- Also spoken in
- Algeria
- Script
- Latin
Where it's spoken
Article 3 of Algeria's constitution says that Arabic is the national and official language, and Article 4 says that Tamazight is also a national and an official language. The constitution does not name Kabyle. Article 4 adds that the State is to work to promote and develop Tamazight in all its linguistic varieties in use throughout the national territory, that an Algerian academy for the Tamazight language is to be established under the authority of the President of the Republic, and that an organic law is to set the modalities of implementing the Article.
Omniglot says that Kabyle has speakers mostly living in Algeria, mainly in Kabylie in the north of the country, and also some speakers in France, Belgium, the USA and a number of other countries.
Sources
- Algeria's Constitution of 2020 — Comparative Constitutions Project — Articles 3 and 4
- Omniglot — Kabyle language, alphabet and pronunciation — Introduction
Script & pronunciation
Omniglot says that Kabyle is nowadays generally written with the Latin alphabet, using Mouloud Mammeri's orthography. It adds that Tifinagh is used mainly for decorative purposes in Algeria, and that the Arabic script was sometimes used, although only by Muslim clerics in religious schools. A Canadian linguistic-rights survey of Algeria says that Kabylie opted for the Latin alphabet a long time ago.
The app's cards are written in Latin letters only, with no separate line of romanization. They include letters beyond the basic English alphabet, such as the letter ɣ in Fehmeɣ, the card for "I understand".
Sources
- Omniglot — Kabyle language, alphabet and pronunciation — Writing systems
- Algérie: Situation géographique et démolinguistique. L'aménagement linguistique dans le monde, Université Laval — Passage on Kabylie and the Latin alphabet
Grammar essentials
WALS gives a basic order of subject, object and verb of VSO, with the verb first, for Kabyle, citing Chaker as its source. For verb-initial languages, WALS also records Kabyle under the value that the negative is obligatorily doubled, again citing Chaker.
The app's card for "I don't understand", Ur fhimeɣ ara, shows this in practice: according to its note, negation wraps the verb as ur … ara, and dropping ara is an error unless another negative word is present.
Sources
- WALS Online (Dryer, Matthew S. & Haspelmath, Martin, eds.) — Features 81A and 144T, Kabyle datapoints