Re: Different languages...

Asya Pereltsvaig...

This is too general. Its like a passage picked from a kid's encuclopedia. Even the statkstics are too old, back to when Kabyles were only two millions and a half and Algerians as a whole just ten ot twelve million people. This doesnt deny the fact I told you: the continuum stretching between southern Tunisia and northern morocco. Has there been any study to deny this fact.

25 different languages for Pereltsvaig and other linguists... how well do they know them? Do tjey know them better than Andre Basset or Salem Chaker who always use the term dialect?

25 dialects or languages (as you prefer): we are faced with practical problems but Tatoeba has a solution. My solution is to use tags to show people which dialsct it is. You have chosen another solution. Fair enough. Let's move on now and let everyone go about their business.

Meksems

Shame on you. You insult people on social media then you have the nerve to address them in a hypocritical diplomatic way on a public website.

What do you mean? Why are you showing me this video? Does this have anything to do with me pewrsonally or with the topic of the flag? Please explain...

>>>> Beleive me, never seen such an obsession and racism toward a language.

Are you out of your mind? Who's the racist here? Don't you remember how you tried to discredit me and cast doubt about my "Kabyleness" simply because I was born outside of Kabyle? You're a rabid and miserable racist, not me.

Let's focus on the essential and please don't try to accuse me of "hating Kabyles". This is what your bunch of rabid haters have been trying to spread on me but how could that be possible. I'm Kabyle myself. I already told you that. I'm working for Kabyle culture as much as I'm working for the general Amazigh culture and universal culture in general. Oh, and there are many people who know me personally and know how Amazigh and Kabyle I am. For example, and contrary to you and your peers, I don't speak in French to other Kabyles. How about you? Could you deny the fact that French is your main language with many of your FB friends? Come on, stop this nonsense.

And now back to the essential:

I am actively opposed to your linguistic separatism and the political separatism it implies. Unfortunately, Mqidec (the Kabyle contributor who decided to stop contributing because of the MAK movement flag) has just informed me that he's leaving this website altogether because of the flag of this separatist organization. Don't worry, I will do undertake all the necessary steps needed to convince the admins to change this political flag. Apart from that, everything is fine by me. You could continue to work do your job peacefully and I, continue doing mine peacefully too.

samir_t

Azul a gma (salut, frère): Merci pour votre message qui était strictement scientifique. Je vois également votre réel intérêt pour avoir de riches discussions linguistiques avec moi et c'est ce que j'accepterai volontiers et avec un grand plaisir. J'y ai trouvé beaucoup de points que je partage avec vous. Je ne suis pas tout à fait d'accord avec vous concernant d'autres points et puisqu'il est tard maintenant, je vous répondrai demain.

Daɣ, akken ad yili deg tmussni-nnek, nezmer ad nemyaru s tmaziɣt (neɣ s tutlayt-nneɣ) deg uɣrab-a. Akk tutlayin zemrent ad ttwarunt deg Tatoeba. Ihi s waya, nezmzr ad nemyaru s ta-nneɣ seg uzekka d asawen. Iḍ ameggaz, a gma.

@Djaffmess

Have you seen the videos of the links I posted on this wall? It seems to me that you would use those statistics only to justify a fact that could be verified in another way. Just how were those statistics made. I'm not talking about the Tuareg-Kabyle mutual intelligibility which is the most extreme case (and your favorite, guys :-)))) I'm talking about the Shawi-Kabyle-Blida-Shenwa mutual intelligibility. Please the posts where I mention that read again and again and again and make sure that it's those dialects that I'm talking about.

Science shouldn't merely be based on statistics that were made more than 30 years ago by linguists that carried out by linguists in not-always easy environments and appropriate conditions. We are doing science here, so I find it legitimate to ask the following questions:

Who did those statistics? (If I'm not mistaken they were mentioned by Salem Chaker, right?)

Did he say when and how? Of course I don't doubt Chaker's scientific authority or methodology, but here are a few issues that should also be taken into consideration (and once more for my haters ---- one doesn't need to have a PhD to open their mouth and discuss linguistics):

Were the persons interviewed men or women? Usually, Amazigh-speaking men travel to other areas, therefore, they cold enter into contact with Amazigh speakers of other areas and they could therefore communicate and learn each other's dialect.

Were those statistics made before or after the launching of Algerian TV 4 (the Amazigh-speaking TV station) that has popularized the Amazigh Kabyle dialect across all of Algeria to such extent that nowadays, even some Algerian Arabic speakers can understand dozens of Kabyle words and phrases.

