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60-533: Aghmat ( Tashelhit : Aɣmat , Arabic : أغمات Āghmāt ; pronounced locally Ughmat, Uɣmat ) was an important commercial medieval Berber town in Morocco . It is today an archaeological site known as "Joumâa Aghmat". The city is located approximately 30 km south-east of Marrakech on the Ourika road. The initial "a" of the name may be unvocalized, and the name may sometimes be spelled "Ghmat", "Ghmate" or even

120-501: A century. A problem with the work is its use of an over-elaborate, phonetic transcription which, while designed to be precise, generally fails to provide a transparent representation of spoken forms. Stumme also published a collection of Shilha fairy tales (1895, re-edited in Stroomer 2002). The next author to grapple with Shilha is Saïd Cid Kaoui (Saʿīd al-Sidqāwī, 1859-1910), a native speaker of Kabyle from Algeria. Having published

180-482: A description of Judgment Day, in verse) and other texts. Modern Tashelhit literature has been developing since the end of the 20th century. The first attempt at a grammatical description of Shilha is the work of the German linguist Hans Stumme (1864–1936), who in 1899 published his Handbuch des Schilḥischen von Tazerwalt . Stumme's grammar remained the richest source of grammatical information on Shilha for half

240-543: A dictionary of Tuareg (1894), he then turned his attention to the Berber languages of Morocco. His Dictionnaire français-tachelh’it et tamazir’t (1907) contains extensive vocabularies in both Shilha and Central Atlas Tamazight, in addition to some 20 pages of useful phrases. The work seems to have been put together in some haste and must be consulted with caution. On the eve of the First World War there appeared

300-568: A fight on the middle day of Muharram 541 (27 June 1146). Beaumier, writing in 1860, stated the town still had a population of 5500, of whom 1000 were Jews. Al Bakri , writing in the 11th century on the eve of the Almoravid rise to power, described Aghmāt as a flourishing city where 100 cattle and 1000 sheep were slaughtered for sale in the Sunday souk (market). The inhabitants elected their own leader. Strictly speaking there were two Aghmāts:

360-670: A loss of 14 seats. The party joined the opposition. Istiqlal is a member of the Centrist Democrat International and International Democracy Union , and an associate member of the Alliance of European Conservatives and Reformists . On October 7, 2017, Nizar Baraka was elected Secretary-General of the Istiqlal party, by 924 votes against 230 votes for his rival and outgoing secretary-general Hamid Chabat. King Mohammed VI expressed his congratulations to

420-487: A male speaker is called a Šəlḥ , plural Šluḥ , and the language is Šəlḥa , a feminine derivation calqued on Taclḥiyt . The Moroccan Arabic names have been borrowed into English as a Shilh , the Shluh , and Shilha , and into French as un Chleuh , les Chleuhs , and chelha or, more commonly, le chleuh . The now-usual names Taclḥiyt and Iclḥiyn in their endonymic use seem to have gained

480-480: A purely graphical device employed to indicate that the preceding consonant is a syllable onset: [a.k(e)s.sab] , [a.ri.c(e)t.ta] . As Galand has observed, the notation of "schwa" in fact results from "habits which are alien to Shilha". And, as conclusively shown by Ridouane (2008), transitional vowels or "intrusive vocoids" cannot even be accorded the status of epenthetic vowels. It is therefore preferable not to write transitional vowels or "schwa", and to transcribe

540-596: A rate of Tachelhit speakers higher than the national average: Souss-Massa, Guelmim–Oued Noun, Marrakech–Safi and Drâa–Tafilalet and Dakhla–Oued Ed Dahab. They concentrate 79% of the speakers. However, only two of them have a majority of Tachelhito speakers: Souss–Massa with 66% of its population (1,765,417 speakers) and Guelmim–Oued Noun with 50% (218,650 speakers). This rate drops to 26% for Marrakech–Safi (1,185,846 speakers), 22% for Drâa–Tafilalet (359,936 speakers) and 18% in Dakhla–Oued Ed Dahab (25,198 speakers). Like

