequently see Chaker cited in linguistics papers, but I have never seen Leclerc explicitly cited. So by the reasoning we were using before (considering using Leclerc's numbers because of how frequently they were used by other works), it seems like we could/should just use these estimates instead.

Marteen Kossmann also used similar reasoning -- though based on a different election -- in his 2013 book, "The Arabic Influence on Northern Berber":

"It is telling, for instance, that in the 1991 Algerian elections, which were won by the fundamentalist FIS, parties with a strong embedding in Berber cultural groups (FFS and RCD) gained 18,4% of the voters in Algiers (Fontaine 1992:157). Therefore, one may well conclude that almost one fifth of the population of Algiers felt enough connection to their Berber roots to make this influence their voting behavior; this attachment could very well be related to language maintenance. In fact, percentages are probably higher for Algiers, as many Berber speakers undoubtedly voted for other parties, whose popularity was not restricted to speakers of Arabic."

FFS and RCD seem to have a primarily Kabylian following. From "On ethnic political mobilization: The case of the Berber movement in Algeria" (published in 1993, just 2 years after the above election) for example:

"The case of the Berber movement in Algeria offers a unique situation in which similar ethnic groups facing the same threatening government cultural policies react differently. Whereas the Kabyles mobilized themselves against those policies, the other three major Berber groups, namely the Shawiya, the Mzabis, and the Tuareg assumed a seemingly apathetic posture. Recently, however, the Berber movement, spearheaded by the Kabyles, succeeded in mustering a modest following among other Berber groups."

This is just to say that two independently made analyses have a similar conclusion.

I did notice @A455bcd9 that you didn't seem to find a breakdown of how many speakers there are per language. (Or maybe I missed it in the Google Translation...) It seems pretty clear that we'll list 20-25% or 20-30% of Algeria as being speakers of Berber languages, based on how many reliable sources use these numbers, but what about the breakdown of individual languages? @Kwamikagami earlier gave the opinion that combining the general number of speakers of all Berber languages, plus the calculation of 2/3 of such speakers being Kabyle speakers, would be original research. It seems like we could at least cite Maddy-Weitzman's book though, which ultimately uses the methodologically transparent numbers from Chaker, along with the apparently commonly accepted number of 2/3 of such speakers being Kabyle speakers. His numbers in the 2011 are from 2009, but I can check if his most recent book has updated numbers, if that's of interest. Blueshiftofdeath (talk) 23:48, 6 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Oops, I missed this relevant section on Kabyle specifically from Kossmann's 2013 book:

"The 1966 census, which was the last one to include a question on language, had about 1,3 million speakers of Kabyle in Kabylia (Chaker 2004). According to the population statistic of the 2008 census, the two provinces in Algeria which make up the bulk of Kabylia, Béjaïa and Tizi Ouzou, have over 2 million inhabitants, without a doubt the majority Berber-speaking. One can add to this Kabyle speakers in neighboring provinces, as well as the large Kabyle community in Algiers and in France. Chaker (2004) gives a higher estimate of 5,5 million Kabyles in total: 3 to 3,5 million in Kabylia, and 2 to 2,5 outside Kabylia. To what extent these all still speak Kabyle as their first language is difficult to assess."

(Amusingly, considering Chaker's numbers are from 2004 and Leclerc's page was published afterwards, but also uses 2004 for his numbers, I suspect Leclerc may have simply used Chaker's numbers to start with after all.)