So those statistics might need to be updated and you know very well that they are not the Holy Quran. If you gave statistics that date back to the 1970's or the 1980's to a modern linguist, they'd laugh at you, brother.

And now, even after I've demonstrated you with videos (that are fact) that Shawis and Kabyles could communicate in their respective dialects, you're continuing to deny the existence of the sun in broad daylight?

@djafmess

You mention that Chaouis want to write Tamazight in the Tifinagh alphabet? Who, where, when? Did you miss this article?

http://www.lematindalgerie.com/...t-de-tamazight

Pray tell me, for God's sake.. Who's talking about reconstructing a proto-language? Djafmess... I know you very well and I used to admire your rigorous scientific spirit :-) Do you sincerely believe that what we're attempting to do here is the reconstruction of proto-Berber? Even linguists specialized in this (Marijn van Putten, Lameen Souag, Alexander Militarev, Ignacio Reyes, Catherine Taine-Cheikh) still don't know what proto-Berber looked like.

We're talking about bringing a small group of northern dialects closer with each other, perhaps using Kabyle as a basis... Is that that difficult to understand? Besides, since you have your own space on Tatoeba, then why are you still obsessed with trying to prove to the world that Kabyle is a separate language. Call it a language and I'll continue to call it a dialect of Amazigh, and that's all. It's just a matter of view, a matter of schools. Why are you so afraid?

>>>> Hors de la Kabylie, des populations entières d’amazighophones ne s’identifient pas comme amazighs et elles sont indifférentes du sort de leur langue qu'elles abandonnent petit à petit au profit de l'arabe algérien.

Ho, ho... hold on here, brother: How about the huge movements of linguistic awakening that are taking place everywhere across Algeria. Djaffmess... if you keep ignoring this, I'm afraid to say that you're wrong here, brother. They have at least two Amazigh magazines in the Aures region. In Blida, things are beginning to move after everybody thought that the language was doomed to die and they now have a radio show in Tamazight. In the Dahra region, there has always been a local cultural movement and they're now preparing books and other things. The HCA (High Commission for Amazighity) has recently published a small glossary of words in the dialect of Ouargla, and so on and so forth. Are you dismissing all this as non-existent? Are you, too, adopting this chronic pathological Kabyle ethnocentrism?

@Meksems

Another thing: On that Facebook thread where some of your peers are insulting me and there's even one that's calling for my "public lynching," you mentioned that I was an "alienated" (a person who got assimilated by another culture). This is how you're attempting to deny me the right to even open my mouth. You're belittling me, trying to discredit me and deny me, as a native speaker of the Kabyle Amazigh dialect, the right to take part in its development. Shame on you and I hereby express my deepest disgust to such despicable views.

Ahhh... You, Meksems... Thanks for your input and for giving me the opportunity to give you an appropriate reply, too:

Let's start with what you raise, and then conclude it with something more personal:

I have watched your videos, but pray tell me: who are you trying to fool here? A grown-up Kabyle Amazigh activist who, thankfully, enjoys all of his mental faculties, or the rest of the world on the Internet via Tatoeba? In one of the videos, there's a group of people from a Kabyle village in the Akbou (Bejaia, Algeria) area voting at a school. But who are they? Do we see normal villagers, old people, middle-aged people, ordinary Kabyles of all walks of life flocking in to vote? How many other villages voted? How many Kabyles voted?Do you know how many Kabyles there are in Kabylie? There are approximately 5 to 6 millions at least, and then, there's at least 1 or 2 million other Kabyles living outside of Kabylie and in the rest of Algeria and something like a million others living across Europe and other parts of the world. Did they all vote? If yes, then when and what are the statistics? Are they available online and for all of Kabylie? Were there international observers? Or are you going delusional here? Oh, and who appears in the 2nd video? Isn't that Ferhat Mehenni, the leader of the movement, announcing to the world that his movement has officially adopted that flag? Therefore it's clearly and unambiguously the flag of the racist separatist MAK movement.

Re: The Amazigh flag...

