Northern Berber languages

The Northern Berber languages form a dialect continuum across the Maghreb that constitute a branch of the Berber language subgroup of the Afroasiatic family. Their continuity has been broken by the spread of Arabic, and to a lesser extent by the Zenati group of Northern Berber, which shares certain innovations not found in the surrounding languages, notably a softening of k to sh and an absence of a- in certain words, such as "hand" (afus vs. fus.)

The Northern Berber languages, with those spoken by over a million people in bold, are:

• Moroccan Atlas languages:
• Shilha language (also called Tachelhit, Tasusit; includes "Judeo-Berber"), in southern Morocco
• Central Morocco Tamazight
• Senhaja de Srair language (listed erroneously as Zenati by the Ethnologue), in the southern part of the Rif in Morocco
• Zenati languages
• Ghomara language, in the northwestern part of the Rif in Morocco
• Riff language (Tarifit), in northern Morocco
• Beni Snous (Tlemcen), in western Algeria near the border
• Arzew, in western Algeria (extinct?)
• South Oran Berber, in the ksours along the Algerian-Moroccan border
• Figuig dialect, in southeastern Morocco
• Central Maghreb...... ...
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