600-403: A small, practical booklet composed by Captain (later Colonel) Léopold Justinard (1878–1959), entitled Manuel de berbère marocain (dialecte chleuh) . It contains a short grammatical sketch, a collection of stories, poems and songs, and some interesting dialogues, all with translations. The work was written while the author was overseeing military operations in the region of Fès , shortly after

660-434: A transitional vowel is audible following the onset of a vowelless syllable CC or CCC, if either of the flanking consonants, or both, are voiced, for example tigmmi [tiɡĭmmi] "house", amḥḍar [amɐ̆ʜdˤɐr] "schoolboy". In the phonetic transcriptions of Stumme (1899) and Destaing (1920, 1940), many such transitional vowels are indicated. Later authors such as Aspinion (1953), use the symbol ⟨e⟩ to mark

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720-466: A wide variety of genres (fairy tales, animal stories, taleb stories, poems, riddles, and tongue-twisters). A large number of oral texts and ethnographic texts on customs and traditions have been recorded and published since the end of the 19th century, mainly by European linguists. Shilha possesses an old literary tradition. Numerous texts written in Arabic script are preserved in manuscripts dating from

780-486: A wordlist. Edmond Destaing (1872–1940) greatly advanced knowledge of the Shilha lexicon with his Etude sur la tachelḥît du Soûs. Vocabulaire français-berbère (1920) and his Textes berbères en parler des Chleuhs du Sous (Maroc) (1940, with copious lexical notes). Destaing also planned a grammar which was to complete the trilogy, but this was never published. Lieutenant-interpreter (later Commander) Robert Aspinion

840-407: Is a conservative and monarchist party and a member of the Centrist Democrat International and International Democracy Union . Istiqlal headed a coalition government under Abbas El Fassi from 19 September 2007 to 29 November 2011. From 2013 to 2021, it was part of the opposition. Since 2021 it is part of a coalition government led by Aziz Akhannouch . The party emerged in the year 1937 during

900-408: Is also a distinction between labialized and plain dorsal obstruents . Consonant gemination or length is contrastive. The semivowels /w/ and /j/ have vocalic allophones [u] and [i] between consonants (C_C) and between consonant and pause (C_# and #_C). Similarly, the high vowels /u/ and /i/ can have consonantal allophones [w] and [j] in order to avoid a hiatus. In most dialects,

960-462: Is currently no evidence of word stress in Tashlhiyt. Shilha has three phonemic vowels, with length not a distinctive feature. The vowels show a fairly wide range of allophones. The vowel /a/ is most often realized as [a] or [æ], and /u/ is pronounced without any noticeable rounding except when adjacent to w . The presence of a pharyngealized consonant invites a more centralized realization of

1020-414: Is morphologically a feminine noun, derived from masculine Aclḥiy "male speaker of Shilha". Shilha names of other languages are formed in the same way, for example Aɛṛab "an Arab", Taɛṛabt "the Arabic language". The origin of the names Aclḥiy and Taclḥiyt has recently become a subject of debate (see Shilha people#Naming for various theories). The presence of the consonant ḥ in

1080-552: Is the author of Apprenons le berbère: initiation aux dialectes chleuhs (1953), an informative though somewhat disorganized teaching grammar. Aspinion's simple but accurate transcriptions did away with earlier phonetic and French-based systems. The first attempted description in English is Outline of the Structure of Shilha (1958) by American linguist Joseph Applegate (1925–2003). Based on work with native speakers from Ifni,

1140-461: The Arabic suffix -iyy ) forms denominal nouns and adjectives. There are also variant forms Aclḥay and Taclḥayt , with -ay instead of -iy under the influence of the preceding consonant ḥ . The plural of Aclḥiy is Iclḥiyn ; a single female speaker is a Taclḥiyt (noun homonymous with the name of the language), plural Ticlḥiyin . In Moroccan colloquial Arabic,