Very good. Fine. I'll tell you the story. When in 2012, I asked for the Amazigh language to be added to Tatoeba, Sysko, one of the founders of the website, asked me to provide him with a flag for the language. As you know, the Amazigh flag is composed of three horizontal stripes (from top to bottom blue, green, and yellow) and a red Tifinagh letter (yez, the equivalent of a Latin "z") in the middle, straddling the three stripes. I noticed that when the flag was reduced to just a few pixels (the way flags are usually displayed on Tatoeba), the "yez" symbol is hardly visible, if at all. That's why I requested Sysko that we use a plain white flag with a big and clearly visible "yez" symbol. At that time, there was absolutely no other Amazigh with me and we were very busy, working quickly to do all the necessary things to add the Amazigh language to Tatoeba (discussing the language code, writing e-mails to explain things and answering all the questions I was being asked by the admins and other people involved in that). However, I would be glad if the Amazigh flag was adopted as a language flag for the Amazigh language, and don't worry, I'm not against that.

>>>> We have with us real academicians, and our Admin is a PhD student.

As I told your friend Belkacem77, please stop playing the card of "you have to have PhD to discuss stuff with us." I have been to college and finished my studies there. I know linguistics much better than many of the members of your group although I certainly don't have the level of your PhD'd friends as far as theoretical linguistics are concerned. Don't worry: I have probably done more field research than most of your PhD'd friends have ever done in their lives. I am still doing field research, collecting proverbs, tales, and thousands and thousands of words (including archaisms). I'm currently working on a huge Kabyle dictionary that covers many tribes from Ait Amrane and Ait Khalfoun in the West to Kherrata and Amoucha in the east of Kabylie. This work will soon be published and I have been working on it since 1996. My collection of proverbs will also be published soon. I have countless poems that I collected from the area of Ouadhias (Iwaḍiyen, Tizi-Ouzou) and they too will be published with notes to help people understand the historical context and difficult words. But this is about myself I have talked enough about. Now, what I'd tell you about this is that it doesn't take a PhD or a degree in rocket science to discuss some socio-linguistic issues. Even a person who didn't graduate high school (and I know many, many Amazigh language activists like that) could discuss this topic with a person holding a PhD. One only needs to read books and give appropriate scientific arguments to discuss such issues. So please stop this game. It's not working.

>>>> It's more about politic, and we are apolitical, we are doing our duty, a moral duty.

Apolitical? Really? So I understand that it'd be OK if Tatoeba removed the flag of the MAK movement and replaced it with a different flag? Then that's fine by me, too. That's exactly what I and a contributor here already want, and that's also what probably many future contibutors would want, too.

@soliloquist

Belkacem77's last message has made me happy as far as changing the flag is concerned. If he's truly not interested in politics, then I understand that it should be OK to change the flag from that of the separatist MAK movement to something else. Then let's request the admins to do it.

@Belkacem77

Don't seek to categorize me, judge me, analyze me or try to know how I think or which political or ideological current I belong to. It doesn't matter here. I'm just a little insignificant man in this world. I'm talking about linguistic views. We are from two different schools so just admit that even my linguistic views have the right to exist and be respected. Don't turn the tables on me. I think you're more Jacobin than I am. I promote a view that would embrace all the diverse dialects under the same banner and you promote a view that would only take one regional dialect and standardize it, excluding all the others and within that very same area itself, you would obviously crush and deny the existence of dialects that are too close to Shawi to be considered Kabyle. Is that your view? Fair enough even if I hate it and will never adhere to it. Just admit that there could be more than one view in this world, whether you hate it or not. Anyway, I just don't care if you hate it or like it. The world is moving on. As for you, the hell with your project and your views. My views are valid, too and they'll continue to flourish and be promoted.

>>>> Let me tell you that I don't care about politics and most of the kabyle contributors did.

Then I understand that you're OK with changing the flag? Cool then...

>>>> And you have a serious pronlem with sociolinguistics. You are still qualifying Kabyle as a vulgar dialect!!!

Once again, I advise you not to make me the topic of the discussion by attacking me personally. Oh, don't worry. I'm already used to the MAK movement insults and rabid online lynchings, and whether you continue attacking me or not, I'll continue discussing this problem nonstop. Therefore, if you and your fellow contributors are bugged by what I say, I'm sorry. There's nothing I could do for you if what you hate is the simple fact that I express myself freely on an online website that doesn't belong to the MAK movement. And now, let's get back to my "problem with sociolinguistics." I'm afraid that you have nothing to teach me about this aspect of linguistics. I took linguistics for 4 years in college and I know what a dialect is. I am not belittling my own dialect, Kabyle, therefore, don't "take it fresh" to your friends on your Facebook page and tell lies on me that I "hate" Kabyles and the Amazigh Kabyle dialect. I even think that it's the leaders of the separatist MAK movement that hate Kabyles and are even ready to lead them to a disaster with Mehenni's dangerous statements that he made last June (2018).

