Kabyle

Phonology

Vowels

The kabyle, and the Berber one in general, comprise three vowels, plus a vowel of reading:

has is less open than in French, between “has” and the “E”
I decides between “I” and the French “E”
U decides “or”

The sound E (as in English “childr' e' N”), called ilem or schwa, is not regarded as a true vowel, but is to facilitate the reading. Historically, ilem is the result of a reduction or a fusion of the three vowels. The phonetic realization of the vowels is influenced by the close consonants. For example, the emphatic consonants involves a more open pronunciation: aẓru (stone) is read while amud (grain) gives .

Consonants

Assimilation and gemination

Some assimilation S are characteristic of a local alternative of kabyle, while others exist changing of the language. These assimilations are not noted with the writing. For example:

/n/ + /w/ : axxam N wergaz (“the house of the man”) can be read

“Axxam N wergaz. ” (not of assimilation),
“Axxam bb wergaz” or “Axxam p wergaz”,
etc

/d/ + /t/ : D taqcict (“it is a girl”) decides “tsaqcict”.
other assimilations: /t/ + /t/ = /ts/, /n/ + /w/ = /bb/ or /pp/, /i/ + /y/ = /ig/, /w/ + /w/ = /bb/, /y/ + /y/ = /gg/.

The Gémination affects the quality of certain consonants, transforming the fricative into occlusive. A consonant ɣ geminated becomes /qq/.

Fricative consonants against occlusive

Phonology kabyle is made up of fricative phonemes which are at the origin of occlusive and which remained such as they are in the other Berber languages. The gemination causes also a transformation of fricative into occlusive.

With the writing, the difference is not noted. The list below compares the fricative ones and the occlusive ones and indicates when they are marked.

Areas

Because of the administrative cutting of the Kabylie by independent Algeria, the language kabyle is present in eight Wilaya S.

The populations of the wilayas of Tizi Ouzou ( Tizi Wezzu in kabyle), Béjaïa ( Bgayet ), Bouira ( Tubiret ) and of Algiers ( Lžayer ) are mainly kabylophones. The kabyle is present in most of Bordj Bou Arreridj of Sétif and in a small portion of Boumerdes and Jijel.

In the wilayas of Algiers, Boumerdes, Jijel, Sétif, Bordj Bou Arreridj and Bouira, the kabyle cohabits with the Dialectical Arabic . There remains also present among the diaspora alive kabyle in the wilayas at dominant Arabic-speaking people, and abroad. Of west in is, certain phonetists distinguish four zones characterized by three pronunciations distinct from this language. In the west of Tizi Ghenif, Kabylie of the Djurdjura, the valley of the Soummam and the zone going of Béjaïa in the east. These distinctions are indistinguishable with the majority of the kabylophones, except the alternatives of pronunciation of the tended semivowels " ww" and " yy".

History

The language kabyle is one of the most known Berber languages and most studied, especially since 1844. The proximity of Kabylie with Algiers put it at the range French linguists and academics as of the 19th century. The majority of the dictionaries and grammars were carried out in the first decades of the French colonial presence.

Colonial army Frenchwoman

1844: first dictionary of kabyle.
1846 - 1877: Creation of the Berber File of documentation .
1858 : Adolphe Hanoteau publishes the first Grammaire kabyle .
1867 : Collection popular Poetries of Jurjura by Adolphe Hanoteau.
1873 : Kabylie and the habits kabyles of Adolphe Hanoteau and Aristide Letourneux, is a kind of encyclopedia, bases information on Kabylie, nowadays still had the appearance of a reference book.

French University and native

1880: opening of offices Berber in the new University of letter of Algiers (future University of Algiers). The first professor (university lecturer) is If El Hachemi Ben If Lounis.
As from 1900, the berbérisants are mainly originating in Kabylie (Saïd Cid Kaoui, Belkassem Bensedira, Amar Saïd Boulifa, etc…). The installation of the language continues.
1946 - 1977: Creation of the Berber File of documentation initiated by the white Fathers. In addition to gathering an important linguistic material, the File will contribute to a standardization of the language and the creation of an adapted Latin transcription.
1962 : independent Algeria, which proclaims itself “Arab”, closes the research departments Berber in the universities of the country.

the contribution of Mouloud Mammeri

1969: “Will isefra Them of If Mohand or Me hand”, Mouloud Mammeri.
1976 : Tajerrumt N tmazight (tantala taqbaylit) by Mouloud Mammeri, the first grammar kabyle written in language kabyle.

