Algerian Saharan Arabic | |
---|---|
Native to | Algeria, Niger, Morocco, Western Sahara, Mauritania, Mali, Libya |
Region | Atlas Mountains, southern Sahara |
Native speakers | (ca. 110,000 cited 1996–1998)[1] |
Language codes | |
ISO 639-3 | aao |
Glottolog | alge1240 |
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Algerian Saharan Arabic (also known as Saharan Arabic, Tamanrasset Arabic, Tamanghasset Arabic) is a variety of Arabic indigenous to and spoken predominantly in the Algerian Sahara.[2][3] Its ISO 639-3 language code is "aao," and it belongs to Maghrebi Arabic.[4]
It is spoken by an estimated 100,000 people in Algeria, most of them along the Moroccan border with the Atlas Mountains. It is also spoken by about 10,000 people in neighboring regions of Niger, and by minorities in bordering regions of Mauritania, Mali, and Libya.[5] It was spoken also by people to the north of the former colony of Western Sahara abandoned by Spain before the short conflict with Mauritania and the unresolved conflict with Morocco that annexed and controlled most of its territory, forcing most Western Saharan population to flee, and many of them live now in refugee camps in Algeria. It is still spoken in the small unoccupied regions of Western Sahara still controlled by the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (but also claimed by Morocco).
See also
References
- ^ Algerian Saharan Arabic at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
- ^ "How to Reach your Audience with the Right Dialect of Arabic". Asian Absolute. 2016-01-19. Retrieved 2020-06-25.
- ^ "Arabic Language: Tracing its Roots, Development and Varied Dialects". Day Translations. 2015-10-16. Retrieved 2020-06-25.
- ^ "639 Identifier Documentation: aao". sil.org. Retrieved 2020-06-25.
- ^ Raymond G. Gordon, Jr, ed. 2005. Ethnologue: Languages of the World. 15th edition. Dallas: Summer Institute of Linguistics.