>>>> I lived for a while in the Chawiya territory and no Chawi could understand me, and can't understand him.

Here we go again with denying the undeniable. Your experience is personal. No one was there with you to check whether it was true or not and how you tried to communicate with them. My proof was factual: I posted links to videos of Shawis and Kabyles speaking on a television show and they could understand each other and I also posted another link to a video of a guy from Chlef that everyone in Kabylie could understand. Your personal stories offer no proof. Your readers on this website from Canada or India can't verify if this is true or not but they could ask Kabyles to verify the mutual intelligibility of those videos.

>>>> Unicity notion comes from our background within algerian school/language politics/religion: One language (arabic), one religion (Islam)...

I have a problem with diversity? Please come back to your senses, dude! Am I not the one who is calling for the embracing of all this dialectal diversity under a single Amazigh banner? If I had a problem with diversity, I would have been a member of your team that considers Kabyle as a language on its own. However, I consider Kabyle as a tile, a bridge, as a stone in a language continuum that, as I said in one of my previous messages, stretches from at least southern Tunisia to northern Morocco. A language continuum composed of Tunisian dialects, Shawi, Tasahlit, mainstream Kabyle, Blida Atlas Tamazight, the Chenoua dialect, Beni Snous (Tlemcen, Algeria), and Riffian in Morocco. We think differently. It's natural. You have chosen your language school and I have chosen mine. Salem Chaker's school, the school of linguists that still considers that the Amazigh language is a set of related dialects, not the school of linguists that say that Amazigh is a family of closely-related languages. Why would you try to impose your view on me. I don't believe and would not believe in it and I am taking concrete steps, alongside many other Amazighs in various regions, to build a modern standard or vehicular language for us all, ie Kabyles and other Amazigh speakers. Where is the problem with that? Aren't you being intolerant here? Just continue whatever you are doing and let others continue their work, too. Wasn't that what you were saying yourself a few weeks ago?

>>>> We were born in Kabylia, raised and lived there, unlike you who was born in Algiers and still living tehere.

Here you go with personal attacks again. Are you trying to cast doubt about my language competence? As I told you, I could sell you away and back in my language yet I seriously doubt that many of your peers are as competent as I am. And there's not just me. Many, many Algiers-born Kabyles are more competent in Amazigh (Kabyle) than many of your friends in Kabylie. And what are you trying to imply here? That you are "superman" simply because you were born in Kabyle. I completely hate and despise this view. I am utterly disgusted by this racist view. You see how racist and despicable you and your friends are even towards other Kabyles? I know how the members of the separatist group think and even if you'd perhaps deny that you're not a member of that group, you're one of their sympathizers. You would make sure to insult and try and hurt just anyone who disagrees with you even if they were born in Kabylie or in the same village as you. So please, Belkacem77, please... stop that silly game. It's getting too personal here but also too ridiculous. Oh, and by the way... you have already insulted me in this racist way multiple times on your disgusting Facebook page and... well... I'm sort of glad that you couldn't resist to continue to belittle me with this racist argument even here on Tatoeba.

And now, let's give you and the naive or ill-intentioned people that are racist towards Algiers Kabyle an appropriate response:

Many of the Kabyles that were born in Algiers regularly visit Kabylie. I myself spent part of my childhood in Kabylie and you, miserable guy, don't have anything to teach me about this region which I consider my native region as well. I know just everything about the region: towns, villages, people, families, friends. I married a woman from the area. I visit regularly. I stay there regularly. I also do cultural activities there (talks, trainings, Amazigh classes, Amazigh book distribution and promotion, etc.). You're not going to question my love or my commitment to promote the Amazigh Kabyle culture and my concern to protect Kabylie, its people, its culture, and even its nature. Your attempt to try and "reject" me from "Kabylehood" was too weak and too naive.


>>> You are not academician.. so you can't understand linguistics implications as they can do.

