Document sans-titre

Tashelhiyt and Al Andalus

The most substantial sources present a variety of Amazigh which is connected most narrowly to modern Tashelhiyt, as it appears at the time of a comparison of the lexicon and morphology. These sources are: Ibn Tunart (Kitab Al-Asma), the Fragment of Leiden, Kitab Al-Ansab and Al-Baidhaq memories. These sources share also some special characteristics (example: the reduction of A in E before a R, the schwa in the opened syllables, of plurals with U prefix, you) which show that they contain all the same variety of Amazigh. The Old-Tashelhiyt can be a suitable name for this language.

The majority of these documents were written in Al-Andalusians (az-Zahrawi, Ibn Beklaresh, Ibn Abden) or by authors born in Al-Andalusians and working in the Middle East (Maimonide, Ibn Al-Baitar). It is probable that a substantial number speakers of a variety of Amazigh close Tashelhiyt lived in Al-Andalusians and that Al-Andalusians was the place where this language was intended to be written the first time. That there were indeed the Amazighs in Spain which spoke a language close to Tashelhiyt is highlighted by the fact that at the end of the 15th century, like consequence of the Reconquista, a group or groups of Berber speakers of Spain immigrated towards Suss in the South of Morocco: they were known like “people of the boat” (ayt ugherrabu).

One of them is Said Al-Kurrami (Said Akwerramu, 1477) which is famous to be the last Amazigh scientist to have received his Grenade teaching. Roots of Arab words which are still visible in Tashelhiyt, like “lmri: mirror”, “lkighd: paper”, “lixrt: beyond”, “ccicit: bonnet”, etc indicate also a connection between Tashelhiyt and Al-Andalusians. It remarkable that in Kitab Al-Ansab and the memories of Al-Baidhaq, which were born certainly in the South from Morocco, the sentences Amazigh are, in a recurring way, is presented like being “in the language of Gharb” (lisan Al-gharb).

This coastal zone of Morocco is now inhabited by Arabic-speaking people. The Berber speakers Ghomara, in the North of Morocco, could be a vestige isolated from the original Amazigh language spoken in this area. The botanist Abdallah ibn Salih Al-Kutami belonged to the tribe of Kutama or Iketamen. The members of this tribe were implanted in various parts of Al-Andalus and North Africa. Al-Kutami had a graver of general storekeeper with Marrakech. It was one of professors of Ibn Al-Baitar. Ibn Al-Hassha can have spoken Amazigh near about Tashelhiyt considering which it worked with the service of the first sultan of the Hafsid dynasty in Tunis. Hafsids were the descendants of Abu Hafs Umar (Umar Inti, 1176), Amazigh of the South of Morocco, tribe of Hintata and one of the companions closest to Ibn Tumert. The progressive expulsion of the Moslems of Spain in the course of the 15th century put probably fine at Old-Tashelhiyt as written language. One century later, pre-modern Tashelhiyt emerged as a literary language in the form of a new orthography.

A.M