Siwi

Siwi is spoken by perhaps 20,000 people in the oasis of Siwa, in western Egypt, and the smaller oasis of Gara to its east. It is the easternmost Berber language, and as such ultimately belongs to the Afroasiatic phylum.

Almost all speakers are fluently bilingual in Arabic, whose profound influence on the language extends even to the borrowing of non-concatenative morphology. The language is largely unwritten, except informally in text messages and the like, but is the vehicle of a flourishing oral tradition including poetry and folk tales. Typologically, it stands out as one of the only languages in the world known to have addressee agreement on demonstratives.

The material presented here was recorded by Lameen Souag in Siwa in 2008 and 2012, on fieldwork funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council and the British Academy, respectively.

Resources

DOI	Duration	Title	Researcher(s)	Speaker(s)	Date
https://doi.org/10.24397/pangloss-0007496	00:00:49	Four facts about Siwa	Souag, Lameen	Bougdoura, Sherif	2012-05-24
https://doi.org/10.24397/pangloss-0007498	00:02:55	Paradigm of the Siwi verb əlməd "learn"	Souag, Lameen	Bougdoura, Sherif	2012-05-14
https://doi.org/10.24397/pangloss-0007500	00:03:24	The story of the Prophet Salih	Souag, Lameen	Bougdoura, Sherif	2012-05-19
https://doi.org/10.24397/pangloss-0007502	00:02:18	Hopes for Siwa's future	Souag, Lameen	Bougdoura, Sherif	2012-05-21
https://doi.org/10.24397/pangloss-0007504	00:21:24	The story of the Prophet Joseph	Souag, Lameen	Bougdoura, Sherif	2008-05-03
https://doi.org/10.24397/pangloss-0007851	00:01:24	Partial paradigm of the Siwi verb šwi "roast"	Souag, Lameen	Bougdoura, Sherif	2012-05-20
https://doi.org/10.24397/pangloss-0007853	00:01:25	Partial paradigms for the Siwi verbs ẓəll "pray" and ẓum "fast"	Souag, Lameen	Bougdoura, Sherif	2012-05-24