Laughable. I think that even foreign Tatoeba readers are going to laugh at that. I took 4 years of linguistics. I graduated from a language department. Hello.... good morning... anybody there? Language studies are the same no matter which language you study. They studied linguistics and I did, too. They can speak the Amazigh Kabyle dialect and I can speak it, too. In fact, I have also taught it in a cultural association in various cultural centers across Algiers and I probably write in Amazigh more than most academicians do. You can't fool anyone, Belkacem77: I have had a look at your Facebook pages and also your Tatoeba pages and you communicate in French on all those pages. One of your peers called me "alienated" (totally assimilated by another culture). You seem to love to judge people without knowing them. You judge people who don't agree with you to belittle them and, therefore, discredit them. You seem to be miserably trying to attack me from various angles to weaken me and make me doubt myself, but nah... no, no, no... This isn't working. Belkacem77: It doesn't take a rocket scientist to understand the problems we are talking about. Even if I didn't study linguistics in my university curriculum, if I read enough books and had enough interest, I'd be able to mop the floor with you at linguistics. Many language activists never even went to college and they could understand and discuss linguistic problems. So please don't play that card of "you need to have a PhD in linguistics to talk to me and my friends."

And I'm pretty sure that even if I don't have the same (prestigious) academic level that some of your peers have, I'm much better than you at linguistics. You're a computer scientist. You specialize in computers. I graduated in a foreign language and I, believe me, I DO KNOW all what there is to know to discuss linguistics. And... I kid you not: I have also been doing field research since 1996. Where were you back then? Sleeping? At college? At school? It doesn't matter. But as far as I am concerned, I was already collecting Kabyle poetry, proverbs, and folk tales in Kabyle villages (Azazga, Timizar, Issers, Yakouren, Ouadhias, Ain-El-Hammam, Toudja, Beni Douala, etc.). I'll soon publish a Kabyle-French dictionary almost as big as Dallet's dictionary, and I am very experienced at lexicography, dialectology, etymology, and many other sub-fields of linguistics (which is a vast science, naturally).

So please don't insult me so childishly. We're no longer in elementary school where a kid would try and annoy you with personal attacks. If you don't have anything to say, just keep quiet. Hey, and don't be a hypocrite: If I joined your team under the MAK racist and separatist movement, you would have spoken high of me to your hypocrite peers (you're a hypocrite yourself because you have all been insulting me on your page and there is even a brilliant guy who is encouraging you to "lynch me in public"). But now as I said no to participating in your project, you're attacking, belittling, and insulting me. Shame on you. I'm utterly disgusted by your hypocrisy.


>>>> I will ask all the 60 contributors on our Kabyle FB page of Tatoeba and say them if the actual flag hurts them and come back again.

OK, and I will be doing my job on the other side.

>>>> I invite you to our Facebook page where the community is discussing about our locale on Tatoeba. FB is more open and more easy to discuss things. FB page: https://web.facebook.com/groups/1339836186152877/

I publicly reject your invitation. I hate hypocrites. You have been insulting me on your Facebook page. You're apparently so upset with my refusal to be part of linguistic separatism that you couldn't contain yourself and you even attacked me personally on Tatoeba. Mind you that some of your FB friends insulted me with vulgar words and you seemed to approve that. Another person called for my "public lynching". Of course, I am not afraid of cowards like those. I lived through the dark decade of terrorism in the Algerian civil war on the 1990's, so I wouldn't be afraid of a despicable and cowardly big-mouthed "keyboard warrior." I would love not to have anything to do with you after this.

>>>> You also discover other works: Kabyle Common voice with Mozilla, Deep Speech, STT, LibreOffice, OpenOffice, Linux Mint, OpenSuse, Evernote, CLDR, .....

I know you. I helped you occasionally. I guess you know who I am. But now I'm not interested in your work nor am I interested in talking to you unless there is something that needs to be answered.

Oh, and by the way and regarding LibreOffice, OpenOffice, etc. I'm actively involved in working on the Amazigh (BER) version of those programs. Forgot to mention that. We are even working on a huge Amazigh (BER) Wikipedia that's still in the incubator. The world is big, vast, diverse, and people are pretty much free to be creative and work on whatever they choose to.

@sabretou

Please read how the flag was designed, who made it and who adopted it:

https://www.crwflags.com/fotw/flags/dz-kab.html

Besides, and because of this flag, many Kabyles willing to participate to the Tatoeba project in their dialect would simply shun the website.

He says:
>>>> It does'nt belong to a special organization.

I have just given the proof that it's the MAK movement that designed the flag, the flag isn't unanimously adopted by Kabyles as their symbol. The MAK separatist movement represents only itself and its members. I just wonder what proof Belkacem77 has presented to prove that this flag is that of all Kabyles. There is a Tatoeba user that doesn't want to continue contributing sentences in Kabyle because of the MAK flag and he asked me to raise the issue. I can send copies of his private messages to the admins in case they request that. Actually, he agreed that I raise the issue to the admins. Should what Belkacem77 say be taken for face value? I have proof here and he has no proof at all.