1200-553: The Maghrawa tribe. Laqūt was defeated and the Almoravid army entered the city on 23 Rabi II 450 (27 June 1058). One of the wealthiest of Aghmāt's citizens was Laqūt's widow, Zaynab an-Nafzawiyyat , who married the Almoravid leader Abu-Bakr Ibn-Umar and placed her considerable wealth at his disposal. After Abu-Bakr returned to the Sahara Desert in 1071, Zaynab married his successor Yusuf ibn Tashfin . By 1068/1069,

1260-705: The Socialist Union of Popular Forces (USFP), the Istiqlal would form the backbone of the opposition to King Hassan II in the years to come. The Istiqlal party has taken part in many coalition governments from the late 1970s until the mid-1980s. In 1998, together with the USFP inside the Koutla and other smaller parties, the Istiqlal formed the Alternance, the first political experience in the Arab World where

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1320-584: The United Nations , and in Paris ( France ). Advocating in France was primarily focussed on communicating with French society, disseminating and exchanging information, and mobilizing students. However, once the country achieved independence in 1956, the party moved into opposition against the monarchy, which had asserted itself as the country's main political actor. It had to overcome some obstacles since

1380-504: The United States and Israel . Shilha possesses a distinct and substantial literary tradition that can be traced back several centuries before the protectorate era . Many texts, written in Arabic script and dating from the late 16th century to the present, are preserved in manuscripts. A modern printed literature in Shilha has developed since the 1970s. Shilha speakers usually refer to their language as Taclḥiyt . This name

1440-659: The anti-colonial struggle against French and Spanish imperial rule, making it the oldest active political party in Morocco. The party was founded in April 1937 as the National Party for Istiqlal, and became the Istiqlal Party 10 December 1943. Istiqlal held strongly Arab nationalist views and was the main political force struggling for the independence of Morocco. The initial goal stated in their manifesto

1500-399: The 16th century. The earliest datable text is a compendium of lectures on the "religious sciences" ( lɛulum n ddin ) composed in metrical verses by Brahim u Ɛbdllah Aẓnag , who died in 1597. The best known writer in this tradition is Mḥmmd u Ɛli Awzal , author of al-Ḥawḍ "The Cistern" (a handbook of Maliki law in verse), Baḥr al-Dumūʿ "The Ocean of Tears" (an adhortation, with

1560-463: The 8.8 million Amazighophones. It is also the Amazigh language that has the greatest geographical extension in the country. Its speakers are present in 1512 of the 1538 municipalities in the kingdom. This distribution is notably the result of a large diaspora of small traders who have settled throughout the country, but also of workers in search of employment opportunities. Five Moroccan regions have

1620-708: The French-style "Rhmate" (as it appears in the Michelin Guide ). According to a Berber legend, Aghmat was populated by Christian Berbers when it was conquered in 683 by the Muslim forces of Uqba ibn Nafi , a general of the Umayyad Caliphate in Syria. However, this story first surfaces almost 700 years after that date, and many historians give it no credibility. It is directly contradicted by one of

1680-544: The Ighchan ethnic group of the Anti-Atlas, with comparative notes on Kabyle of Algeria and Tuareg of Niger. More recent, book-length studies include Jouad (1995, on metrics), Dell & Elmedlaoui (2002 and 2008, on syllables and metrics), El Mountassir (2009, a teaching grammar), Roettger (2017, on stress and intonation) and the many text editions by Stroomer (see also § Cited works and further reading ). There

1740-640: The Moroccan independence abroad happened in Tangier , since it was assigned as an international zone and thus under less influence of the French or Spanish. In Tangier Moroccan Nationalists established contact with Americans residing in Morocco, which among others provided US intelligence contacts. Outside of Morocco, important developments in advocating for Moroccan independence happened in Cairo ( Egypt ), within

1800-577: The city ramparts. The tomb of Al-Mutamid is marked by a contemporary mausoleum . It was erected in 1970 and has a cupola in the Almoravid style. Shilha language Shilha is spoken in an area covering around 100,000 square kilometres, making the language area approximately the size of Iceland , or the US state of Kentucky . The area comprises the western part of the High Atlas mountains and

