Tamazight survival kit

About this kit

Tamazight (Berber) is the ancestral language of North Africa, spoken by about twenty-five to thirty million people in Morocco, Algeria, Libya, Tunisia, Mali and Niger. It is written in the Tifinagh, Latin or Arabic alphabet depending on the region. With this kit, you have the bare minimum to greet and make a good impression in the Rif, the Atlas, Kabylia or the Souss.

Tamazight, or the Berber language, is the ancestral language of North Africa, spoken for millennia across a vast territory stretching from the Canary Islands in the west to the Siwa oasis in Egypt in the east, and from the Mediterranean coast down to the Sahel. It is estimated to have between twenty-five and thirty million speakers, mainly in Morocco (Rif, Middle and High Atlas, Souss), Algeria (Kabylia, Aurès, M'zab, Hoggar), Mali and Niger (Tuaregs), with communities in Libya, Tunisia, Mauritania and Egypt. Tamazight is in fact a family of varieties that share a common base but differ markedly when spoken: Tarifit in the Rif, Central Atlas Tamazight, Tachelhit in the Souss, Kabyle in Algeria, Chaoui in the Aurès, Tamasheq among the Tuaregs. This diversity long hampered standardization, but Tamazight is now an official language in Morocco (since 2011) and in Algeria (since 2016). Writing uses several systems: the historical Tifinagh alphabet, officially reintroduced and taught in schools, the Latin alphabet (notably for Kabyle) and the Arabic alphabet. Grammar follows a verb-subject-object order and uses an original system of noun classes through prefixes. Culturally, Tamazight carries a rich oral tradition (poetry, tales, proverbs), a powerful music scene (Idir, Matoub Lounès, Ammouri Mbarek, Hindi Zahra) and a thriving Berber cinema. This kit brings together the bare essentials to greet, find your way, order food, handle an emergency and take leave politely in any Berber-speaking region.