>>>> and in Algeria the Chawi Flag, the Mozabit Flag,

The flags he is talking about could either belong to autonomist movements that represent only those movements alone and most of the Amazigh-speaking residents of those Shawi (Aures) area and the Mzab Valley don't even know them.

He mentioned the flags of Catalonia, Cosrica and the Basque Country and I say once again that the flag of the MAK separatist movement is neither the flag of a recognized autonomous or administrative region in Algeria. Kabylie straddles 7 different Algerian wilayas (provinces) and it's more than a human-geographic region than an administrative region with clear borders. It's true that it has its own dialect(s) and cultural particularism (just as any region in Algeria) however, it neither has formal administrative borders nor a cultural flag that every Kabyle identifies with. Catalonia, Corsica and the Basque Country have official territories that are designed and recognized by the central governments of the countries they belong to. Their flags are also officially recognized by the central governments of those countries. Those flags were also designed centuries ago and weren't created by modern separatist organizations.

People have the right to choose to support or not support a political organization and not all Kabyles (far from it indeed) support this separatist and potentially dangerous organization called MAK. Therefore, I reiterate that I insistently request Tatoeba to change this flag and have it replaced with a different language flag.

Sabretou: I also find your suggestion of replacing it with a white flag containing the ISO code for the Kabyle dialect is a good idea as well.

@belkacem77

You have started personal attacks like statements like "They are more aware about their language than you are."

I don't doubt their professional competence and this is not my concern here. Just avoid casting doubt about my competence as well. I am a native speaker who is far more fluent than many of those people that you're using French to communicate with on Facebook even though they are from Kabylie. I am also competent in linguistics and perfectly armed with what I need to know to argue with you or with any professional linguist.

I know what a language is, what a dialect is, what a language continuum is and what a diasystem is. Don't try to belittle my competence and I especially advise you not to belittle my competence in using the language (Kabyle dialect) and writing it. You would be wasting your time and energy trying to do this.

I have already read the insults and rabid criticism your peers have been pouring on your Facebook page. So please don't make things personal even here on Tatoeba. Your Facebook page is private space (although I reserve the right to report any gravely inappropriate behavior to both Facebook and other authorities if need be), but this wall is public and don't pollute it with personal attacks. Even if you did that, I could mop the floor of this wall with you and anyone who dares to attack me personally.

Don't pretend not to understand the issue I have raised. Tatoeba has accepted to add the Kabyle Amazigh dialect to its language list and I'm not questioning that. We were talking about word choice, grammatical pattern choice, standardization, and stuff.

So just don't panic. Nobody is questioning your "locale."

The flag chosen by Tatoeba for the Kabyle Amazigh dialect is highly problematic:

I would like to raise an important (if not a serious) issue here. A Tatoeba user sent me a private message telling me that although they wanted to contribute sentences in the Kabyle Amazigh dialect, they don't want to do it because of the flag chosen to symbolize this regional variant of Amazigh. I have already sent a private message to an admin to raise this issue with the owner of the website.

In fact, this flag isn't the flag of the region of Kabylie which is part of Algeria but the flag of a political separatist [1][2] movement known by its French abbreviation, MAK, which stands for "Mouvement pour l'autodétermination de la Kabylie" and which translates as "Movement for the Self-Determination of Kabylie" in English. This is a mere and marginal political movement in Kabylie itself. It has a so-called government-in-exile based in Paris, France, and perhaps a few thousand real supporters scattered across the towns and villages of Kabylie.

Besides, everyone in Algeria knows now that, last June (2018), the leader of this movement, Ferhat Mehenni (currently living in France) called for the setting up of armed militia that he euphemistically referred to as "groupes de contrainte" [3] in French (a bizarre term that, if translated word-for-word would give "constraint groups"). Of course, many Kabyles and Algerians were shocked by the declaration and it seems that this movement is progressively moving towards more radical policies, including the use of armed violence against anyone who doesn't agree with them.

What matters now is the following: although many Kabylophones could be interested in contributing sentences directly in Kabyle, many of those who are against this movement would shun Tatoeba for adopting Kabyle under the flag of a radical separatist and potentially dangerous movement whose political behavior could be unpredictable in an already politically troubled North Africa.