1860-591: The commercial and political center was known as "Aghmāt Wurīka", and 8 miles distant from that was "Aghmāt Aylan" which was closed to outsiders. The town was served by the seaport of Qūz on the Atlantic coast three days journey west. On 18 November 1950, during the French occupation of Morocco , a group of Moroccan nationalists associated with the Istiqlal party held a demonstration at the tomb of Al-Mutamid . This

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1920-687: The earliest Persian historians, al-Baladhuri . who states that Musa bin Nusair conquered the Sous and erected the mosque at Aghmāt. After the death of Idris II in 828, Morocco was divided among his sons. Aghmat became capital of the Souss region under the Idrisid prince Abd Allah. When the Almoravids invaded from the Sahara Desert under Abd Allah ibn Yasin , Aghmāt was defended by Laqūt, leader of

1980-483: The examples below, w and y are transcribed phonemically in some citation forms, but always phonetically in context, for example ysti- "the daughters of", dars snat istis "he has two daughters". Any consonant in Tashlhiyt, in any position within a word, may be simple or geminate. There may be up to two geminates in a stem, and up to three in a word. The role of gemination varies: Gemination also may occur due to phonological assimilation. For example,

2040-409: The fact that semivowels and high vowels can occur in sequence, in lexically determined order, for example tazdwit "bee", tahruyt "ewe" (not * tazduyt , * tahrwit ). In addition, semivowels /w/ and /j/ , like other consonants, occur long, as in afawwu "wrap", tayyu "camel's hump". The assumption of four phonemes also results in a more efficient description of morphology. In

2100-573: The fishing village of Imlili, south of Dakhla (60% of speakers) or the rural municipality of Moulay Ahmed Cherif, 60 km west of the city of Al Hoceima (54% speakers). These situations are reminiscent of the historical migrations that have followed one another over the long term and especially the massive rural exodus that began in the 20th century towards the economic metropolises. Although many speakers of Shilha, especially men, are bilingual in Moroccan Arabic, there are as yet no indications that

2160-423: The following phrase would be realized as [babllfirma]: bab owner n=l-firma of=farm bab n=l-firma owner of=farm Istiqlal Party The Istiqlal Party ( Arabic : حزب الإستقلال , romanized :  Ḥizb Al-Istiqlāl , lit.   'Independence Party'; French : Parti Istiqlal ; Standard Moroccan Tamazight : ⴰⴽⴰⴱⴰⵔ ⵏ ⵍⵉⵙⵜⵉⵇⵍⴰⵍ ) is a political party in Morocco . It

2220-690: The high concentration of Tachelhit-speaking speakers in Dakhla, Tachelhit is spoken significantly by many inhabitants, in Moroccan municipalities outside the area where the language historically originated. With 49% of its speakers living in cities, Tachelhit has become highly urbanized. Thus, 10% of Casablancais speak Tachelhit, i.e. more than 334,000 people. Casablanca is therefore the first Tachelhit city in Morocco, ahead of Agadir (222,000 speakers). Similarly, 9.2% of Rbatis speak Tachelhit, i.e. more than 52,000 people, or 4% of Tangiers and Oujdis. Finally, there are singular cases of very outlying municipalities such as

2280-461: The imposition of the French protectorate (1912). Justinard also wrote several works on the history of the Souss. Emile Laoust (1876–1952), prolific author of books and articles about Berber languages, in 1921 published his Cours de berbère marocain (2nd enlarged edition 1936), a teaching grammar with graded lessons and thematic vocabularies, some good ethnographic texts (without translations) and

2340-504: The language area, the name Tasusiyt (lit. "language of Souss") is now often used as a pars pro toto for the entire language. A speaker of Tasusiyt is an Asusiy , plural Isusiyn , feminine Tasusiyt , plural Tisusiyin . With 4.7 million speakers or 14% of Morocco's population, Tachelhit is the most widely spoken Amazigh language in the Kingdom, ahead of Tamazight and Tarifit. Its speakers represent more than half of

2400-523: The line Demnate - Zagora , there is a dialect continuum with Central Atlas Tamazight . Within the Shilha-speaking area, there are several Arabic-speaking enclaves, notably the town of Taroudant and its surroundings. Substantial Shilha-speaking migrant communities are found in most of the larger towns and cities of northern Morocco and outside Morocco in Belgium , France , Germany , Canada ,

