Languages of Libya

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Languages of Libya
Grave of Sahabi Ruwaifa Al-Ansari.jpg
Arabic sign at the grave of Sahabi Ruwaifa Al-Ansari
Official Standard Arabic
Vernacular Libyan Arabic, other varieties of Arabic
Minority various Berber languages, Domari, Tedaga, Turkish, Greek
Foreign Italian, French, English, Maldivian
Signed Libyan Sign Language
Keyboard layout
Ethnolinguistic map of Libya Libya ethnic.svg
Ethnolinguistic map of Libya

The official language of Libya is Modern Standard Arabic. Most residents speak one of the varieties of Arabic as a first language, most prominently Libyan Arabic, but also Egyptian Arabic and Tunisian Arabic.

Contents

Major language

Arabic

The official language of Libya is Arabic. [1] The local Libyan Arabic variety is the common spoken vernacular.

Minority languages

Berber

Various Berber languages are also spoken, including Tamahaq, Ghadamès, Nafusi, Zuwara, Yefren, Fezzan, [2] Kufra and Awjilah. [3] Both Berber and Arabic languages belong to the wider Afroasiatic family.

The most significant berber speaking group, the Nafusi, is concentrated in the Tripolitanian region. [4] Berber languages are also spoken in some cases, including Ghadamès, Awjilah, and formerly Sawknah. Tamahaq is spoken by the Tuareg people.

Libya's former Head of State Muammar Gaddafi denied the existence of Berbers as a separate ethnicity, and called Berbers a "product of colonialism" created by the West to divide Libya. The Berber language was not recognized or taught in schools, and for years it was forbidden in Libya to give children Berber names. [5] [6]

During the First Libyan Civil War, the National Transitional Council broadcast in Tamazight for two hours a day. [7]

Domari

The Domari, an Indo-Iranian language spoken by the Dom people (ca. 33,000 speakers).

Tedega

Tedaga, a Saharan language is spoken by the previously nomadic Teda people. The exact number of Teda is unknown. [8]

Turkish

A minority of Turkish speakers can be found in Libya, most of them belonging to the Kouloughli ethnicity that inhabit cities like Tripoli, Benghazi, and Misrata.

Italian

Italian is spoken in the Italian Libyan community. Number of Italians and Italian speakers has drastically diminished since Libya's declaration of independence and mass repatriation of Italians.

Greek

The Greek language is spoken by an unknown number of speakers in Cyrenaica by some of the descendants of Greek Muslims (locally called Gritlis) who settled in the region at the end of the 19th century.

Coptic

The Coptic language is spoken as a Liturgical Language by the Coptic community in Libya.

Foreign languages

English is a notable foreign language in business and for economical purposes and also spoken by the young generation. English and Italian are used in commerce, due to the large influx of foreigners. [9]

After the Libyan Civil War and the help coming from France, the French language gained popularity among the younger generations. French authorities expressed their interest to encourage the teaching of French in Libya. [10]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Arabic</span> Semitic language and lingua franca of the Arab world

Arabic is a Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in the Arab world. The ISO assigns language codes to 32 varieties of Arabic, including its standard form of Literary Arabic, known as Modern Standard Arabic, which is derived from Classical Arabic. This distinction exists primarily among Western linguists; Arabic speakers themselves generally do not distinguish between Modern Standard Arabic and Classical Arabic, but rather refer to both as al-ʿarabiyyatu l-fuṣḥā or simply al-fuṣḥā (اَلْفُصْحَىٰ).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Berber languages</span> Family of languages and dialects indigenous to North Africa

The Berber languages, also known as the Amazigh languages or Tamazight, are a branch of the Afroasiatic language family. They comprise a group of closely related but mostly mutually unintelligible languages spoken by Berber communities, who are indigenous to North Africa. The languages are primarily spoken and not typically written. Historically, they have been written with the ancient Libyco-Berber script, which now exists in the form of Tifinagh. Today, they may also be written in the Berber Latin alphabet or the Arabic script, with Latin being the most pervasive.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Libya</span> Country in North Africa

Libya, officially the State of Libya, is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. Libya borders the Mediterranean Sea to the north, Egypt to the east, Sudan to the southeast, Chad to the south, Niger to the southwest, Algeria to the west, and Tunisia to the northwest, as well as maritime borders with Greece, Italy and Malta to the north. Libya comprises three historical regions: Tripolitania, Fezzan, and Cyrenaica. With an area of almost 1.8 million km2 (700,000 sq mi), it is the fourth-largest country in Africa and the Arab world, and the 16th-largest in the world. Libya claims 32,000 square kilometres of southeastern Algeria, south of the Libyan town of Ghat. The country's official religion is Islam, with 96.6% of the Libyan population being Sunni Muslims. The official language of Libya is Arabic, with vernacular Libyan Arabic being spoken most widely. The majority of Libya's population is Arab. The largest city and capital, Tripoli, is located in northwestern Libya and contains over a million of Libya's seven million people.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Demographics of Libya</span> Ethnic group

