Matmata Berber 

Matmata Berber is a dialect of the Zenati branch of the Berber language family, spoken primarily around the town of Matmâta and surrounding villages, including Taoujjout, Tamezret, and Zrawa, in southern Tunisia. This dialect is an integral part of Tunisia’s Berber-speaking population, which historically resided in the region. The speakers of Matmata Berber refer to their language as “Tmaziɣṯ” or “Eddwi nna,” meaning “our speech,” reflecting a strong sense of cultural identity. In Tunisian Arabic, the dialect is known as “Shelha” or “Jbali” 

Matmata Berber is a language with limited documentation. The most well-known record of this dialect is a collection of fairy tales published by the linguist Stumme in 1900, which remains a valuable resource for researchers. Linguists such as Basset (1950) and Penchoen (1968) have contributed to the understanding of Tunisian Berber, including the Matmata variety, by exploring lexical variation, the influence of schooling, and grammatical features. In particular, Collins (1981) examined the verbal morphology of Matmata Berber and compared it with other Berber dialects from Tunisia.

Despite these efforts, the documentation remains sparse, and the language is at risk of being forgotten as the younger generations are increasingly exposed to Arabic and other languages in formal education. The primary source of knowledge about the language today is a website created by Larbi Ben Mamou, a native speaker of the dialect, which contains a grammatical sketch and vocabulary list.

Matmata Berber is part of the larger Berber language family, which spans across North Africa. Although some sources, like Ethnologue, link it to the Nafusi language spoken in Libya, linguistic studies by Kossmann (1999) suggest that Matmata Berber and Nafusi belong to different subgroups of the Berber language family. The future of Matmata Berber depends on ongoing efforts to document and revitalize the language, ensuring its survival for future generations.