Publisher's Synopsis
This study is a basic functionalist analysis of Tarifit Berber, a mostly unwritten language spoken in northeastern Morocco. It reveals this language's phonological "boundaries" which "stretch" in language-specific ways. Presentation is with two audiences in mind: (1) students and teachers so that they may have a language description for use in undergraduate and graduate courses and (2) language developers working toward practical vernacular literacy. The government of Morocco is encouraging the reading and writing of Berber languages and thus is involved in representing them in some sort of written form. To this end, a thorough phonological analysis is essential in order to formulate a practical set of phonemic characters, or alphabet, for the sake of maximal facility in future reading and spelling. Hopefully, this work can assist in this worthy effort.