Demographics of Libya is the demography of Libya, specifically covering population density, ethnicity, education level, health of the populace, economic status, and religious affiliations, as well as other aspects of the Libyan population. The Libyan population resides in the country of Libya, a territory located on the Mediterranean coast of North Africa, to the west of and adjacent to Egypt. Libyans live in Tripoli. It is the capital of the country and first in terms of urban population, along with Benghazi, Libya's second largest city.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fezzan</span> Province of Libya

Fezzan is the southwestern region of modern Libya. It is largely desert, but broken by mountains, uplands, and dry river valleys (wadis) in the north, where oases enable ancient towns and villages to survive deep in the otherwise inhospitable Sahara Desert. The term originally applied to the land beyond the coastal strip of Africa proconsularis, including the Nafusa and extending west of modern Libya over Ouargla and Illizi. As these Berber areas came to be associated with the regions of Tripoli, Cirta or Algiers, the name was increasingly applied to the arid areas south of Tripolitania.

Awjila is a severely endangered Eastern Berber language spoken in Cyrenaica, Libya, in the Awjila oasis. Due to the political situation in Libya, immediate data on the language has been inaccessible. However, Facebook postings by speakers and younger semi-speakers have provided some recent supplementary data.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Arabization</span> Process of growing Arab influence on non-Arab populations

Arabization or Arabicization is a sociological process of cultural change in which a non-Arab society becomes Arab, meaning it either directly adopts or becomes strongly influenced by the Arabic language, culture, literature, art, music, and ethnic identity as well as other socio-cultural factors. It is a specific form of cultural assimilation that often includes a language shift. The term applies not only to cultures, but also to individuals, as they acclimate to Arab culture and become "Arabized". Arabization took place after the Muslim conquest of the Middle East and North Africa, as well as during the more recent Arab nationalist policies toward non-Arab minorities in modern Arab states, such as Algeria, Iraq, Syria, Egypt, Bahrain, and Sudan.

The Northern Berber languages are a dialect continuum spoken across the Maghreb, constituting a subgroup of the Berber branch of the Afroasiatic family. Their continuity has been broken by the spread of Arabic, and to a lesser extent by the Zenati group of Northern Berber. The Zenati idioms share certain innovations not found in the surrounding languages; notably a softening of k to sh and an absence of a- in certain words, such as "hand"

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Languages of Algeria</span>

Arabic, particularly the Algerian Arabic dialect, is the most widely spoken language in Algeria, but a number of regional and foreign languages are also spoken. The official languages of Algeria are Arabic and Berber, as specified in its constitution since 1963 for the former and since 2016 for the latter. Berber has been recognized as a "national language" by constitutional amendment since 8 May 2002. In February 2016, a constitutional resolution was passed making Berber an official language alongside Arabic. Arabic is spoken by about 81% of Algerians, while Berber languages are spoken by 27%. French, though it has no official status, is still used in media and education due to Algeria's colonial history. Kabyle, with 3 million speakers, is the most spoken Berber language in the country, is taught and partially co-official in parts of Kabylie.

The Zenati languages are a branch of the Northern Berber language family of North Africa. They were named after the medieval Zenata Berber tribal confederation. They were first proposed in the works of French linguist Edmond Destaing (1915) (1920–23). Zenata dialects are distributed across the central Berber world (Maghreb), from northeastern Morocco to just west of Algiers, and the northern Sahara, from southwestern Algeria around Bechar to Zuwara in Libya. The most widely spoken Zenati languages are Tmazight of the Rif in northern Morocco and Tashawit Berber in northeastern Algeria, each of which have over 3 million speakers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Languages of Israel</span>

The Israeli population is linguistically and culturally diverse. Hebrew is the country's official language, and almost the entire population speaks it either as a first language or proficiently as a second language. Its standard form, known as Modern Hebrew, is the main medium of life in Israel. Arabic is used mainly by Israel's Arab minority which comprises about one-fifth of the population. Arabic has a special status under Israeli law.

