Herausforderungen und Perspektiven der Wortschreibung: Tarifit auf Facebook und das Standard-Amazigh im Vergleich

Abstract

Abstract The Berber languages of Morocco – regionally distributed differently: Tarifit, Tamazight and Tashelhit – were subjected to a standardization process only at the beginning of the 21st century. The so-called Amazigh emerged as a standard language. The Institut Royal de la Culture Amazighe, founded in 2001 specifically for the preservation and promotion of Berber, was given the task of initiating and controlling the standardization process. In 2008, a reference grammar of standard Amazigh was published, which will be examined more closely in the following article with regard to the orthographic specifications for the spelling of nominal units. In doing so, the critical examination of orthography will be conducted in a relatively unconventional manner. The written form of Tarifit used within a Facebook group will be analyzed in order to compare the word spellings with the spelling rules of the standard Amazigh grammar. Tarifit is used extensively in social networks in certain contexts and the preferred writing system is Latin. The French-language grammar description of the standard Amazigh uses for the object language level the so-called Tifinagh. However, this writing system is hardly used in Moroccan society not only due to a lack of acceptance. Likewise, the use of standard Amazigh in society is almost non-existent. Lay transcriptions in social networks can be very informative with regard to word spellings. The grammar description for the standard Amazigh can be criticized from different perspectives and is in urgent need of a linguistically based revision.