In case it's of interest, the work by Chaker that Kossmann cites is "Le berbère de Kabylie (algérie). Encyclopédie berbère, XXVI. 4055-4066." I presume the 1966 census figures are a major source for the "2/3 of Berbers in Algeria are Kabyles" understanding. Blueshiftofdeath (talk) 00:03, 7 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Blueshiftofdeath: a) We don't presume anything. Your WP:OR about the election is just that (no comment necessary). b) It seems pretty clear that we'll list 1) that's not your decision to make. 2) the only thing that is clear is that you never had any intention of applying the very third opinion that you asked for (simply because it didn't go your way). M.Bitton (talk) 00:13, 7 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

What methodology are you referring to? All I see is a guestimate. M.Bitton (talk) 00:17, 7 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Bitton above opined that Chaker was not a RS because he's a Berber activist. I have no evaluation of that, but we could go by how he's handled in 2ary ling/anthro/socio sources. At first glance, it seems he may be a better source than Leclerc. — kwami (talk) 00:07, 7 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

He's not a better source than Mettouchi, who unlike him, 1) is not an activist and 2) has decades of field experience in Algeria. You'll notice that most of what has been quoted is about France (where he's based) and him desagreeing with a demographer. M.Bitton (talk) 00:11, 7 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@M.Bitton

1. Mettouchi is a Berber activist: https://amazighworldnews.com/professor-and-linguist-amina-mettouchi-endangered-amazigh-languages/

2. Mettouchi said (by email) that her number was just a guesstimate and that she didn't have specific knowledge about that.

3. Chaker is way more cited in the field than Mettouchi and Leclerc combined.

4. Contrary to Leclerc and Mettouchi, Chaker at least provides some methodology, not only in France but also in Algeria (I didn't copy/paste these excerpts but he cites the various censuses from the twentieth century, the rural exodus and the decline of Berber languages to make his estimates for instance, I'll copy them here later).

5. Chaker 2022 is the most recent source we have. a455bcd9 (Antoine) (talk) 06:56, 7 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, I was wrong Chaker doesn't cite the previous censuses. (I mixed up the sources with Kossmann 2013 which does cite the censuses). a455bcd9 (Antoine) (talk) 11:12, 7 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Do we have the original 1966 census?

I found this, giving 18.7% of people with their "langue maternelle" as "berbère".

This article explores the census and notes that Les berbérophones dénombrés représentaient, par rapport aux 12 millions d' Algériens recensés en 1966, 19 % de la population totale du pays (p. 96), so 2.3 million self-declared Berberophones (p. 94, however 2,287,997/12,102,000 = 18.9% and not 18.7%...), including "trois quarts" of "Kabyles and Chaouïa" (p. 106) and 1.170.924 "Kabyles de l'Ouest", représentant 51 % des berbérophones d'Algérie (p. 95). The author adds (footnote p. 94): Compte-tenu des chiffres de 1966, de l'évolution de ses taux de croissance régionaux, on peut estimer que la population berbérophone compte en 1991 environ 4 900 000 personnes.

Please note that according to the INALCO Centre de recherche berbère (citing Chaker 1984): On le voit, la variation entre 1913 et 1966 est énorme : la population chaouia aurait diminué, en proportion, de plus de moitié en un demi siècle, ce qui est évidemment inconcevable et inacceptable, même si l'on doit tenir compte d'un important exode rural. Ou bien les chiffres du début du siècle sont très fortement surestimés – mais cela est peu probable car ils résultent d'une enquête spécifique, commune par commune –, ou bien les statistiques algériennes sous-évaluent gravement la berbérophonie aurasienne. Pour tout un ensemble de raisons (Cf Chaker 1984, p. 9), c'est certainement la seconde explication qu'il faut retenir en priorité.

D'autant que le bilinguisme berbère/arabe est très général dans cette région, même en milieu féminin, et que, jusqu'à ces toutes dernières années, la fierté linguistique berbère était un phénomène rare chez les Aurasiens (sur cette question, voir : Maougal 1981 et 1984). Bien au contraire, ils éprouvaient généralement un fort complexe d'infériorité linguistique devant les arabophones et évitaient d'utiliser leur langue en dehors de leur communauté. On en trouve du reste un indice numérique flagrant dans les résultats du recensement algérien de 1966 : pour la wilaya des Aurès, centrée sur le massif berbérophone, seules 44,5 % des habitants déclarent avoir le berbère comme langue maternelle, ce qui est nécessairement non conforme à la réalité ; même dans les communes rurales des Aurès, la majorité de la population déclare souvent avoir l'arabe comme langue maternelle ! Pour comparaison, dans la wilaya de Tizi-Ouzou, à la même date, 82 % des personnes indiquent le berbère comme langue maternelle...

