The Eastern Berber languages are a group of Berber languages spoken in Libya and Egypt. They include Awjila, Sokna and Fezzan (El-Fogaha), Siwi and Ghadamès,[1] though it is not clear that they form a valid genealogical group.
Eastern Berber | |
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Geographic distribution | Libya, Egypt |
Linguistic classification | Afro-Asiatic
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Subdivisions | |
Glottolog | None |
Eastern Berber is generally considered as part of the Zenatic Berber supergroup of Northern Berber.
Kossmann (1999:29, 33)[2] divides them into two groups:
Blench (ms, 2006) lists the following as separate languages, with dialects in parentheses; like Ethnologue, he classifies Nafusi as Eastern Zenati.[5]
The "Lingvarium Project" (2005) cites two additional languages: the extinct language of Jaghbub and the still-spoken Berber language of Tmessa, an oasis located in the north of the Murzuq District.[6] Blažek (1999) considers the language spoken in Tmessa as a dialect of Fezzan.[7]