Libyan Arabic, also called Sulaimitian Arabic by scholars, is a variety of Arabic spoken in Libya, and neighboring countries. It can be divided into two major dialect areas; the eastern centred in Benghazi and Bayda, and the western centred in Tripoli and Misrata. The Eastern variety extends beyond the borders to the east and share the same dialect with far Western Egypt, Western Egyptian Bedawi Arabic, with between 90,000 and 474,000 speakers in Egypt. A distinctive southern variety, centered on Sabha, also exists and is more akin to the western variety. Another Southern dialect is also shared along the borders with Niger with 12,900 speakers in Niger as of 2021.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Languages of Egypt</span>

Egyptians speak a continuum of dialects. The predominant dialect in Egypt is Egyptian Colloquial Arabic or Masri/Masry, which is the vernacular language. Literary Arabic is the official language and the most widely written. The Coptic language is used primarily by Egyptian Copts and it is the liturgical language of Coptic Christianity.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Domari language</span> Indo-Aryan language

Domari is an endangered Indo-Aryan language, spoken by Dom people scattered across the Middle East and North Africa. The language is reported to be spoken as far north as Azerbaijan and as far south as central Sudan, in Turkey, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Palestine, Jordan, Egypt, Sudan, Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, Syria and Lebanon. Based on the systematicity of sound changes, it is known with a fair degree of certainty that the names Domari and Romani derive from the Indo-Aryan word ḍom. Although they are both Central Indo-Aryan languages, Domari and Romani do not derive from the same immediate ancestor. The Arabs referred to them as Nawar as they were a nomadic people that originally immigrated to the Middle East from the Indian subcontinent.

Ghadamès also called Ghadamsi or Ghadamsian is a Berber language that is spoken in, and named after, the oasis town of Ghadames in Nalut District, western Libya.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Demographics of the Arab world</span>

The Arab world consists of 23’ states. As of 2021, the combined population of all the Arab states was around 475 million people.

Tetserret (Tin-Sert) is a Western Berber language spoken by the Ait-Awari and Kel Eghlal Tuareg tribes of the Akoubounou (Akabinu) commune in Niger. This main speech area is located between Abalak, Akoubounou and Shadwanka. The variant spoken by the Kel Eghlal is called taməsəɣlalt. The Tamasheq equivalent šin-sart / šin-sar / tin-sar is used in some older literature. Popular understanding among some Ait-Awari derives the name tet-serret, and its Tamasheq equivalent šin-sart, from expressions meaning 'the (language) of Sirte'.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Matmata Berber</span> Language

Matmata Berber is a Zenati Berber dialect spoken around the town of Matmâta in southern Tunisia, and in the villages of Taoujjout, Tamezret and Zrawa. According to Ben Mamou's lexicon, its speakers call it Tmaziɣṯ or Eddwi nna, meaning "our speech", while it is called Shelha or Jbali (جبالي) in local Tunisian Arabic dialects. The total population speaking this variety was estimated at 3,726 in 1975.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Varieties of Arabic</span> Family of dialects/variants of Arabic language

Varieties of Arabic are the linguistic systems that Arabic speakers speak natively. Arabic is a Semitic language within the Afroasiatic family that originated in the Arabian Peninsula. There are considerable variations from region to region, with degrees of mutual intelligibility that are often related to geographical distance and some that are mutually unintelligible. Many aspects of the variability attested to in these modern variants can be found in the ancient Arabic dialects in the peninsula. Likewise, many of the features that characterize the various modern variants can be attributed to the original settler dialects as well as local native languages and dialects. Some organizations, such as SIL International, consider these approximately 30 different varieties to be separate languages, while others, such as the Library of Congress, consider them all to be dialects of Arabic.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Languages in censuses</span>

Many countries and national censuses currently enumerate or have previously enumerated their populations by languages, native language, home language, level of knowing language or a combination of these characteristics.

References

  1. "Libya" (PDF). 2020. Retrieved 29 June 2022.
  2. Endangered Languages Project
  3. "Libya". CIA. Retrieved 16 December 2014.
  4. David Levinson (1998). Ethnic Groups Worldwide: A Ready Reference Handbook. Oryx Press. p. 145. ISBN   9781573560191.
  5. "Libya: Gaddafi Rails Against 'No Fly' Attacks and Berbers". allAfrica.com. 20 March 2011.
  6. "Libyan rebels seize western border crossing, as fighting in mountains intensifies". The Washington Post. 21 April 2011.
  7. Smith, Sylvia (31 August 2011). "Flying the flag for North Africa's 'Berber spring'". BBC. Retrieved 1 July 2023.
  8. Languages of Libya, Ethnologue
  9. "Libye". www.axl.cefan.ulaval.ca. Retrieved 2019-03-25.
  10. French FM Acknowledges Youths as Hope for the Future of Libya Archived 2012-09-04 at the Wayback Machine