En conclusion, on admettra que la population de dialecte chaouia se situe dans une fourchette, très large, allant de 850.000 à 1.900.000 personnes. Le million de locuteurs est donc très certainement atteint et dépassé. a455bcd9 (Antoine) (talk) 12:11, 7 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Chaker 2004, citing the census writes: La variété kabyle du berbère est la langue maternelle et usuelle de l’immense majorité de la population de Kabylie : près de 85 % des habitants de l’ancien département de Tizi-Ouzou (« Grande Kabylie ») se déclare berbérophones natifs (recensement1 officiel algérien de 1966). Il convient à ce propos de souligner que les nombreux découpages et redécoupages administratifs de l’entité géolinguistique kabyle opérés par l’Etat algérien ont eu pour conséquence de fragmenter l’aire de la kabylophonie sur au moins cinq départements (wilayat). Tant et si bien que seules les départements de Tizi-Ouzou et de Bougie peuvent être considérés comme presque entièrement berbérophones ; les autres fragments de l’aire kabyle sont intégrés dans des unités administratives périphériques, dont la plus grande partie est arabophone (Sétif, Bouira, Boumerdes). Ce démembrement administratif de la Kabylie historique et culturelle ne facilite évidemment pas l’évaluation démographique de la berbérophonie dans la région. On peut néanmoins estimer, sur la base de la projection des chiffres connus, la population kabylophone à environ 5,5 millions de personnes, dont 3 à 3,5 millions vivent en Kabylie même et 2 à 2,5 million constituent la diaspora, dans les grandes villes d’Algérie (surtout Alger), mais aussi en France où vivent probablement près d’un million de Kabyles. and Ce recensement, qui a été le seul depuis l’indépendance de l’Algérie à comporter une question sur la langue maternelle, donnait en chiffres arrondis : 850 000 habitants pour le département de Tizi-Ouzou (dont 85 % de berbérophones) et 1 300 000 pour celui de Sétif (qui incluait Bougie), dont 40 % de berbérophones, soit 500 000 berbérophones pour la Petite Kabyle. Un total donc de 1 300 000 berbérophones pour la Kabylie, sur une population globale de 12 379 000 ; auxquels il convient d’ajouter un bon million de personnes pour la diaspora, ce qui fait une population kabylophone totale de 2 à 2,3 millions en 1966. a455bcd9 (Antoine) (talk) 13:27, 7 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Giving an interview to Amazighwordnews doesn't make Mettouchi an activist (I suggest you strike that). She is the only scholar cited so far that has decades of field experience in Algeria.

Chaker on the other hand is a known activist. While he may know a thing or two about the language itself, counting the number of speakers is beyond his field of expertise. His guestimate (from his Paris office) of the number of speakers in Algeria is definitely less reliable than hers. The same goes for his guestimate (again, from his office) about the number of speakers in France (he simply cannot contradict a demographer).

Anyway, we now have three options: 1) we cite the census as the only reliable data that we have. 2) we cite every so-called "reliable" source we can find (guestimates based on other guestimates), with no cherry picking. 3) we cite the census as well as the lowest and highest guestimates. M.Bitton (talk) 15:07, 7 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I think she's also an activist.

Regarding her estimate, she said: I have always given rough estimates, to give an idea, but never intended to work out the exact number of speakers. 3 million in Kabylie is probably lower range estimate. There is no census on Amazigh speakers in Algeria as you know, and from my personal experience there, Kabyle is a growing, expanding language, it has prestige among Amazigh speakers and is adopted by speakers of nearby regions. I would not be able to give a reliable estimate though.

The number of 1 million Kabyle speakers in France comes from the French government (source). It's the figure used by Ethnologue as well. Ethnologue also uses Canadian and Belgian official data. So the numbers of speakers outside Algeria are well sourced.

