Zenaga Language

Zenaga (autonym Tuḍḍungiyya) is a Berber language spoken by some 200 people between Mederdra and the Atlantic coast in southwestern Mauritania and in Senegal. The language shares its basic structure with other Berber languages, but specific details are quite different; in fact, it is probably the most divergent surviving Berber language, with a significantly different sound system made even more distant by sound changes such as /l/ > /dj/ and /x/ > /k/, as well as a difficult-to-explain profusion of glottal stops. The name 'Zenaga' comes from that of a much larger ancient Berber tribe (Iznagen), known in Arabic as the Senhaja.

Zenaga was once spoken throughout much of Mauritania, but fell into decline when its speakers were defeated by the Maqil Arabs in the Char Bouba war of the seventeenth century. After this war, they were forbidden to bear arms, and variously became either specialists in Islamic religious scholarship or servants to more powerful tribes. It was among the former, more prestigious group that Zenaga survived longest.

In 1940 (Dubié 1940), Zenaga was spoken by about 13,000 people belonging to four nomadic tribes distributed in an area roughly bounded by St. Louis, Podor, Boutilimit, and Nouakchott (but including none of these cities):

• Tashumsha ("the five"): 4653 speakers out of 12000 members
• D-abu-djhes (Arabic Id-ab-lahsen): 5000 out of 5000
• Gumdjedjen (Arabic Ikumleilen), subtribe of the Ida ou el Hadj: 700 (out of Ida ou el Hadj population of 4600)
• Tendgha: 2889 out of 8500

(Zenaga names from Nicolas (1953:102.)

These tribes, according to Dubié, traditionally specialised in Islamic religious scholarship, and led a nomadic lifestyle, specialising in sheep and cows. (Camel-herding branches of the same tribes had already switched to Arabic.) Even then, many speakers were shifting to Hassaniya Arabic, the main language of Mauritania, and all were bilingual. Zenaga was used only within the tribe, and it was considered impolite to speak it when non-speakers were present; some speakers deliberately avoided using Zenaga with their children, hoping to give them a head start in Hassaniya. However, many speakers regarded Zenaga as a symbol of their independence and their religious fervor; Dubie cites a Hassaniya proverb: "A Moor who speaks Zenaga is certainly not a Zenagui (a member of a servant tribe.)"

Half a century later, the number of speakers is reportedly under 300 (according to Ethnologue). While Zenaga appears to be nearing extinction, Hassaniya, the dominant spoken Arabic dialect of Mauritania, contains a substantial number of Zenaga loanwords (more than 10% of the vocabulary.)

There are significant dialect differences within Zenaga, notably between the Id-ab-lahsen and Tendgha dialects.

The ISO 639-2 and ISO 639-3 codes for Zenaga are "zen".