C hapter 2 i

people, are a branch o t the Afro-Asiatic ph\lum. The largest population of Berberophones can be found in Morocco. Ap-proximateh 45 % of the total Moroccan population (26 million) speaks a Berber language as a mother tonguc. People ot the High Atlas and the Anti-Atlas mountams and the Sous \a l ley speak Tashelhit (Lislhnt), also called Sous Berber (tdsuut}. This language is spoken b \ some 7 million. It is, to-gether \\ith Kabvle in Algeria, the most important Berber language in terms of number of speakers. Tashelhit Berber has some dialect Variation, but not so strong as the Berber language spoken m the Middle Atlas mountams. This language, often called Tama/ight (tamazi}t), is spoken b \ some 3 mil-lion people in various dialects. Strong dialect Variation can also be found m the Moroccan Rif mountams. The Riffian language ( O d r i f a g O) has some 2 million speakers. In Algena, 25 % ot the total population (about 26 million) speaks a Berber language. In a denscK populated arca m the north of Algena, Kab\le Berber (OaqßayhO) is spoken by appioximateh 7 million. In Algena, Berber is also spoken m the Aurès mountams, the Mzab region, the Ouargla oasis, and b\ the sedentarv population of the Sud Oranais area. Touareg, a Berber lan-guage spoken by a million, is found not onK m the Algerian Sahara but also in neighboring areas of the Sahel republics of Mali and Niger. The Tamahaq (tamaahaq) dialect is spoken in the Ahaggar region m southern Algena. The Tamajaq (tamaazaq] dialect is spoken in the A \ i region of Niger. The Tama-shek dialect (tamasaq) is spoken m the Adrar des Ifoghas region m Mali. The Tawlemmet dialect (taulammat) is spoken b \ the Iwlemmeden Touaregs of the Mali-Niger borderland. In Tunisia, Berber is spoken b> the population of fewer than si \ villages on the Tumsian mainland. On the island of Djerba one finds some fiv