For Algeria itself, we can indeed probably just cite the 1966 census with the breakdown by Berber variety: 19% Berberophones (11% Kabyle, 4% Chaouïa, etc.). a455bcd9 (Antoine) (talk) 15:38, 7 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Please refrain from describing her as such (that's repeated slander, when in fact you were asked to strike the first). For Chaker, reliable sources describe him as an activist. M.Bitton (talk) 15:41, 7 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Why is it slander? An activist is "a person who campaigns to bring about political or social change" (Oxford Dictionary). Here's how Mettouchi describes her own work: "This is why I have started going online, first with the pages on endangered Berber languages on my professional website, then with the Facebook Page Endangered Berber Languages and the Twitter account Langues Berberes en Danger. My aim is first to raise awareness concerning the need to document the Berber languages that are the most threatened, and then to provide methodological help to language activists willing to undertake that mission for their language."

Her personal and professional Twitter accounts also make it clear that she's a Berber activist. a455bcd9 (Antoine) (talk) 15:45, 7 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Her professional Facebook account Endangered Amazigh Languages is even more explicit: "Bienvenue à tous les activistes amazighs, c'est à nous d'agir maintenant!" a455bcd9 (Antoine) (talk) 15:48, 7 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

An activist is a person that is described as such by reliable sources. The fact that you keep describing a living person as an activist (based on your own research) is worrisome. For the last time, I suggest you strike, or better still, remove your accusations. M.Bitton (talk) 15:52, 7 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

But why do you consider that being an "activist" is a crime? There's no "accusation". Being an activist is something totally normal, positive, and good. The definition is quite clear. Mettouchi describes herself as an activist, that's it. But anyway, that's not really important. a455bcd9 (Antoine) (talk) 15:59, 7 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

It's not a crime, it's a label that you're attaching to a living person. Anyway, I said what I had to say and don't intend on wasting my time repeating it. M.Bitton (talk) 16:01, 7 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I haven't had a chance to read Bara (2020), but it looks promising. — kwami (talk) 01:02, 23 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I assume that "La Dahra" is the Shenwa area? The figure is much higher than Leclerc.

What is spoken in "L'Ouarsenis"? From our map, it looks like Shenwa, which if so would push the pop to 800k. — kwami (talk) 01:21, 23 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Kwamikagami: Yes, the tachenwit is greatly exaggerated, but it's also unsourced (unlike some other estimates) and therefore, safe to ignore. The Chaoui is properly sourced (multiple sources), the Kabyle and the mozabite are sourced to Leclerc's. L'Ouarsenis is sourced and commented on (apparently, during their visit to the area, they discovered that it's only used by some rare people of the older generation). The other insignificant languages don't appear to be sourced. M.Bitton (talk) 02:27, 23 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

How do we know the Shenwa is exaggerated? — kwami (talk) 16:16, 23 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Because 1) the claim is unsourced and 2) it contradicts all the other sources (including Leclerc's). BTW, Tachenwit is known as an endangered language. M.Bitton (talk) 16:53, 23 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

But if all the other sources are based on Leclerc or Ethnologue ...

Could be their own data. They don't say anything about how they came to that number? — kwami (talk) 16:57, 23 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

True, but then again, I don't see the point in paying attention to an unsourced claim that contradicts all the others. In fact, the only reason I shared that source was to show the groups of Berber speakers in Algeria (please see discussion above). M.Bitton (talk) 17:04, 23 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

(Replying here to keep the page cleaner; see previous thread for explanation, which I'm laying out more explicitly here to avoid furthering confusion)

Potential way to present the information:

Kabyle and Shawiya speakers account for the majority of speakers of Berber languages in Algeria. Jacques Leclerc estimated that in 2004 that 9.4% of the Algerian population speaks Kabyle and 5.3% Shawiya. Other Berber languages spoken in Algeria include Shenwa, Tashelhit, Ouargli, Tamahaq, Tugurt, Tidikelt, Gurara, and Mozabite. Blueshiftofdeath (talk) 17:25, 23 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

