Central Atlas Tamazight

Also known as Tamazight, Atlasic

Amazigh language of the Afro-Asiatic language family

Key facts

Pronunciation: [ tæmæˈzɪxt, θæmæˈzɪxθ ]
Native to: Morocco
Region: Fès-Meknès , Béni Mellal-Khénifra and Drâa-Tafilalet
Native speakers: 2.7 million (2024)
Language family: Afroasiatic Berber Northern Atlas Central Atlas Tamazight
Standard forms: Standard Moroccan Amazigh
Writing system: Tifinagh , Arabic
Regulated by: IRCAM
Iso 639 3: tzm
Glottolog: cent2194

via Wikipedia infobox

Article

Central Atlas Tamazight or Atlasic (native name: ⵜⴰⵎⴰⵣⵉⵖⵜ, Tamaziɣt [tæmæˈzɪxt, θæmæˈzɪxθ]; Arabic: أمازيغية أطلس الأوسط) is a Berber language of the Afroasiatic language family spoken by around 2.7 million speakers, or 7.4% of the population of Morocco.

Central Atlas Tamazight is one of the most-spoken Berber languages, along with Tachelhit, Kabyle, Riffian, Shawiya and Tuareg. In Morocco, it comes second as the most-spoken after Tachelhit. All five languages may be referred to as "Tamazight", but Central Atlas speakers are the only ones who use the term exclusively. As is typical of Afroasiatic languages, Tamazight has a series of "emphatic consonants" (realized as pharyngealized), uvulars, pharyngeals and lacks the phoneme /p/. Tamazight has a phonemic three-vowel system but also has numerous words without vowels.