2460-545: The name suggests an originally exonymic (Arabic) origin. The first appearance of the name in a western printed source is found in Mármol 's Descripcion general de Affrica (1573), which mentions the "indigenous Africans called Xilohes or Berbers" ( los antiguos Affricanos llamados Xilohes o Beréberes ). The initial A- in Aclḥiy is a Shilha nominal prefix (see § Inflected nouns ). The ending -iy (borrowed from

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2520-482: The neighboring Inoultan, Infedouak and Imeghran ethnic groups counted as CAT. Though Tashelhit has historically been an oral language, manuscripts of mostly religious texts have been written in Tashelhit using the Arabic script since at least the 16th century. Today, Tashelhit is most commonly written in the Arabic script, although Neo-Tifinagh is also used. Shilha has an extensive body of oral literature in

2580-462: The north African coast, reflecting its nationalist heritage. Istiqlal won 52 out of 325 seats in the parliamentary election held on 7 September 2007, more than any other party, and subsequently the party's leader, Abbas El Fassi , was named Prime Minister by King Mohammed VI on 19 September 2007. The party won 60 out of 325 seats in the parliamentary election held in November 2011, being

2640-461: The opposition assumed power through the ballots. For the party's leader Allal El Fassi , a proponent of " Greater Morocco ", Morocco's independence would not be complete without the liberation of all the territories that once were part of Morocco. In January 2006, Istiqlal criticized Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero 's visit to the Spanish cities of Ceuta and Melilla on

2700-421: The party, which had just achieved their common goal, was prone to fragmentation. There was a movement within the Istiqlal Party to unite Muslims and Jews called al-Wifaq ( الوفاق ), with prominent Jewish figures such as Armand Asoulin, David Azoulay, Marc Sabbagh, Joe O’Hana, and Albert Aflalo. Together with the leftist National Union of Popular Forces (UNFP), which split from Istiqlal in 1959, and later

2760-457: The place of exile where Abdallah ibn Buluggin , the former king of Granada , wrote his memoirs. In the years 1126, 1127 and again in 1130, the city saw a number of battles between the Almoravid sultan Ali ibn Yusuf and the Almohad army led by Ibn Tumart and Abd al-Mu'min . Following a general rout of Almoravid forces throughout Morocco and Algeria, Abd al-Mu'min entered Aghmāt without

2820-407: The place where a transitional vowel may be heard, irrespective of its quality, and they also write ⟨e⟩ where in reality no vowel, however short, is heard, for example ⟨akessab⟩ /akssab/ "owner of livestock", ⟨ar icetta⟩ /ar iʃtta/ "he's eating". The symbol ⟨e⟩ , often referred to as " schwa ", as used by Aspinion and others, thus becomes

2880-401: The population of the city had grown considerably, and Abu-Bakr decided to construct a new capital. He founded Marrakech in 1070, after which Aghmāt declined. The Almoravids continued to use it as a convenient backwater in which to exile people. These included Al Mutamid , former king of Seville and Córdoba and noted poet. His tomb remains a place of pilgrimage to this day. Aghmat was also

2940-579: The regions to the south up to the Draa River , including the Anti-Atlas and the alluvial basin of the Sous River . The largest urban centres in the area are the coastal city of Agadir (population over 400,000) and the towns of Guelmim , Taroudant , Oulad Teima , Tiznit and Ouarzazate . In the north and to the south, Shilha borders Arabic -speaking areas. In the northeast, roughly along

3000-405: The second party in the parliament. Abbas El Fassi resigned as Prime Minister 29 November 2011, and resigned as Secretary-General of Istiqlal on 23 September 2012, following Justice and Development Party victory in 2011 elections. In September 2012, Hamid Chabat was elected secretary-general of the party succeeding Abbas El Fassi. In 2016, Istiqlal won 46 seats in parliamentary elections ,