That looks good to me. M.Bitton (talk) 17:27, 23 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Encyclopædia Universalis, the French-language Britannica writes: On ne dispose pas de statistiques sûres pour évaluer le nombre des berbérophones : les estimations vont de treize à trente millions ; un total de vingt ou vingt-cinq millions paraît admissible (Berbères : la langue. Authors are: Salem Chaker, Lionel Galand [fr], and Paulette Galand-Pernet. All academics, linguists, experts in the field.

I added this range to the infobox, I don't understand why you reverted @M.Bitton claiming "Please have some respect for those who are discussing the subject". Indeed, this range of 13–30 is also close to what is already in the rest of the article as the lowest recent estimates we currently have are 7.5m in Morocco, 4.5m in Algeria, and ~1m elsewhere (total = 13m) while the highest estimates we have are 13.8m in Morocco, 8.8m in Algeria, and 3.6m elsewhere (total = 26m). So it's a good summary of the sources we list, and it's backed by a RS. The note "Estimating the number of Berber speakers is very difficult and figures are often contested." seems also useful to explain why there's such a huge range.

What should we do? a455bcd9 (Antoine) (talk) 16:29, 25 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The Infobox is meant to summarize (and not supplant) the key facts that appear in the article. Since the latter is being discussed, we wait until it's finished before creating the Infobox. M.Bitton (talk) 16:50, 25 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

You're right. Then, what about adding in the article, in Berber_languages#Population (before the breakdown by country): "Estimating the number of Berber speakers is very difficult and figures are often contested. Estimates range from 13 to 30 million worldwide depending on the sources." a455bcd9 (Antoine) (talk) 16:58, 25 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

You're still trying to put the cart before the horse. I suggest we finish the breakdown by country first (Algeria is almost done, Morocco's next I guess). M.Bitton (talk) 17:03, 25 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I think we could do both in parallel, but okay to wait. a455bcd9 (Antoine) (talk) 17:06, 25 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@A455bcd9: This revert of yours makes no sense. Either that's the original Algerian census (properly sourced to CERIST) or it's not. Adding some poxy French source to it in order to cast doubt on its certainty is an insult to people's intelligence. M.Bitton (talk) 18:20, 7 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@M.Bitton: it's not the original census.

I assume you didn't read the source? Ahmed-Malek BAHRI's article is just the preliminary results based on a random 10% of the total census as explained p. 419 (Sondage 10 %), p. 420 (Puis un sondage aléatoire consistant de 10 % est prélevé toujours selon des méthodes probabilistes. L'échantillon traité est la pièce maîtresse de l'exploitation du recensement, puisqu'il permet, à un coût intéressant, de connaître les principales caractéristiques de la population avec une erreur ne dépassant pas 5 % pour une population d'environ 20.000 individus possédant une caractéristique dans un département faiblement peuplé. Il est évident que la précision s'améliore lorsque la population augmente. L'aboutissement du traitement de l'échantillon 10 % se résume en trois volumes, en voie de publication. Le premier volume traite de démographie générale et d'instruction ; le second est relatif aux caractéristiques d'emploi, le troisième se présente avec deux volets, l'un pour l'étude des enfants de moins d'un an, l'autre pour les logements et constructions.) and p. 421 (7-3 Le dépouillement exhaustif : Il est prévu, département, par département, de donner au niveau des communes et des arrondisements quelques tableaux issus du traitement exhaustif de toutes les cartes. Le sondage 10 % présenté au 7-2 ne permet pas de descendre au-dessous du département, sans nuire à la précision des résultats.)

As explained in this other source from 1971, L'exploitation du recensement n'est pas encore terminée.

So what is an insult to people's intelligence?

On the other hand, the 1994 source uses the exhaustive census results.

