Central Atlas Tamazight or Atlasic (native name: ⵜⴰⵎⴰⵣⵉⵖⵜ Tamazight [tæmæˈzɪxt, θæmæˈzɪxθ]; Arabic: أمازيغية أطلس الأوسط) is a Berber language[nb 1] of the Afroasiatic language family spoken by around 2.7 million speakers or 7.4% of the population.

[1] Central Atlas Tamazight is one of the most-spoken Berber languages, along with Tachelhit, Kabyle, Riffian, Shawiya and Tuareg.

Verbs are heavily inflected, being marked for tense, aspect, mode, voice, person of the subject and polarity, sometimes undergoing ablaut.

Both words are also used self-referentially by other Berber groups, although Central Atlas Tamazight speakers use them regularly and exclusively.

Along with most other Berber languages, Tamazight has retained a number of widespread Afroasiatic features, including a two-gender system, verb–subject–object (VSO) typology, emphatic consonants (realized in Tamazight as pharyngealized), a templatic morphology, and a causative morpheme /s/ (the latter also found in other macrofamilies, such as the Niger–Congo languages).

[11] The basic lexicon of Tamazight differs markedly from Shilha, and its verbal system is more similar to Riff or Kabyle.

[11] Although the characteristic spirantization of /b/ > [β]; /t/ > [θ] or [h]; /d/ > [ð]; /k/ > [ç] or [ʃ]; and /ɡ/ > [ʝ], [ʃ] or [j] is apparent in Berber languages in central and northern Morocco and Algeria,[18] as in many Middle Atlas dialects, it is more rare in High Atlas Tamazight speakers, and is absent in Tamazight speakers from the foothills of Jbel Saghro.

[26] The Berbers have lived in North Africa between western Egypt and the Atlantic Ocean since before recorded history began in the region about 33 centuries ago.

[27][28][12] By the 5th century BC, the city of Carthage, founded by Phoenicians, had extended its hegemony across much of North Africa; in the wake of the Punic Wars, Rome replaced it as regional hegemon.

The Central Atlas region itself remained independent throughout the classical period, but occasional loanwords into Central Atlas Tamazight, such as ayugu, "plough ox", from Latin iugum, "team of oxen"[29] and aẓalim "onion" < Punic bṣal-im,[30] bear witness to their ancestors' contact with these conquerors.

Between the 12th and 15th centuries, the Central Atlas, along with the rest of Morocco, successively fell within the domain of the Berber Almoravid, Almohad, and Marinid dynasties.

However, effective control of the region was limited; until the 20th century much of the Central Atlas was in a condition of siba, recognising the spiritual legitimacy of royal authority but rejecting its political claims.

[35] However, the Berber tribes of the Middle Atlas, as in other areas, put up stiff military resistance to French rule, lasting until 1933 in the case of the Ait Atta.

[9][nb 5] Tamazight, along with other Berber languages of Morocco, has a low sociolinguistic status, used mainly in the home, and rarely in official or formal contexts.

In 1994, King Hassan II declared that a national Berber dialect would acquire a formal status; television broadcasts are summarized in Tamazight, as well as Shilha and Rif, three times a day; and educational materials for schools are being developed.

[49][50][51] On October 17, 2001 King Mohammed VI sealed the decree (Dahir 1–01–299) creating and organizing the Royal Institute of Amazigh Culture (IRCAM).

[52] There are multiple political parties and cultural associations in Morocco that advocate for the advancement of Berber, calling for it to be recognized as an official language, used more extensively in the mass media, and taught more in schools.

[49][54] Until the 20th century Tamazight, like many other Berber languages but in contrast with neighbouring Tashelhiyt, was basically unwritten[55][56] (although sporadic cases, using Arabic script, are attested.

[56] At present three writing systems exist for Berber languages, including Tamazight: Neo-Tifinagh, the Latin alphabet and the Arabic script.

[52] The orthography used for government services including schooling is Neo-Tifinagh, rendered official by a Dahir of King Mohammed VI based on the recommendation of IRCAM.

[52] However, various Latin transcriptions have been used in a number of linguistic works describing Central Atlas Tamazight, notably the dictionary of Taïfi (1991).

[58] Central Atlas Tamazight has a contrastive set of "flat" consonants, manifested in two ways: Note that pharyngealization may spread to a syllable or even a whole word.

[59] Historically Proto-Berber only had two pharyngealized phonemes (/dˤ, zˤ/), but modern Berber languages have borrowed others from Arabic and developed new ones through sound shifts.

[60] In addition, Tamazight has uvular and pharyngeal consonants, as well as a lack of /p/ in its plosive inventory, unusual globally but characteristic of the region.

[71][72] Examples: Central Atlas Tamazight grammar has many features typical of Afro-Asiatic languages, including extensive apophony in both the derivational and inflectional morphology, gender, possessive suffixes, VSO typology, the causative morpheme /s/, and the use of the status constructus.

[79] Central Atlas Tamazight verbs are heavily inflected and are marked for tense, aspect, mode, voice, person, and polarity.

Tamazight verbs have at their core a stem, modified by prefixes, suffixes, moveable affixes, circumfixes, and ablaut.

[91] Consequently, Tamazight's clefting, relativisation, and wh-interrogation contribute to anti-agreement effects,[nb 11] similar to Shilha,[91] and causes deletion of the verbal person marker in certain situations.

[92] As a result of relatively intense language contact, Central Atlas Tamazight has a large stratum of Arabic loans.

[98] Central Atlas Tamazight uses a bipartite negative construction (e.g. /uriffiɣ ʃa/ 'he did not go out'), which was apparently modelled after proximate |Arabic varieties, in a common development known as Jespersen's Cycle.