Of course, adding Kabyle as a dialect or a regional variant of the Amazigh language isn't a problem in itself. As much as Arabic on Tatoeba is available both as a macro-language (ARA - but in fact represented by standard Arabic) and as a couple of dialects (including Algerian Arabic and Egyptian Arabic), Kabyle could also be available as a dialect of the Amazigh macro-language, why not as long as this is done for the sake of science and language documlentation? However, it would be an error to symbolize this dialect with the flag of a small and highly unpopular separatist and potentially violent political movement that most Kabyles don't support anyway.

We are not talking here about the flag of a recognized autonomous region like the flag of Catalonia or that of the Basque country that are both autonomous regions recognized by the Spanish central government. We are also not talking about a cultural flag such as the Amazigh (Berber) flag that's now popular everywhere in North Africa or the Aborigine cultural flag of Australia, that type of flag that symbolizes solidarity between all the communities and members of a certain cultural or language or even religious community. This flag is the flag of the MAK separatist movement and it's only official and supported by the members and sympathizers of that movement. One doesn't have to be from this movement to be a Kabyle or contribute cultural works in the Kabyle Amazigh dialect.

This is why I would like to publicly ask Tatoeba to reconsider the choice of this flag.

There could be alternative solutions to this flag. As far as I am concerned, I have two in mind:

1- Either we follow the example adopted by Tatoeba for South African languages (Afrikaans, Xhosa, Zulu, etc.) consisting in using the national flag with a white margin on the right of the flag containing the ISO code of the language symbolized by the flag. In this case, we could use the Algerian flag with that white margin on the right of the flag and a small KAB code on it. In fact, Kabyle is native to Algeria. Algeria is the only country where Kabyle is native to.

2- We use the pan-Amazigh cultural flag [4] in the same way stated above: flag + white margin on the right with the ISO code on it.

In the end, let me remind you, dear Tatoeba admins and members, no matter how Kabyles could be frustrated and dissatisfied with the Algerian government (just as millions of their brethren and fellow citizens across Algeria), they should not be represented, as a community, by a mere political separatist organization. Millions of Kabyles are still proud to consider themselves as Algerians and a mere political separatist organization shouldn't take advantage of the Internet's virtual to present itself as the "sole" representative of a few million Algerian citizens living in an Algerian region. If we're living today in a world where minorities are protected and respected, then even majorities should be respected and shouldn't be silenced by the extravagant ideas of some small political groups. This is why I insistently ask for the respect of other Algerian and Kabyle sensitivities as far as this region is concerned.

Links for reference:

[1] https://www.nationalia.info/new...le-sovereignty

[2] https://www.crwflags.com/fotw/flags/dz-kab.html

[3] http://www.lematindalgerie.com/...ps-de-securite

[4] https://fotw.info/flags/xb.html

samir_t

Re: "little village"

That was just a turn of phrase. I didn't mean that the possessive "-is" is literally only used in a little village but I only tried to criticize the fact that some people, especially from the southern central area of Tizi-Ouzou (Larbaa Nath Irathen, Ain-El-Hammam, Ath Ouacif and Ath Yenni) tend to consider that their Kabyle subdialect is the center of the whole world and that all Kabyles, including Ait Khalfoun in Boumerdes and the Kherrata and Ait Smail tribe in Bejaia, should speak their own variety of Kabyle, thinking that it's the only "beautiful" variety of Kabyle on earth. You know what I mean?

samir_t

Re: Standard Kabyle

There are different schools of thought in almost every domain of knowledge. Some want to standardize each dialect separately then move towards convergence. Fair enough. Others want to suggest (not impose, not invent, not imagine but simply suggest) a standard language made up of words common to most dialects. That is exactly what is going on in Morocco, but also in the Algerian radio and TV and some other cultural circles. Schools of thought need to respect each other. That's all and this is why I didn't appreciate much the word "disfigure" that was used yesterday in one of your comments.

And now, if you want us to move on (and I'd love that, too), I'll start explaining you some of my choices. That would help dispel and clarify lots of things that could be observed in my sentences.

I think that this wall might not be the right place to do this. Therefore I'll be doing it in the comment section of each sentence that illustrates one of the linguistic and grammatical points I'd like to detail for you and other Amazighophone contributors who might be interested. I'd also answer questions with pleasure.

samir_t

>>>> I noticed that when you talk about "separatists" you seem to be aiming at the whole team that writes under the Kabyle flag, that's why I answered that.

Far from that. I don't. I have some friends among the group (some real friends). Mind you: the world is small and our Amazigh-language movement is even smaller. I even know the leader of the group online. Too bad I'm now being mauled by some of those people (but not by the true friends). Other members of that team know me, too or at least know my cultural association.