I'll therefore revert and keep the source using the exhaustive census data. a455bcd9 (Antoine) (talk) 10:08, 9 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

If it's not the original source, then your Figures differ between these two sources, so per MOS:UNCERTAINTY better to keep the closest integer makes even less sense given that you replaced the source that I added previously with a French one (that's the insult). I will therefore restore it (until we find the official one). M.Bitton (talk) 13:27, 9 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@M.Bitton, I'm also trying to find the "official source" but I'm afraid it will be hard. I contacted the National Office of Statistics this morning. Also, per WP:PSTS we shouldn't rely on primary sources such as censuses but on secondary sources. So we have 4 secondary sources giving 2 different figures for the % of self-declared native Berber speakers in the 1966 census:

• 17.9% in Area Handbook for Algeria and History in Dispute
• 19% in Répartition des berbérophones algériens (au recensement de 1966) and Unités et diversités : la place des berbèrophones

The second figure is cited by two centered sources that are more relevant to the field. In particular, Nesson explicitly cites the 15 volumes of the Recensement général de la population et de l'habitat published by the Commissariat National au Recensement de la Population. He gives the results by wilaya and daïra. As explained by Ahmed-Malek BAHR, this level of precision was only presents in the comprehensive census (Le dépouillement exhaustif : Il est prévu, département, par département, de donner au niveau des communes et des arrondisements quelques tableaux issus du traitement exhaustif de toutes les cartes.).

So I suggest keeping 19% only. What do you think? poke @Kwamikagami @Blueshiftofdeath. a455bcd9 (Antoine) (talk) 15:41, 9 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The 17.9 is also cited in this source, so until we have access to the official one (the primary source), the numbers should be treated as disputed per WP:NPOV (this is a policy). M.Bitton (talk) 15:46, 9 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

OK. Then per MOS:UNCERTAINTY we should write 18% (and not 17.9%). a455bcd9 (Antoine) (talk) 15:53, 9 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I edited accordingly. a455bcd9 (Antoine) (talk) 08:25, 10 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I restored the source that was deleted without a valid reason and added another one for good measure. The mos:uncertainty doesn't apply to exact numbers (attributed to RS). M.Bitton (talk) 13:39, 10 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The 2022 census was conducted from Sept 25th to Oct 9th and its results should be published soon (other source). The census contained a question "Quelle est la langue lue et écrite ? 0-Aucune 1-Arabe 2-Amazigh 3-Français 4-Anglais 5-Autres". We'll have data on Algerian people able to both read and write Amazigh. Too bad they didn't include a question about spoken language(s) as well. a455bcd9 (Antoine) (talk) 11:47, 9 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Please also note that the next Moroccan census will start in September 2024. a455bcd9 (Antoine) (talk) 15:32, 9 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Not sure why but I'm having some kind of issue moving the videos of people speaking Tashelhiyt / Central Atlas Tamazight in visual mode... someone else might want to tweak their placement. Blueshiftofdeath (talk) 11:06, 20 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The source he uses only documents usage in Kabylia, I replaced his source with more generalist ones, but he keeps reverting it. Taluzet (talk) 11:37, 2 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

What do you think Jane E. Goodman is referring to when she says "these groups..." after mentioning all Berber ethnic groups in Morocco, Algeria, Mali and Niger? All you're doing is deleting sources and replacing them with outdated and inaccessible ones. Skitash (talk) 11:52, 2 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The person in this video speak a mixt of Berber and Moroccan Arabic with high % of Moroccan Arabic vs Berber words. Please consider to replace with a better representation with a fully 100% Berber speaking talk 105.152.164.210 (talk) 22:20, 28 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The common ancestor of Berber languages (and genetics) lived just 2000 years ago. So, all languages that existed earlier cannot be called "Berber", they're "para-Berber" at most, in cases in which they actually are. It's a shame that Wikipedia doesnt have an article on Ancient Libyan language, which is obviously a very ancient language and played an important part in history. --95.24.66.180 (talk) 16:49, 15 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

