Contribution of Latinisms of Paleo-Amazigh to the knowledge of the history of both Latin and Amazigh languages

Abstract

In this contribution, a vocalic feature (the chronology of monophthongization of ae > ē with reference to the borrowing faenum ‘hay’ > *faynu) and a consonantal one (the treatment of Latin <c> /k/ in Paleo-Amazigh) have been examined in depth in order to show the relevance of Paleo-Amazigh data for a better understanding of both Latin and Greek facts occurring in Roman Africa and Cyrenaica, and, inversely, the chronological study of lexical borrowings from Latin into Paleo-Amazigh (most Hellenisms seem to have entered Paleo-Amazigh through Afro-Latin, as far as we know at the current state of research) provides valuable clues for the progress of Amazigh diachronic linguistics.