@belkacem77, @cueyayotl, @Amastan, @amazigh84, @Meksems

In a private message that Trang sent me, she suggested that we continue to discuss this topic publicly. In fact, I too prefer this because several of my colleagues are already reading what we have posted here and they might be interested in joining the discussion.

Here is my point: I totally understand that Tatoeba doesn't want to move away from the ISO 639-3 categorization, however, the aspirations of Amazigh language activists (like myself and thousands of other people + millions of speakers) should be taken into consideration, the Algerian and Moroccan states are working on everything related to the standardization of the Amazigh language (requesting an ISO code, etc.) and I think that we better keep the status quo before Tatoeba decides to do anything with the corpus currently available under the Amazigh/Berber flag.

I have spent more than 20 years of my miserable life studying, learning, and teaching the Amazigh language. I did research on various dialects (including the Blida Atlas dialect, Shawi, Amoucha dialect [near Kherrata in the Bejaia/Setif area], the Zenata dialect spoken in Timimoun [Adrar area], etc.) and I can confirm that there is an undeniable mutual intelligibility between the speakers of all those dialects that I can speak myself together with many of my colleagues. I have also studied linguistics for 4 years and taught basic linguistics for a year to would-be field researchers (2005-2006 [my wife took part in the training]).

I am well aware about the issues regarding the distinction between what is a language and what is a dialect (regional variant). Brilliant linguists like Salem Chaker have always claimed and continue to claim that, because of its unified grammatical structure, the Amazigh language should be considered as one language.

Please have a look at this article (in French) authored by Pr Salem Chaker regarding this issue:

https://www.facebook.com/notes/...0303391649292/

What I can confirm myself is that there is a true language continuum stretching, at least, from southern Tunisia to central northern Morocco, including ALL the northern Saharan oases (Figuig, Timimoun, Bechar, Boussemghoune, Mzab, Ouargla, etc.).

All the people of those areas speak the dialects of the very same language and it would take an Amazigh speaker only a week of direct linguistic exchange to learn how to speak any of those dialects.

Contrary to what Belcakem claims, the prefixes (there are not many) are the same for all the dialects (there could only be slight differences in the pronunciation) and the basic vocabulary is the same almost everywhere.

Last but not least: the conjugation is the same and it makes inter-dialectal communication amazingly easy. You know very well that even in Kabylie we have people that don't even deign to learn the expressions used in the next village, so how would we get them to listen and get familiar with dialects spoken some 200 miles away from their village? Yet other Kabyles can speak at least 1 other dialect, and many Shawis and Chenouis and even more Moroccans can understand Kabyle in addition to their own dialects, and they would use words of various dialects in their texts, poetry, or novels. It took me only 10 days to learn Shawi. I can also speak Spanish and it took me 9 months to learn it.

Conjugation markers are the same. The ventive particle is the same. The predicative particle is the same. The factitive verb prefix is the same. The passive verb prefix is the same. The marks of the feminine are the same. Almost all the structural grammatical elements are the same.

CONJUGATION:
All the dialects have the following conjugation markers:

-ɣ --- Ssneɣ - I know
t-d ---- Tessned - You know
y- ----- Yessen - He knows
t- ----- Tessen - She knows
n- ----- Nessen - We know
-n ----- Ssnen - They know (masculine)
-nt ----- Ssnent - They know (feminine)

This conjugation is the same in virtually every dialect. Only minor phonological differences could exist and those phonological differences exist even inside Kabylie.

VENTIVE PARTICLE:
It indicates the direction of the action and it is "d" in every Amazigh dialect including in the Zenaga of Mauritania (that I am currently and painstakingly documenting):

Yerwel ---- He ran away.
Yerwel-d ---- He ran away (towards us/He came running).

PREDICATIVE PARTICLE:
It is used to introduce something in a sentence and it's the equivalent of "it is" or simply the verb "to be" in English. This particle is "d":

D argaz. ---- He is a man/It is a man.

This sentence is the same everywhere.

FACTITIVE VERB PARTICLE (s-):

The factitive verb prefix is the same. In fact all the verb prefixes are the same, and some of them include:

"S-" The prefix of the factictive verb (to make sb do something):

Ečč (to eat)
Ssečč (to feed, to make sb eat sth)

You guys know very well that even in Kabylie, there are people who pronounce it "ccečč" but this is just a regional variant of the same prefix.

"TTW-" The prefix of the passive verb (to be done):

Ečč (to eat)
Ttwečč (to be eaten)

Ssen (to know)
Ttwassen (to be known)

This prefix is the same everywhere.

The word order is absolutely the same in all the dialects. That's what Salem Chaker calls the "deep unity" of the language.

Even my own mother can understand the Shawi and the Chenoua dialects although she was born and raised in Kabylie.

I have always wanted this website to be a place for all the dialects to flourish, yet I would love to see that taking place under the same language flag. As I am documenting the Zenaga dialect, I am also anxious to start publishing the wonderful sentences of my main Mauritanian informant on this website (and on his behalf), making thus Tatoeba, a website that could play a significant role in the documentation of dying dialects like Zenaga.

Complaining about not being able to unify the dialects or considering each dialect as a separate language reminds me of some of my Kabyle students and colleagues who would, in order to excuse themselves from speaking in Kabyle/Tamazight (preferring to speak in French or Arabic with Kabyles), they would tell me that "the Kabyle of your village is quite different from that of my village, so let's just communicate in French or Arabic". Such an excuse is also give by some Kabyle speakers from Tizi-Ouzou who would prefer to speak in Arabic or French just to avoid speaking in Kabyle with Kabyle speakers from Bejaia (this is very common in Algiers, the city where I live). This also reminds me of some of my English students who, before even they learn how to conjugate a verb in present simple, they would be asking me if what I'm teaching them is UK or US English, and before even they listen to anything in English, they'd complain that American English is "impossible to understand" (as if they had ever really tried to listen and understand it).

So I categorically refuse to endorse the division of the Amazigh language into various separate languages for the reasons I have stated above. My suggestion is that we keep things just as they are now, waiting for some upcoming development that I don't think would take a long time to come. As for how to differentiate between the dialects of the Amazigh corpus of which all my sentences are part, as I said, I'd use tags for each dialect.

I hope you understand that.