Berber spring

1980: Mouloud Mammeri publishes the Poèmes old kabyles . The prohibition of one of its conferences at the university of Tizi Ouzou on poetry old kabyle is at the origin of the events of the Berber Printemps, forces repression of the linguistic movement berbérophone in Kabylie and in Algiers.
1982 : Dictionary kabyle-French of Jean-Marie Dallet.
1990 : Opening of a department language and Berber culture with Tizi Ouzou then in Béjaia in 1991.
1994 - 1995: “Strike of the portfolio” in Kabylie to require the officialization of Berber at the side of Arabic. The Berber one is not officialized but as from 1995, the kabyle arrives in secondary education, however without means nor structure for a serious installation in teaching. And Office of the High Commission in Amazighité (HCA) east creates.

black spring

2001: After the assassination of a young student kabyle in a gendarmerie, the riots of the “black Printemps burst” which will cost the life more than 120 Algerian (Kabyles) and will make thousands of casualties, in majority of the young people. The democratic claims by most of the population is not taken into account by the capacity, but in concession most of the claim cultural and identity (Plate-forme of El-Kseur) are accepted.
2002 (April 10th): The Berber one is mentioned in the Constitution and becomes national language, without practical measures nor officialization.

Passage à l' written

French-speaking the kabyles authors are the first to translate and publish Berber poetry (such Jean Amrouche) like the work of the poet If Mohand (Amar Saïd Boulifa, Mouloud Feraoun then Mouloud Mammeri).

Clandestinely before 1980, then more quickly since, the culturalists kabylophones continue the effort allowing the language to pass to the writing, primarily in Latin alphabet. The Berber Académie (in Paris) then associations since played this part of linguistic installation. Works of Bertolt Brecht, Molière, Kateb Yacine, Anton Tchekhov… were translated and/or adapted in kabyle primarily by Muhend U Yehya deceased in 2006.

The end of the year 1990 saw the birth of a cinema berbérophone primarily kabyle with works like the forgotten Hill of Mr. Bouguermouh, the Mountain of Baya de Azdine Meddour, Machaho de Belkacem Hadjadj and Mariage by advertisements; If Mohand; and audio-visual production in relatively professional but promising kabyle carried out by the voluntary ones of Berber TV.

Statute

Kabyle, and the Berber one in general, is not recognized like official language in Algérie. The kabyle is the language of certain media comme the national radio Chains II, of some news bulletins in the television channel of State ENTV and the chain private TV and Radio Berbère Television emitting from Paris, France. In spite of symbolic system creation of Office of the High Commission in Amazighité (HCA) in 1995, and in spite of the formal recognition (2002) of Berber, like “national language” under the pressure of bloody the black Spring of 2001, the statute of this language remains problematic, its fragile condition and its dubious future .

The policy of Arabisation structured implemented by the mode FLN since 1962 involved the dekabylisation of broad layers of Kabyles of stock, especially among the young people born since independence (1962) and alive in the big cities like Algiers or Constantine. Chain II of the national radio, who cannot be collected in all the country, was used a long time as vector with the Arabisation of the lexicon kabyle of which the use was impoverished much among the kabylophones.

Resistance against the disappearance of kabyle took various forms since 1962, in particular through association '' Agraw Imazighen '' with the beginning of the year 1970 and of popular movements like the Berber Printemps of April 1980 (following prohibition by the government of a talk of the writer Mouloud Mammeri on the poetry old kabyle ).

The strong density of the population Kabyle, a certain dynamism of the emigration in particular in Europe, made it possible kabyle to maintain its dynamism and not to disappear following the Arabisation from teaching and the unit from social environment and administrative. Since the Seventies, the song, the theater and the actions of passage to the writing, even the use of computer tools (cf the software Awal Amazigh), accompany the reflection on modernization by kabyle and the orientation by university in social sciences and human work.

Examples

In the standard pronunciation, certain sounds are noted:

T: T with emphase
HT: T spirant (like HT ank you)
dh: D spirant (like HT is)
DH: D spirant with emphase
H: H pharyngal ()

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