3060-409: The semivowels are thus in complementary distribution with the high vowels, with the semivowels occurring as onset or coda, and the high vowels as nucleus in a syllable. This surface distribution of the semivowels and the high vowels has tended to obscure their status as four distinct phonemes, with some linguists denying phonemic status to /w/ and /j/. Positing four distinct phonemes is necessitated by

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3120-624: The southwest, from the Achtouken in the west to the Iznagen in the east, and from Aqqa in the desert to Tassaout in the plain of Marrakesh." There exists no sharply defined boundary between Shilha dialects and the dialects of Central Atlas Tamazight (CAT). The dividing line is generally put somewhere along the line Marrakesh-Zagora, with the speech of the Ighoujdamen, Iglioua and Aït Ouaouzguite ethnic groups belonging to Shilha, and that of

3180-521: The survival of Shilha as a living language will be seriously threatened in the immediate future. Because of the rapid growth of the Moroccan population over the past decades (from 12 million in 1961 to over 33 million in 2014), it is safe to say that Shilha is now spoken by more people than ever before in history. Dialect differentiation within Shilha, such as it is, has not been the subject of any targeted research, but several scholars have noted that all varieties of Shilha are mutually intelligible. The first

3240-420: The upper hand relatively recently, as they are attested only in those manuscript texts which date from the 19th and 20th centuries. In older texts, the language is still referred to as Tamaziɣt or Tamazixt "Tamazight". For example, the author Awzal (early 18th c.) speaks of nnaḍm n Tmazixt ann ifulkin "a composition in that beautiful Tamazight". Because Souss is the most heavily populated part of

3300-465: The vowel, as in kraḍ [krɐdˤ] "three", kkuẓ [kkɤzˤ] "four", sḍis [sdˤɪs] "six" (compare yan [jæn] "one", sin [sin] "two", smmus [smmʊs] "five"). Additional phonemic vowels occur sporadically in recent loanwords, for example /o/ as in rristora "restaurant" (from French). In addition to the three phonemic vowels, there are non-phonemic transitional vowels, often collectively referred to as " schwa ". Typically,

3360-661: The vowels in a strictly phonemic manner, as in Galand (1988) and all recent text editions. The chart below represents Tashlhiyt consonants in IPA, with orthographical representations added between angled brackets when different: Additional phonemic consonants occur sporadically in recent loanwords, for example /bʷ/ as in bb°a "(my) father" (from Moroccan Arabic), and /p/ as in laplaj "beach" (from French). Like other Berber languages and Arabic, Tashlhiyt has both pharyngealized ("emphatic") and plain dental consonants. There

3420-399: The work is written in a dense, inaccessible style, without a single clearly presented paradigm. Transcriptions, apart from being unconventional, are unreliable throughout. The only available accessible grammatical sketch written in a modern linguistic frame is " Le Berbère " (1988) by Lionel Galand (1920–2017), a French linguist and berberologist. The sketch is mainly based on the speech of

3480-526: Was Stumme, who observed that all speakers can understand each other, "because the individual dialects of their language are not very different." This was later confirmed by Ahmed Boukous, a Moroccan linguist and himself a native speaker of Shilha, who stated: "Shilha is endowed with a profound unity which permits the Shluh to communicate without problem, from the Ihahan in the northwest to the Aït Baamran in

3540-557: Was brutally suppressed by police acting under orders from Boujane, the caïd of the local Mesfioua tribe. Subsequent actions became one of the major irritants between Boujane's superior, the powerful Pasha of Marrakech T'hami El Glaoui , and the King of Morocco Mohammed V , which eventually led to the king's brief overthrow. The archaeological ruins visible today consist of part of the city walls, hammam , parts of some houses and qanats (irrigation canals), and some hundred metres or so of

3600-485: Was the independence from France “within the framework of a constitutional-democratic monarchy ”. The leadership of Istiqlal was successful in overcoming “petty rivalries” between the different parties and anticolonial organizations and unifying the nationalist movement. This factor added to the campaign of Moroccan activists spread across the world and contributed to achieving international visibility and support for their cause. Establishing crucial contacts for advocating

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