See Numidian language. –Austronesier (talk) 21:21, 15 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The Wikipedia article still says that tamazight took from arabic the ق ح ع sounds even though it has been shown through paleographists,berberists,and egyptologists that these sounds were used in the oldest recorded amazigh language which is that of the qeheq tribe in egypt of which the oldest amazigh text is named after before the arrival of the arabs by more than 1000 years,so i would want the editor's of this page to take this into consideration and discuss this matter so we can keep this article up to date with the latest data and findings. ⴰⴽⵙⵉⵍ ⴰⴱⴰⵄⵇⵉⵍ (talk) 00:58, 15 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

My understanding is that even if Amazigh languages used to have those sounds, they likely lost them over time and then subsequently borrowed them from Arabic.

That being said, the connection between the Qeheq tribe and Amazigh languages is interesting! I'm seeing a potential source for this here: https://shs.cairn.info/revue-etudes-et-documents-berberes-2023-1-page-319?tab=resume but it'll be hard for me to integrate it myself due to the language barrier. Not sure if @Austronesier will have better luck? Blueshiftofdeath (talk) 05:23, 5 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Blueshiftofdeath: Thanks for the ping! It seems there is no language barrier as the article is written in English. The only barrier is the (pretty modest) paywall :) But I agree with you that the findings from an early (para-)Berber language won't change the fact that in the sound system of extant Berber languages, the pharyngeals and /q/ only in occur in loan vocabulary, even if If Qeheq data requires us to expand the number of Proto-Berber segments to accomodate for their reflexes in Qeheq. According to Kossmann, only two pharyngealized sounds need to be reconstructed for Proto-Berber if based on non-borrowed vocabulary in extant Berber languages.

Amazigh languages have plenty of inherited roots from Proto-Afro-Asiatic with pharyngeals, including /q/. /q/ is not a foreign sound, it's the natural tense allophone of /ɣ/ (ɣɣ>q/qq, ɣt>q, etc.). And all these consonants (q, ḍ, ṭ and ẓ) are in fact theorized by Berber specialists to be derived from previous ejectives, which are common throughout the Afro-Asiatic family as in Omotic, Chadic, Cushitic, and even some Semitic languages. The only uncontroversially borrowed pharyngeal consonant is the voiced pharyngeal approximant ʕ, from Arabic. And even that occurs in Berber words! (as a rather spontaneous innovation from /ɣ/ in random words). Il Qathar (talk) —��Preceding undated comment added 18:20, 10 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

/q, ḍ, ṭ and ẓ/ are not pharyngeals (only /ħ/ and /ʕ/ are), they're pharyngealized. Besides, as you say, /q/ is not a phonological segment, [q] originally appears as an allophone of *ɣ unless phonemicized through the introduction of Arabic loanwords. (That's why it says "nongeminated" in the lede). Also, being uvular doesn't necessarily make it align structurally with pharyngealized *ḍ and *ẓ. Historically, yes, provided these sounds can be derived straightforwardly from the Proto-Afroasiatic ejectives. –19:57, 10 September 2024 (UTC)Austronesier (talk)

The last paragraph in the article's initial section, which details amount of words derived from Arabic, should not be included in this part of the article, as it is meant to introduce the topic. Instead, this content would be more appropriate in a section like "Influence on Other Languages" which already exists, where the impact of Arabic on Berber can be discussed in detail. Furthermore, the paragraph is too general, especially with statements like "Almost all Berber languages took from Arabic the pharyngeal fricatives..." and similar sentences that follow. These need more nuance.

To clarify, Maarten Kossmann’s Berber-Arabic Language Contact can be cited here to show that the uvular stop /q/ existed in Berber languages independently of Arabic influence. Additionally, Lameen Souag's Berber and Arabic in Siwa (Egypt): A Study in Linguistic Contact (pp. 34-37) explores how the Siwa Berbers maintained their linguistic structure despite Arabic contact, which would provide further support for this argument. TahaKahi (talk) 08:29, 9 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]