ayearinlanguage: A Year in Language, day 36: KabyleKabyle is a Berber language, a branch of the Afro
ayearinlanguage: A Year in Language, day 36: KabyleKabyle is a Berber language, a branch of the Afro-Asiatic language family. It is spoken by ethnic Berbers in northern Algeria. The Berber branch is most closely related to the Semitic branch and shares a number of features.Kabyle is generally considered to have only three vowels, /i/, /a/, and /u/. Interestingly enough almost all languages with only three vowels have these same three, which are made in maximally distant points in the mouth from one another.Most Kabyle consonants have a two way distinction, not between voiced and voiceless (though this distinction is also made), but between “plain” and “emphatic”. “Emphatic consonants are a common feature in both Berber and Semitic languages, and typically implies that the consonant is “pharyngealized” meaning they are doubly articulated with a restriction in the pharynx.Kabyle verbs undergo root mutation, i.e. change vowels or add/alter consonants in ways that are not completely predictable, to show a change of tense and use regular affixes to show agreement. A similar system likely fused the two aspects of conjugation to give rise to the Semitic system of consonant verb roots and vowel formats. -- source link