There are even members of the Kabyle team that are against the separatist movement. I can't help but raise the issue of the separatist movement because most of those who promote the idea of the "Kabyle language" happen to be racist separatists, pathologically aggressive, oversensitive, paranoid, and allergic to any scientific debate.

If you claim that you're not a separatist then fair enough and it'd be a pleasure for me to learn that. Some of those lunatic political extremists even consider me as a person who hates Kabyles. How could these rabid psychopaths accuse me, as a proud Kabyle, proud of my origins and cultural identity, and proud of my region in Algeria, Kabylie, to be a Kabyle-hater? I probably speak Kabyle more than they do. They seem to speak in French even between them. Such despicable and incorrigible hypocrites. Do you understand now why I'm so vehemently critical towards them?

Don't misinterpret my harsh criticism towards them as an attack against all Kabyles. I am Kabyle myself and I have spent almost 20 years of my life teaching Amazigh orthography to mostly Kabyles. Today those rabid sociopaths can't just come and insult me and deny all what I and my association have done for the Amazigh culture and language. Yet no one should be surprised by the ingratitude of rabid extremists who are ready to do just anything, including pushing the you to take up arms against the Algerian people to reach their political goals.

>>>> when you are disfiguring the Kabyle language to bring it closer to the Tachaouit, Tamzabit, or I do not know.

Excuse you! This is should be considered as a good thing and not a bad thing. Other Amazigh speakers are already doing it elsewhere. I know a group of Mozabites that are borrowing Kabyle words of Amazigh origin to replace Arabic words that have been borrowed excessively in this dialect. Also many journalists from the Aures, the Chenoua area and Mzab are doing the same. Things are going towards standardization and dialectic convergence, not towards isolation.


Re: "-nnes"

If you only visited your own area, Kabylie, you would realize that hundreds of villages in the Chaabet El Ameur, Ait Khalfoun, Issers, Tadmait, Tizi-Ghennif, Draa El Mizan (in the western Kabylie) and Kherrata, Bouandas, Babors, Amoucha, etc. (in eastern Kabylie) do use "-nnes." I wouldn't blame you for not knowing that, but I blame those who think that their little villages in central Kabylie are the center of the world.

>>>> And then, useless that you always call us racist, I'm not racist,

Who is talking about you? I talk about the despicable rabid racists who insult me online and who happen to be supporters of the MAK movement (Movement for the Self-Determination of Kabylie), a separatist movement that's openly racist and seeks to continue its political action through armed violence. Even if you were a member of that movement, I consider that I have the right to criticize it and denounce it. I don't know you personally and I have absolutely no interest in having personal problems with you, so please don't personalize my criticism towards this movement and its bunch of rabid foul-mouthed people.

>>>> Or when we have no argument against someone, we immediately call him a bad guy?

Ask those who insulted me in private and maybe you'll know who matches the description that you're giving here. Otherwise, I'm open to scientific debate as long as it is peaceful and respectful.

But please and for God's sake, if you want to discuss scientific points related to my sentences, please avoid accusing me of "disfiguring" the language. I find this such a shocking and disrespectful word. I work with many people who write the Amazigh language and even if our views and suggestions are different, we keep the debate at a respectable level. We respect each other's suggestions and we criticize scientifically and technically.

I am ready to explain you every single word choice or grammatical pattern choice I have made point by point, if you will. I think that this would help us clear lots of ambiguities and misunderstandings. However, I'd love that we do it in a respectable manner.

I can see that they are writing incomplete sentences, titles, slogans, proverbs, expressions, idioms, compound terms and just anything that crosses their minds. It's more about doodling than writing complete example sentences or correct translations. I have also been through some of their messages where they have been vehemently insulting me (big smile :-) Believe me, I'm smiling because they just can't change their habits of rabid racist and extremist lunatics suffering from a persecution syndrome. The would almost automatically insult just any person who disagrees with them. Not much different from the violent Islamist groups, huh? In one of their insulting comments, they said that I was writing in a language that only I could understand. It comes as no surprise when people who have limited knowledge and want can't understand the subdialect of the next village wouldn't be able to understand Mouloud Mammeri's neologisms that have been around since 50 years now.

I would like to urge you, @djafmess to stop supporting this racist separatist group and stop contributing under their banner. Their corpus is rife with horrible errors and it's already as big as a public dump. I doubt there could be someone or even a group that could correct all that mess. Just join me again. The Amazigh corpus is much cleaner and internally coherent.